Proposed Amendments to the Disclosure Rules for Mineral Projects

On April 23, 2010, the Canadian Securities Administrators published for comment proposed revisions to National Instrument 43-101 Standards of Disclosure for Mineral Projects (NI 43-101). These are the first major changes proposed for NI 43-101 since 2005. The amendments follow public consultations conducted by the CSA over the last year and address several of the disclosure-related issues frequently encountered by mining issuers. The CSA indicated that their intention is to provide increased flexibility for mining issuers while maintaining investor protection. Significant changes include:

• potentially eliminating the short form prospectus trigger for filing a technical report;
• expanding the use of preliminary economic assessments;