2024/08/22 Bay Street Radio interview with Rodney Ireland and Frank Dumas. This is a panel interview with a number of speakers – Frank's portion begins at approximately the one-hour mark.

Rodney

yep I think that's a nice uh that's a nice segue for frank uh yeah

uh pretty uh pretty uh pretty long history in uh extraction technologies and understanding the

advanced chemistry that goes into it

Frank

well uh hi

I'll have to I'll have to research in a bit a little bit in this um

those pesky costa rican uh that controls the the market um

and joking here because the the this country I was trying to figure out if anyone could be confused

there um but the um it's kind of uh a lot of things a lot of things are at play here and

the Canadian and government could say a lot of things and and implement a lot of rules

make all of them- and there's a dichotomy in what they're doing also uh we're being constantly solicited

by uh a lot of their agencies uh mostly you know including but mostly by the public administration in

Canada to develop strategic resources and the strategic supply and and you get the DOD and the DOE

uh get involved and another part of – like I would say right now the biggest developer

public sector developer incoming the biggest uh developer of resource in Canada is the U.S. government

coming into a lot of different uh different companies but the Americans always have innovation

and technology in mind so for for me that I like that obviously but uh that might be uh might take

a few years before it balance things out the problem we had I think in Canada is we let the accountants run

the show uh every time that uh the market doesn't do too good so every time that the the financing tap

dries out we let the accountants, we let the CPA to run the show and what they do

the they figure out okay what's our situation what's our risk let's reduce the risk let's put in place

these long-term, uh, offtake agreements and then it it plays in the ends of the Chinese

uh because they know exactly uh what will be available and and even if you would like to slow

down your production if you make a few dollars out of it most of the time you you have to deliver

and and you give a baseline for pricing so uh I don't know, I, I think some people saw it as a way to

stabilize the the jobs, stabilize the uh the supply but it has some perverse effect(s) and uh that means

that every move up and down is not controlled by us and and we are very limited – even if we were

somehow significant suppliers – I look at iron ore for example: Um we are still a drop in the ocean but we're

we're one big drop uh but we have no influence whatsoever you could close all the mines in Canada

right now and uh wouldn't make a big difference in the world market maybe for a few minutes

but uh it's funny because a lot of people start to realize that the reality is China is losing –

slowly very slowly losing on the manufacturing side – and uh technology drives it and also development in

another country like India, Korea, Japan is is also uh influencing that uh and you start to see it like

I have people coming to meet us uh in September who are trade desk people, two of them and they don't know of

each other well they might now after this call but uh they they uh uh they're looking for ways to um

detach themselves from the Chinese market and you're going to see that more and more but until we really have

a nationalistic approach that is uh logical in Canada for resource control and strategic resource control –

and not not just blocking foreign investment, that's probably the worst way to do it – but in terms of uh

what the government imposes on usage of the resource like we've seen it from Indonesia with nickel

when they say “okay that's that's enough you're you're gonna stop you're gonna have a minimum

transformation in country” and that's pretty much where we should be now uh at least on a North American

integration uh approach somehow we have the structure in place Mexicans should be at the table the Americans

also and we should accelerate what the Americans have have started recently uh to try to integrate

the mining production industry North America a lot more than what it is right now that makes sense.

The Americans are a net exporter for example on oil and gas now but we still sell oil and gas for

cheap to the Americans they use their oil and they sell it at a premium elsewhere and meanwhile we're the

backstop for that strategy. So discussion has to happen and uh I don't see it short term

uh coal, coal is a good example: if you look at uh the uh steel mills in North America, the

producer of steel they've uh they have a certain objective to decarbonize their industry over the next

few years and they won't be able to do that without sitting down with it's not going to be just uh char and

biochar that's going to be able to fix this. It's not going to be hydrogen either, or natural gas – natural gas

as some infrastructure or grid issues um and they're they're kind of sitting – it's it's a big industry but

they're sitting uh at two different levels one if I look for example if they want to switch

everything to hydrogen uh the world hydrogen production will have to double uh just to be able to supply

to the uh the steel producer in North America and make them green or switch them to green uh green steel

the uh that's not going to happen overnight there's no, there's no grid for hydrogen. There's no, uh, there's

limited infrastructure, and it's expensive. Now coal um and uh maybe the term is not the greatest term but

“clean” coal could do could help the transition but you run through so much red tape to try to get these

things going even just for research um so some something has to happen and it has to be more than

just uh lip service. It has to be more than greenwashing and a lot of what we're saying right now is

greenwashing uh and everybody in our current government is tiptoeing around and walking on eggshells, uh, trying not to look like

uh they they're flaming or or or they they're pushing on the flame of nationalism uh Canadian nationalism uh

they want to look open they want to look like they're open for business with with Asia and uh not uh start

uh an economic war with them but more needs to be done uh in term of uh saying look we have to have some

some advantage to buy North American resource for the North American manufacturer and uh it needs to be

at the very least it needs to be uh the same level of difficulty and permitting and logistics to buy

North American material um that is transform as a first transformation versus the first transformation coming

back from from from China and we're not there often and uh we have also to start to look at these three

countries like North American countries uh in in different uh light and we have to look at the Atlantic zone

and the Pacific zone more than you know U.S. and then Canada and Mexico as if it's on the the longitudes

uh it it it's uh it's uh it's not the case. We we have to put these regional agreements in place and and

