Notice to Claim Holders: Assessment Work Costs

The Ministry would like to bring to your attention that on more than one occasion, clients have submitted duplicate costs for the same exploration project.

The Geoscience Assessment Office (GAO) in Sudbury approves all work report submissions. Therefore, the GAO can track all the assessment work filed on a property from prospecting, physical work and geotechnical surveys through to drilling and other work. The ability to track all assessment work filed on a project has revealed the practice of filing the same costs more than once.

Some common examples of this double dipping are:

• The same costs claimed in both a physical work report, and a separate geotechnical work report,
• A submission for phase 1 of an exploration project subsequently followed by a submission for phase 2 of the same exploration project. The phase 2 submission contains all the costs for phase 1 again, as well as costs for phase 2 of the exploration project

Please be advised costs are eligible one time only for submission as assessment work. To ensure that everyone is on a level playing field for fulfilling their Mining Act obligations, the Ministry will take steps to minimize the practices of duplicate costs.
Note Section 164 (2) of the Mining Act states:

"Every person who knowingly makes a false statement in an application, certificate, report, statement or other document filed or made as required by or under this Act or the regulations is guilty of an offence and on conviction is liable to a fine of not more than $10, 000.00."