The Ontario Prospectors Association will support 32 mineral exploration projects across Northern Ontario through a $5-million investment from the Northern Ontario Heritage Fund Corporation.
The Ministry of Northern Development and Mines announced in December 2015 it would set aside the $5 million, as part of the province's updated Mineral Development Strategy to create a Junior Exploration Assistance Program.
"It will be a rebate on exploration they do in the province,” Garry Clark, executive director of the Ontario Prospectors Association, told Sudbury.com during the December announcement. “If they spend $300,000 they'll get 30 per cent of the money back. They can use that to do more exploration.”
Later this summer, the province and the Ontario Prospectors Association will also deliver the Prospecting Training Program, a five-day course, open to members of the public interested in becoming prospectors. Further training courses will also be delivered in 11 Indigenous communities across the province.
Ontario's updated Mineral Development Strategy came in the aftermath of Ontario Auditor General Bonnie Lysyk's 2015 annual report, which was critical of the provincial government's lack of progress in the Ring of Fire and in promoting Ontario’s mineral resources.
Ontario’s mining industry comprises almost a quarter of Canada’s total mineral production, and was worth almost $11 billion in 2014.
But the auditor general's report found exploration spending dropped from a high of more than $1 billion in 2011 to $507 million in 2014. The number of active mining claims in 2014 was 235,000 units, a decline of 363,000 units in 2008.