Help with uh like integrat(ing) um the regulations so that we can sell to Pittsburgh from from Ontario and Québec

and then in bc uh they can look at uh Texas and and other states like that because the logistic(s are)

easier and same thing for Alberta uh but uh we're not there there there's there's this mentality in Canada

that uh whatever is offered to uh the producer in (???) in Northern Québec or in the Québec North Shore

has to be the same thing that's offered to the guy who's in in northern Alberta uh so the guy to to the

entity that's there and this we have to break a lot of habits a lot of perception uh we also need to uh

stop selling these things long term so easily and uh and the reason for that is that you get

you got these capex, multi-billion dollar capex for big projects, and the government comes in and

the first thing they ask before they say we're going to help you finance we're going to give you

grants we're going to give you a loan guarantee is where this where's the offtake and in some case

they should never ask for that and we're talking about commodities that will find a buyer

put on the market it's going to go it's going to it's going to get taken over and they ask for it way

too early in the process so that's my uh, that's my venting this morning on, you know, on that aspect but

coal, metallurgical coal I think you're going to see uh you know there should be a demand there and uh

we should uh push on the technological side of this uh a lot more than we do right now and uh but how

do you do that because you get a position from NGOs, from anyone and everyone, and and now we've decided

to let also every like the one guy on the municipal council of some small you know uh

Rodney

generally speaking, Frank

Frank

yeah yeah no I agree but yeah I know exactly let's please for whomever is listening I'm not talking about you

yeah I don't want to I don't want to create problems today for us but but I mean like you you look at

the new permitting in Québec right and actually I think they didn't even go far enough but it will

probably underline what I just said when when the the reflex is to say whatever is good for or whatever

we allowed in on the Québec north shore we have to allowed on the the island of Vancouver which doesn't

work you have different first nation you know they have different needs different uh you know it's not

one monolithic block in terms of uh philosophy uh approach to business and and how they want to

develop the resource that they should have an influence, if not the rights over and uh if you

look in province by province the same thing so you end up with Québec for example that has problems uh

close to you know in cottage country uh around an hour or two around Montréal or Québec city

and they've uh reformed the way that you can get claims and you can get impact uh work permit

so uh what we call intervention permit now uh you used to just pick up a claim and your drilling permit

was attached to it so if you didn't need to cut any trees and go to to get logging permits for, for trees

if you didn't need to build roads and stuff like that you could just bring with a chopper

uh a drill and drill, uh if if it was open ground and uh you you know now now everything that has to have

anything hydraulic requires a permit so that's one step and that's okay and you need to consult now

you need to get some uh social acceptability early on and have no issue with that and that involves a

first nation very early on instead of developing your resource and then going in and then they learn

about you for the first time or they see you for the first time, ten years–you know–uh into the project

and and then you get a position now at least you know from early on that you're what kind of a position

you're gonna have where are they what do they want what do they and what they oppose and um the problem is

they give that to everyone in Québec that you are uh you know just in the suburb of Montréal or that you

are on the coast of uh the Ungava bay it's the same rules well the up to a certain point because we're

already at the category one two and three land uh in Northern Québec with the Cree because of the treaty and I was –

that's already interesting because that forced them for the last few decades to be uh more aware

of uh of the activity on their on their land and it also developed a(n) habit for companies to to

explore and developers to go talk to them early on now now suddenly this all happens at once since April

in the southern part of Québec but it makes no sense that a company operating in Vermont – which is

you know two, three hours from the north shore coast inland uh with really maybe one or two cottage

around uh within 50 kilometers – uh versus uh you know uh (???) for example that would be two three hours from

Montréal where you have a lot of cottages, you have a lot of people and and the same rules apply. You have

to make the same kind of consultation and stuff like that. It makes no sense. Again it's not the same

dynamic it's not the same issues uh the truck and the traffics and the choppers, if the guy has a

summer cottage in the middle of the woods that he goes in with a float plane himself

why do we have to have extensive consultation with that one or two cottage owners the same way that

you would have if you went in municipal boundaries of a small village uh you know two hours from Montéal.

So we need to shake that out. It's a huge country, Canada is massive, and the dynamic that you have in you know

in a place like uh like like uh Grand Prairie or in Sept-Îles or out of Saint Pierre in Québec uh in grand

prairie in in Albert..

Rodney

they're very different places

Frank

yeah and I don't know how we get out of this without without having people saying oh you have some favorites

or you're going to give some rights to some people that you don't give to others but we uh

we need to adjust that and and the fact that

we have a government right now couldn't care less about the constitution and the separation of power

and we'll jump in and restrict or invade provincial jurisdiction and put you in a position that you're

like yeah I've I kind of have to abide by whatever the fellow government is telling me, one because

they're probably have the the tools to stop our operation but on top of that we know that we're going

to need them down the road so, uh, you don't want to put them on your you know you don't want to be on

their bad side

Rodney

Well, to skate where the proverbial puck is going um you know looming government change

federally in Canada do you how do you do you think that's going to uh where do you think that's going

to take us are we going to be in a better spot?

