 Hello everyone and welcome back to Investor Intel and today's very special guest Mr. Felix Lee, president of the PDAC. Felix, thank you for coming back. Hi Peter, it's great to be here. Last time we did this, it was in person at the show last year. You know what? Last year was all such a blur, I have to say and I apologize for this, I have no recollection. That's okay, it was a busy week. How are you finding the show this year? You know what? It's been again a real blur. We had a real short timeline to pull the show together this year due to well circumstances that I'm sure you're well aware of and can fully appreciate and I have to say yesterday was just one of those days where because the event was going live, none of us really knew what to expect. We've been working on pulling the convention together for quite some time. It was a mad rush and but you know at the end of the day it all came down to yesterday and yesterday went off really in my, from my standpoint it went off really really well and I know the PDAC crew were very very pleased with how it all turned out and it looks like the show is off to a great start. I've got some feedbacks from friends in Australia who echoed that, that it was working out pretty well for them. That's great to hear. So PDAC, it's like Cher, right? You have one name, everybody calls it the show. It's not the Cambridge, it's the show. PDAC has done a tremendous job of defending and promoting miners' interests not just in Canada but around the world. Yeah, yeah well you know PDAC, PDAC you know at the end of the day it's not, it's probably not all that well known. People think of PDAC or PDAC as a convention but really we exist as an advocacy body. So for the 361 days of the year that are not the convention we are working very hard to support and promote a vibrant competitive and responsible minerals exploration industry and so we work very very hard with you know government. We do a lot of work in Ottawa working with the Canadian federal government to enact or hopefully enact policies that benefit our industry. For example, for Canadian miners who are junior explorers or developers the flow through credit has been extended for an extra year because of COVID and I'm sure PDAC was a large part of that lobby. That was one of the first things that we jumped into action on was helping our members who we knew would be impacted by you know by the inability to get into the field rapidly and spend flow through dollars and so there was a real risk that normally what our you know would companies but also their investors be impacted by you know or get hit with penalties as a result of not being able to spend the flow through dollars and so you know we worked very hard with Ottawa. Ottawa heard everything that we were saying to them and we got the extension. It's taken a while for the legislation to come through and so currently we're also pushing for the federal government to implement a force majeure clause in and in future flow through legislation so you know if in the event our industry gets hit by something like this again for whatever reason it won't take quite so long we're hoping to to get similar extensions put in place. What other initiatives are you working on right now? Oh where to begin so you know obviously the Minerals Expression Tax Credit was a big one that was something that would get renewed once every year and we you know two years ago I think we got the first multi-year renewal of METC again you know it's it's things like the Minerals Expression Tax Credit and the flow through regime that you know ultimately incentivize investment into the exploration sector and help get projects going so that's you know these are these are some of the really big things that we've worked on and we've had some good good successes on. Other things were you know there's issues such as access to land, sustainability issues, student and early career or HR issues that we're all working on so these are you know take your pick as to what's the most important issue they're all they're all kind of intertwined and PDAC is working on all of them. And I know you're working on First Nations and Indigenous Peoples relationships around the world, women in mining, corporate social responsibility, all those things that make a good company. That's right you know equity, diversity and inclusion is is something that we we've taken on this year certainly as an industry you know we've made some progress in that area but there's certainly a lot more work that that could be done and PDAC is helping lead the way. It's an area which I think really is it's a key imperative of our industry. We do have you know skills a skills shortage that we're grappling with and and as an industry as well we're poised to play a very critical role in Canada's transition, the transition of Canada's economy to a low carbon future and so getting the workforce in place that will help us meet the challenges going forward is is critical and we see issues such as improving our performance on equity, diversity and inclusivity as being a key part of that getting that workforce in place. So is PDAC actually going into the mining schools around the world and working with the mining schools or is it a softer education process? I think this is one of the things which is you kind of lead by example you know change doesn't happen overnight not everyone embraces change at the same time it's a it's a it's a process and I think one of the best ways that you can ultimately enact that change is just through just through sort of being an example to follow and so you know PDAC we're trying to really kind of hoping to improve our own diversity equity diversity and inclusivity performance within the association and in all of our programs and as well you know we use things such as the PDAC awards to really emphasize what we believe are important things in the industry and so we kind of yeah it's really more of a soft approach. So we have a lot to look forward to this week I know I have things in my calendar Felix always nice to chat with you the world famous PDAC the show. Thank you Peter. Peter Clausi signing off from Investor Intel have a great day.