Frank

I don't know because again this is the the separation

of power or the kind of uh habits of Canadians to vote for one uh political movement at a federal level

and then a year later when the provincial election comes in they vote for the other side, uh it it played

well. I think it's a tragic type of voting play well for certain things but for our industry it's never

been good because you never have a community of spirit, whatever is happening, and and don't forget

we now add uh we're going to be close to 10 years of uh Liberal uh political or a Liberal government.

Now if you go to the the mindset that's been impregnated to the civil administration to public

administration it's going to take years to change even if they want to be drastic at the federal

level they could change the rule change the law overnight it takes a few years before it actually

percolates uh with the public administration and uh that's uh that's part of of the dynamic

things get very very – uh takes times and now in Canada and it's unsustainable I've looked at people

acquiring you know the government saying for example “We want to build housing. We want to have a lot more

housing, more density.” and they go into uh uh the the they acquire some old uh buildings, they try to change the

zoning to bring it to residential uh from commercial for example from small business, and uh you get 50

people in municipality of 500,000 inhabitants – 50 people sign a petition and then you need to have a

referendum in some province and and at the municipal level uh so de facto you just block for a few years the

project so the promoter had to sit on the land and maintain it until he can move to the next step and

then you get all these rules that constantly change on them where they need to provide the uh architectural

permit new file for the architecture building permits and the architectures uh file can take four or five

years so you end up – I've seen files that take 20, 22 years before you can start building condominiums

and uh and and then you get delayed because uh – I get it, I get it in the village of 2000 people 50 people

that signs a petition – that's a significant amount of people. And and yes you should have a discussion with

the population because it will if you come in and you have like a 200 condo project it will change the the

the layout of that village. But if you go into a city that's 200 300 000 people

Rodney

Yeah the threshold needs to be a bit higher

Frank

uh yeah so so again

and that goes to that same thing we want the same thing for everyone everywhere and that does not work

that we're one of the rare country that has this mindset and it's beyond stupid – not to use the R word –

so uh this is the…

Rodney

Only in French Frank, only in French

Frank

Yeah, yeah that's what they told me I have I've been to

a meeting where I used it and they say “yeah you're not uh you know you're not allowed to use this anymore”

and my only way out is to say well I am, so I kind of I can use it. I'm one of them so I can use it. But

uh the uh that that mindset have to change. Culturally, we need a cultural shift in the way we

do business and the way we do economic development in the country and I don't think uh that the silver

bullet solution that you see from Pierre Poilievre you have right now being proposed is going to be the solution

uh this is not the way to do it. You need to have stakeholders buying into what you're proposing and

right now uh it's different for the sake of being different I don't see it as real solution and a real

fix. Would it be better? I don't know. I hope so! But I i don't I don't know if it's going to be better. And

I'm a conservative. You know that – I'm a conservative organizer. But I have to take the hat of also a

business developer. Is it going to be better if it's a change in at a political level? I don't know.

Rodney

Well I don't think I've ever seen the country so united on the idea that there needs to be political

change, so that's that's a start a start for consensus. Um (it) could also potentially be a start for support for

a lot of bad ideas just because they're different so that's the I guess that's the the cusp of what we're

about to face.

Frank

I think the place where they can have a big difference a big impact right away would be

probably on things that you touched earlier – I was half listening uh earlier, I'm sorry for that, I was busy

with other things – but uh it's for example uh on the foreign business uh aspect of the different

legislation so foreign investment and and where we're allowed to do to export and do business

um and there is there is a significant aspects there's significant barriers to what we do. I'll

give you an example: uh without giving you insider information um let's say you have a company that's about to do

uh a big showcase for a certain commodity, uh and you want to prove that this could work with, and

could be the lowest producer in the world for that commodity so we're talking technology here. Chemical

processing of minerals. Uh the Canadian government is telling you we're going to give you massive grants, so

you you kind of listen you know. And they come up with the list of things you they expect you to do

and then they put the restrictions. And right now if you're running a big showcase with a disruptive

technology to process minerals, the source of your minerals has a limited uh – like there's there's some

aspect I understand – for example they will require that you test your technology with Canadian resources.

That's understandable. That's Canadian money financing you. But uh they restrict the countries from where

you can import uh the concentrate of your minerals to confirm that it would work with the source. Now when

the majority of the minerals is produced outside the country, uh, limiting the scope might not be the best

idea. And and and what if I'm not talking about child labor or dictatorship but we're talking about

countries that maybe are doing more business with China uh currently, if we could import these minerals

from these countries transfer them and use them in North America I think it's a win but it's not seen

like that by the government right now where they're telling you we don't want you to bring material from

these particular countries and and there's a good– it's a long list and that restricts you to uh you know the uh

limited amount of countries like Australia New Zealand and uh the U.S. and a few European countries –

countries that uh already have restriction often on uh how export of the resources can be done.

So uh you cannot bridge yourself by saying we're going to go to some African countries for example that are on

either the the restricted list or even a black list and so we're going to buy cheap minerals from there early on,

transform it here, and and show it and prove that we can uh be the the lowest uh producer

and bring these countries under the Canadian influence so that they can have an alternative

to the Chinese investment. Well we can't do that right now, we can't do that from certain countries also

in other regions uh and and that's a shame because that's just uh not looking at the big pictures. So

you're coming in again with that silver-bullet solution or that one size fit all solution that

well this “country is bad so everything from this country is bad” and uh and often they're adjacent-bad

because they're dealing with China and too many other things or they have Chinese investors or Chinese

shareholders in, in their operation. Now if I have a if you have a mine somewhere on the west coast of

Africa and and your biggest investor is Chinese but uh it's not a majority investor and you could

sell to Canada do a profit sharing and make more money you empower the African, uh, people uh that often are in

democratic uh countries that the at the same time the Canadian government is giving them grants on other

aspects for health care for, you know civil uh sector development. But they bar us from doing business with

these particular companies because they have Chinese a large Chinese investment in it but it would be

fantastic for us to be able to show these people you'll make a lot more money selling to a Canadian

company making the second development or third uh you know transformation in Canada and allowing us to

uh crystallize or secure uh you know development with these countries that (have) strategic assets that you want to

uh whisk away uh for like – I have another expression for that but let's let's keep this civil – but take it away

from the Chinese influence. So the the problem is again there's very limited discussion with the industry.

Like we have to have the discussion with the government and before they come up with these policy

and it's not the case. They consult extensively uh the guy that lived in a (???) shack and raised goats

who come to the public uh environmental hearings and sing a poem for 45 minutes, but they don't spend the same

amount of time talking to the actual developers that says hey you know 99 percent or 95 percent of your

legislation and your your restrictions – that's great. But I need some wiggle room in that 5 percent and

here's why and here's why it's going to be better not only for us but it's going to be better for the

countries and for you also uh on other aspects and they don't do that.

Rodney

I think that cuts both ways so I think there's a certain hesitancy from most people involved in junior capital markets

to to deal with governments or to even hardly acknowledge that they should have any say. So I think there's…

there also seems to be a lack of will to organize politically um I guess it's the nature of the people that they

you know they're busy doing their own thing and they're in a lot of you know self-motivated lone wolves

uh running companies but I think they're the industry could do a better job of um you know really doing

something I guess like I mean PDAC I guess has a certain lobbying function but it doesn't seem you know it

doesn't seem to represent most the companies I deal with they don't seem to really represent uh any of

those issues

Frank

Well I think also it's a matter of financing and resource. So I'll take a very pragmatic

example you have like a lot of these companies: small, micro, junior developing projects and uh not

talking about the merit of any project or any company in particular but right now for example uh in

Québec you have to, uh, most of what's available when there's still a little bit of money available

would be uh flow-through money for exploration. And I'm talking specifically for uh exploration company. Now

there are certain rules that allows you to have a certain amount of that money spent on administration. So

you need administration to do um any exploration campaign: you're going to need to get for example

permits, uh you're going to need to uh to to to get some filings, and some some uh you're just going

to need to manage the different suppliers. And these suppliers need to have also a certain percentage of admin

being done and uh you're not allowed to use more than I think and I won't mislead anyone but last time

I checked was I think 15 percent that goes through admin. So on a uh on a on a large uh campaign where

you raise let's say two million dollars and and you go spend it, three hundred thousand dollars is is okay

for administration. But if you go in as a small company, you raise three to five hundred thousand

dollars uh you tend to have the same fixed costs, and as an example the permitting process is almost

the same for a two million dollar campaign or two hundred thousand dollars campaign – you still need to put

someone that's going to spend, used to spend a few tens of hours maybe uh 40-80 hours like two weeks of

work… now you're going to have a few hundred hours, now you're going to need also to bring people in

to do the social acceptability part, you're going to need to rent uh a room in different municipalities

that are in the 50 kilometers around your project, or even in some case you know further than that

on the regional level and then uh announce that, access people – like it's it's a longer process

but nothing has changed on that aspect like they could have easily said okay we're putting these

things in place but we're going to adjust uh the tax code and the tax incentive and say you can spend

20 percent as long as 5 percent is the permitting process and the consultation process and and that would

help a lot and uh and I would say probably even percentage again needs to be reviewed. Percentages

is actually not the way we should go at it. We should have a percentage and/or a minimum

so the person that have to spend fifty thousand dollars out of a uh three hundred thousand or two hundred

thousand dollars uh campaign uh can spend that fifty thousand to go get the permits and and and whatnot.

And we're not there, so uh that's for sure people don't want to go and talk to the government they

don't have the resource(s) to do it. They don't have necessarily, uh, we're still having hundreds of these

companies that have a geo as the president and it's geos uh from the CFO to the directors and whatnot

you know so so… they're not they're not MPA, they're not Master in Public Administration they're not lawyers.

There's not… there, there is there is a lot of them but I mean not enough uh and and you often have to

go outside and get the expertise outside and that costs money and how do you explain that to your

shareholders? “Oh yeah we raised two three hundred thousand we want to go do a few hundred meters of

channel cuts, for example, that will prepare a drilling campaign that will allow us to show the value of the

project or not.” Let's say we show the value of the project then we can move on and go raise bigger

amount of money to go some drillings on it and and take the time it takes because now we know we we're

holding something interesting in our hands and and we can probably go and prove it but you you have to

explain to your shareholders “I'm raising two hundred thousand dollars but fifty thousand of it or a hundred

thousand of it's going to be spent on uh on just permitting and getting people uh happy and sponsoring

a bunch of things locally just to get the population on our side.” That has to be raised as hard cash right

now so the amount of hard cash you used to raise – 20-30 percent to support a flow–through campaign – has now

been increased drastically especially for the smaller first first phase uh exploration campaign. So absolute

perverse effect of what could have been a good uh legislation or a new a good regulation which – I'm not

I'm not throwing (out) the baby with the bath water uh you know. But uh there is a lot of good things but uh a lot

of it is lip service for uh the the people that were rioting almost in small villages close to Montéal

and now you have to look at uh populations scattered over hundreds of kilometers in North Shore and James

Bay area and northern Québec where to console the population you have to get in a plane and land on all

these municipal airfields and there is no there's no flight sometimes there's one flight a week so you have

to to get your own plane to go there, your own small plane you increase the cost of doing these things

drastically. And a lot of this cannot be done remotely you're not going to do that over Zoom or stuff like

that uh you go to see traditional people that live off the land. You cannot do a Zoom call to tell them

that you're going to go in and blast away on their fishing ground or you know, so you have to go and explain

how it is and what they see from the mining industry, the Canadian mining industry, is Gold Rush Alaska

on the Discovery Channel. So they're scared with good reason and so there's so much to do

and uh hopefully we're going to see a few people that will see the opportunity and create these companies that will specialize in

doing just that at at a uh small from from a small perspective so that it's not the company that costs 200 000 just to

hire like the large lobbying firm and stuff like that but we'll get smaller outfit coming in that will do

part of this and and then that means that we'll be able to leverage the expertise between 10-15 different

small exploration companies in some regional area and being able to accelerate that process and gather expertise from these people

Rodney

yeah that goes back to you know the point we made the other day that you know the the playbook of five years ago where you were looking

(At) companies that you know maybe even had a seven million dollar market cap that were you know issuing options and well on their way –

that you know now maybe the playbook is more you know the minimum you know you've got to be looking

at a higher market cap maybe more like five million with a bigger, bigger raise and a bigger drill program

to get to the scale to operate effectively

Frank

and they change a lot of regulation(s) – I'm talking really Québec and it's unfortunate uh I apologize for people that would

like to talk about the other direction I know them a little bit

not as much but the the I can talk a little bit about Alberta the change some rules also on recycling in a

second because that affects us but uh positively as a side note and and uh and Alberta did consult the

companies they reach out outside the province and they ask us for example in our case what would you need

for to to to be able to come to Alberta and invest or even if we invest with you to become a partner

with the government or with some governmental agency uh what would you need and and what would be a deal

killer so they actually did that process I don't want to shut down Alberta. Kudos to them for doing it and

that you know uh I have no matter what we say about uh a lot of the the different provinces, they all want to do it but it's

seem to be uh easier in smaller provinces and and Alberta which I would categorize as a large province is still acting as a small

province like they've, I've seen deputy minister and minister within two three hours on the chain of

email – four different ministers in Alberta setting us up saying “okay this is all the the things you need

to do this is all the people you need to talk to and we're going to book these Teams calls or these Zoom

calls and we're going to let you move fast.” We're going to save a year in the process and and that's

a beauty uh you see that Ontario wants to do it but they the the problem with Ontario is they get it by

the delay at, you know there's a lot of get up and go you're going to get the political pushing from

the Ontario government and then you

Rodney

there's a lot more inertia it's a lot bigger civil service in Ontario, it takes longer...

Frank

it's it's absolutely absolutely the inertia force is there for sure that's one of the aspects but

they also the it's all the stop-and-go where they say uh well you have to go and talk to the regional

municipality, we say great let's do that and then the municipality just had its meeting the day before

and they have one meeting every month and they're all they're fully booked for the next meeting

you know so you get two months that you're looking at each other saying okay “Nothing's gonna happen for

two months” uh like we can advance a few things and make sure it's fully prepared and go to the next

step after and prepare it but we cannot file it because we need that answer here or we need that

letter here before we move to the next step. So a lot of these things…

Rodney

Well you know I first had knowledge of people have left the ontario civil service and moved to the Alberta one

and find the Alberta civil service quite refreshing

Frank

Yeah and it is, it is. I, I only have good things to say about them for now –

for now – let's see, and let's talk about in five years from now uh when when you know when they say tire

meets the street [ed: the rubber hits the road] and and we, we're into the action there we'll see what else could happen but uh

it's uh they they've shown a capacity to be flexible and adjust on the fly that I've not seen elsewhere

even with the extensive contacts we have in Ontario and Québec or at this stage uh but uh you know I, I think a

lot of things also is is not happening because we don't let it happen. Like I don't see eye to eye with the

the majority of the exploration business in Canada. I think differently maybe because I come from the

public administration. Uh you know I have a Master in Public Administration I have different reflex to go at

these things and there's a lot of resistance to change. I think we are probably the most conservative

business – we're more conservative than banks mostly because it's imposed on us um by the the people that

finance us. I'll challenge you to uh bring in the discussion of a new chemical process to a

project that's at the pre-feasibility study. They'll put you in the annex they'll, they'll look at it

especially if you can cut in half their capex and their opex they'll they'll want to mention it but it's

going to be in the annex because the banks they're going to go see the people they're going to go see

wants to see the pro the process that existed for the last 150 years that's proven

Rodney

Well for many people it's uh it's a it's oh it's a novel extraction process then I'm not interested I mean it just

goes in the no category automatically

Frank

It's an instant no and that's a problem that's a big problem and

the only way to get it going often is to go through the uh the blue chip the large companies that will look

at it because the their self-financed. But they'll look at it and you're dealing with their own equivalent

of public administration, their bureaucracy often especially when they're transnational entities

you're talking to one of the entity very interested in Australia for example of a large conglomerates

and then somehow because of internal politics somebody complained in Canada that you're not talking to

them and and now for the next two years you're back to the kids table uh because they they want to bring

you through the process in Canada where you were talking to the decision maker in Australia. And and so

it's uh

Rodney

generally speaking again I must I must say

Frank

Yeah no no absolutely I'm not actually divulging

I might be talking about people I know not necessarily us uh and uh… But but the thing is we're we have a

the majority responsibility about this. And look at what Terry uh Lynch is doing for short selling for

example. And and I'm obviously it would benefit everybody from you know every type of business not just

commodities uh for small cap, micro cap companies but we're not getting the support of a lot of people

because they don't want to– uh first some people see him as a quack, which he's not. You know he's one of

the most intelligent guys I know uh out there and uh he's very knowledgeable – has a massive, massive network of

contact uh but um a little bit of pushback coming from the exchange coming from the regulators and

everybody is kind of walking slowly away backwards because they don't want to be on the on the bad

list on the bad side of people because they they you know they already are up to their ears in compliance

which has increased over time. We used to pay for a reasonable size company, $15-$20,000 for financial

annual audits which were that's just the the auditor's fee uh not counting your internal fees

and now we're talking about $150,000 for some audits for the same company which not much

else changed and that happens within five years. So every year now you have these fees and you have a

lot more hands-on approach from the regulators also jumping in within the process so I'm seeing now, I'm

foreseeing the time within the next few years where you're probably going to have to send your draft

financial review, your financial audited financial statement to the regulators before you can publish

them and they're going to come back with questions they're going to come back with kind of another

layer of audits. That's going to increase the cost for everyone and the the industry – because you don't

want to be the guy that's going to be triple audit(ed) – is not uh is not serious talking from one voice, and

when we talk from one voice is to oppose to say “oh no we don't want a new law it's already tough enough.”

Well the new law is coming because the population wants it so you have to let go a little bit

compromise and try to get uh some you know uh some some flexibility in it in the process not just oppose

you oppose you lose your your voice on the table and until

Rodney

It's interesting to see I've bumped into a few times some former regulators who are very concerned about what's going on

with some of the regulatory bodies in the securities market and they seem to be working towards organizing um in a way

that could be you know quite beneficial because you have somebody who really really understands the ins and

outs and is trying to improve things um and looks like perhaps the core of this group is a position

where um you know they're on a strong enough platform that's not going to you know it's not

really going to affect their quality of life where(as) I can see yeah if you're running a brokerage firm how

much do you want to rock the boat and uh you know how much do you want to go in the spotlight?

It seems like we could be getting there though towards making some progress on this issue

Frank

And the brokerage has changed also so you you look at uh how they were 20 years ago 30 years ago you could go to

brokers to do financing. You can still go to brokers but most brokers especially the large firms they're an asset

getter. They they they don't want to be, uh unless you're trading on the TSE, uh five analysts and uh

uh it's a broker deal uh it's it's a lot more difficult to raise money from brokerage now

and uh they've uh they've consolidate and they want less friction uh they want people and managed money in

mutual funds they don't want them in stock even uh unless it's stock they cover it and uh the again the CPAs and

the accountants won over, in in some you know period that it was tougher, they won over uh the bankers

and the merchant bankers which used to be a big component and a big money making machines for uh for

the firms and they lost a lot of influence now. So that goes across the board but I go back to our

particular industry um anything adjacent to mining and exploration and we're responsible for a lot of

the bad things that happen to us. It's the frog in the uh the bucket of water – the water is boiling right

now and we're still like yeah but what if it boils a little bit more you know? It's like no it's already

boiling let's let's let's burn the place down if need be but let's get to a place where we can

actually have business that operates and and and are uh rational and logical in the way that we we move

things ahead and uh and I think– and that's why good things happen sometimes out of the worst thing.

The fact that now we are this market (which is) so difficult, uh you have a few hundred of the thousand micro cap

companies that are have moved to the mindset where I am right now or they're open to move to that mindset

and we're going to see some change but that means that we're going to (leave) people in place

That want to continue the always these people will most probably slowly die and we're not going to hear

about them in five years from now so that's one thing but it's really our industry I'll illustrate it

one way and big disclaimer I'm still a shareholder of the company I'm still helping them but then in

ZeU for example, uh, Z-E-U – Ryan is right now bringing a AI component and uh to to uh that's been disclosed

already so I'm not saying anything to anyone there's some big deals that he's looking at I have no idea

if he'll be able to deliver it or not – just another disclaimer here – uh and I'm, I'm treading uh carefully here

not to give you any insider information but uh he got calls from large lobbyists from large firm

in AI saying are you aware the government is discussing with the industry thinking about putting some

certain policy in place to legiferate or to some legislation and some some to put some boundaries on

AI on artificial intelligence? Now I've never ever ever uh got a call in the first 25 years I was in the

exploration business – it's just recently because of battery recycling in Saint Georges – that we got uh calls

and people said hey do you want to be at the battery recycling forum or table or the critical mineral

forum with the Canadian Chamber of Commerce for example. That's recent and and I've talked to people

at the chamber of commerce that have brought some younger people that never knew the culture of our

business before and look at it from an external… you know they're just coming fresh at this, and they don't

understand the level of resistance and and of just sheer stupidity and ignorance we have in our business [ed: in our industry]

where we've been doing this or you you hear these guys saying I've been doing this for 50 years this

way I'm not going to change and the reaction is not o“kay grandpa you know it's time for your your bed, let's

get out of there” uh uh no, people cave in oh yeah okay well you have the experience no you if you live in

the past you're gone bye like uh you had a nice run but the the everything has changed from the context

from the industry from from everything has changed and you're a dying breed

Rodney

well I think that's also part of the issue of needing to pass the baton in the junior mining from exploration to development

to production and I think it's such an advantage I mean to go back to having dan noon on earlier how far they

moved that project along which maybe was suboptimal for Guyana Goldfields but that's such a good thing

to have a team that's gone through that for G2 and I mean it shows in the in the share price and that

I just feel like there's so many people who don't know enough about the next step

to, to be informed on the current one. I think that's it's a real issue of it's a real lack of knowledge in the

industry

Frank

And maybe it's because you know it's it's um uh it's a situation where where there's a siege

um from different angles. We have professional environmentalists that are uh attacking us. There's a

population that wants– yeah they want mining they want to have their phone and the critical minerals and

they want to have their EV cars but they don't want uh to to wake up to the idea that we need to

mine to do that and they don't want it in their backyard. Like “go go in the other guy's backyard not

mine” and you'll get a position so we're probably one of the industry that's the most under pressure.

Even you come out and you're the one out of thousands that goes to see them and said look

I would like to talk to you and we'd like to find a solution and what you get is a target on your back

because you've done it so I understand people saying we're trying to do a good thing the the to do it the

right way but now we're waiting on the government to take over and you know be the leader and do and

and does to do his role its role to to to set the rules in place because when we tried to do it we

were too early and now what we the only thing we did is we create enemies. So there's that also so I'm–

you know there's reason for that attitude. But uh we also have a lot of people that uh would like to take the

their retirement now and and they have been running lifetime lifestyles exploration company (again not

naming anyone) but there's geos there out there that like there are two or three companies they were

doing one small campaign a year raising a little bit of flow-through for for each of these companies

and we're getting good um you know good paycheck out of this because they're they put themselves as

one of the geos in the field and they do what they like and and they're not bad at financing a little

bit with the funds or with uh different brokers that do flow through and and that's it, they don't… the

last thing they want is some weirdo like me showing up they're saying hey let's talk about you know social

acceptability and getting things better for everyone there uh they want to hear because uh that means they

would have to change and learn new things

Rodney

Yeah don't ruin the party Frank

Frank

Oh yeah I'm I'm… I'm gonna stay. I'm gonna keep being that guy. I don't care. I'm planning to have like major success on

a few of the things we're involved with and uh we've we've done a lot of things that people usually tells you not to do.

Uh, when I got into this business 20 something years ago maybe 30 years ago… anyway 20 something years

ago let's say, uh doing metallurgy and developing process was uh people would would smirk would look

at you like “yeah sure we've been doing that for 150 years we never change it it's probably because

what we have is the optimum who are you to come up with something that's going to be disruptive to that and be

better?” and the thing is the real answer was not it's not because I'm better it's because I'm the only

one because you morons all have the same attitude about it you all say “Well it's been 150 years if

something good existed uh you know we would know by now.” No you don't because you're not looking for it

because I can find five competitors that developed process that found ways that found things uh that

could be better and they all get the same attitude so that's one thing uh that that uh definitely is

an issue but then these process becomes important now because of the pushback that they get from the

the context in general from population, from stakeholders, and things like that uh where if

they are not greener, if they're not more integrated, they'll have to to you know environmentally integrate

or they can you know embrace the so– the circular economy for commodities. They're not going to get the brownie

points that they're going to require to move to their project to production

Rodney

Right so I know it's not our style to talk about the uh the subject that we talked about before...

Frank

I'm not going to be popular but I'm not

anyway so I'm not popular anyway to start with you know you're disruptive you tell people “you're not

doing… you're not optimal at what you do” uh they tend to look at you say who do you think you are? uh and uh

well I think at this point we've proven with enough people that you know a lot of our things works and and

and we've proven for example, look at the batteries. We got pushed into that business, we were not

even looking at it early on because we it was not our expertise and and we were not uh other people

had to actually educate us to this business and to realize oh hey maybe there's a fit with us because

at the beginning it was not even on our radar. So we're not better than other people on that topic but

uh we've went and uh acquire expertise from independent, we got a pre-feasibility study

and they kind of crush our dreams at the beginning saying “the business that you've set yourself to go

after does not exist or if it exists it does not exist in the size and the potential that you think it is

and you're gonna need to adjust yourself you're gonna have to bridge yourself and uh it's not gonna be

as big as the expectation you might have for now it will be eventually but you need to find a way to get

in become one of the players that is a go-to player and uh slowly grow it and and be there when the opportunity

comes and that uh people have no choice and and there's no other solution than you.” And that's what we've done

and you slowly start to do to see it I think in the next six months people will understand that well it's

paying out. That approach is paying out and and the other guys that came in with with uh you know billions

of dollars to deploy and all that… they're not going to get ahead of us they're actually they're running

into their own problems because they went after… uh you know you can dump all the money in the world on

on something that does not exist it's not going to make it real

Rodney

there's the right size of company and the right amount of investment to keep things lean to have to make really good

capital allocation decisions that can allow a company to grow forward. If if you're too bloated uh with a new industry

you're you know you're going to run into trouble so you you might be threading the needle on that uh…

Frank

And we still we're still learning. We're not… again we're not that good. We're still learning on the on the job

uh because it's a new business. We're… and the business is evolving while we're in it, uh at a fast

pace so we don't know exactly where it's going to settle. But there's a way to make yourself profitable

fairly quickly. Small is beautiful for now, but with the capacity to quickly grow uh when opportunity

come and come knocking and and we're seeing it right now. That's exactly what's happening with us

and and I'm very happy that we did it this way even if it was against all our instincts and reflexes, because

we kind of, you know, the the second day we were on the on that topic there was already people telling

us you're too late to the game. Well the game has not started yet. You know what you see right now is the

warm-up. And and uh we're getting ourselves lined up to be one of the big player in that field. And I think

we're going to succeed. But it's going to take a little bit of time. Can we be profitable and and

not uh kill ourself and trying to wait for a bigger market? Yes actually it's feasible, we're seeing it

right now we have the right partners we have additional partner knocking at the door I think

we're going to be able to have a nice business and it's a business that it's it's beautiful because it

will grow drastically but in in shockwave

Rodney

well and at this stage of the market you don't have to be Ford or Chevrolet you can do you can be perfectly

fine as Buick or Dodge or or even the Mclaughlin Carriage Company there's going to be multiple players

that get consolidated up so being in the game of a growth industry like this is a big thing

Frank

I think at this point you could you could even be uh

you know the the the company that does the spare spare parts the small shop that does the spare the

spare parts uh I forgot uh https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tommy_Boy uh brake parts and

stuff like that and I was doing very badly with uh these SNL comedians I remember but that's kind of

funny that's the analogy because like it was a dying company not seeing how the market would change

and then suddenly the market change on them while they were the last one with the solution and

especially with the capacity and the excess capacity to do it. Now we have that, we have the excess capacity.

A capacity to do anything that the other guys don't want to do and the thing is you do the things that

the other guys don't want to do? Well you're there, you're operating and uh the people that brought you

that business you already uh I would say uh give them uh they owe you up to a certain point because

you fix an issue for them and the other issue they have you're the first person they call and we're

seeing it right now that's exactly what's happening we're the first guys that they say “hey could you

take a few you know thousand tons of this thing here” uh and uh we're looking at it yeah we might you know

might have some interest obviously we're super interested I'm not saying that publicly you know

I it's not a good way to negotiate but anyway the um you know it's happened and that's a beauty

Rodney

Um do you want to make a quick comment on the nickel market as we segue over to greg?

Frank

Oh my god hello Greg! is he is he there on the line already or…

Rodney

he's he's listening I'm trying to bring him up to speak um

Frank

well I'll probably put him to sleep that's the thing

Rodney

He'll be fumbling with his phone as we speak I'm sure. He's like oh how do I do this?

Frank

oh well uh and and I I've uh well the nickel market I think I have these days I have more comments on the gold than the nickel but uh

the nickel market uh maybe uh we spoke about it so much uh what I'd like to talk about maybe if you

should bring PTX on board is the the PGE market uh that's that's uh kind of the thing that will push

everybody else I think right now over the next two three years uh we're seeing um a situation where

people have vacated the uh PGE market. You're not getting your cattle your your uh catalyzer

if you can call it it's a battery…

Rodney

catalytic converter

Frank

…catalytic converter uh stolen as much as you you you

did a few years back uh but uh there's still a shortage in uh in the market you're going to see uh

platinum palladium rhodium uh that's all coming back and it's been kind of stealth,

the increase there people have not really reacted to it yet. But we're getting calls from uh and one of

the traders or the community trade desk that is sending a representative next week– in two weeks to

meet me in Montéal is really uh that's one of their main thing, that's why they reach out to us initially

and we're years from producing these these commodities at Manicouagan but uh the conversation segue into other

minerals we do like black mass and stuff like that now they say “okay we need to talk to you and we

need to kind of attach you before somebody else does” but uh the the the PGEs will definitely allow us to

uh refill the flame, you know to put the flame back into the nickel copper cobalt. Uh copper

pushed a few people but when you get these uh nickel copper uh cobalt projects that have the PGE attached

that's that's a typical, you know, hard rock or North American or– even you know it's the typical sulfur

I'd say I'd say probably versus uh uh other type of uh mafic, ultramafic rocks type of settings instead of

looking at uh the laterite business that you would see in Indonesia or Cuba or place like that for a

nickel uh when you get to the sulfur nickel business uh that we see more in Canada uh the PGEs could become

very important over the next few years and pushed us and uh I've looked at uh the increase in the demand

there and it's really getting there so that maybe that's one of the things… I don't know what Greg thinks

about it and it would be uh interesting to see his position on this but

Rodney

Yeah let's let's get uh Greg.. are you uh the floor is yours