Surge Copper's Berg Could Be a Top Five Canadian Copper Mine, VP Talks Permitting Strategy

0:00Thank you.

0:30an internal rate of return of 24 % in a payback period of 2.9 years. If built, Berg would be a top five Canadian copper mine and the country's largest source of molybdenum. To build big copper mines, companies are aligning themselves with governments that are developing their own critical mineral strategies. Early this year, Jennifer Anthony joined Surge Copper as VP Environment and Regulatory Affairs. Before surge, she spent 20 plus years inside British Columbia's public sector, most recently as assistant deputy minister permitting transformation, where she led the province's negotiations on Blackwater mine and other projects.

1:10Jennifer, welcome to Mining Stock Daily. Thanks so much, Michael. Super pleased to be here today. Jennifer, let's talk about your experience being at the province and now being at surge. When you were with the province, you negotiated Blackwater from the government side. Talk about the lessons that you're taking to Berg. What worked and what are you looking at? How are you looking at this differently given your past provincial experience? Yeah, thanks for the question, Michael. So certainly my time sitting at the Blackwater mine table was a very interesting time. my focus was really in the space of how do you grapple with the really the toughest issues as quickly as you can and kind of very transparently um so you know getting to the point of like what did i learn from that right out of the gate here i think um the key lesson was you need to tackle those hard issues um early that's the one or those are the ones that you want to convene and collaborate with people um early on in it in a process or in a project's development cycle.

2:19And you certainly don't want to kick it down the track and leave it to the last. So I'd say you need to recognize those tough points and those hard issues and go after it. In the space of Blackwater, what I was really kind of asked to tackle at that table was how do we land a tricky conversation around caribou habitat that was going to be impacted, which was becoming a very strong focal point, I'd say, between federal and provincial governments. And, you know, that focal point has increased since about 2012. And we knew that those sorts of, you know, overlaps or intersecting issues between habitat and mining could often lead to quite lengthy delays for major mines.

3:03So my job was to sit at that table and really have a hard look at what the data was telling us for the use of the area, the value of the habitat, and then how we were going to work together with basically three different levels of government and the company or the proponent at the time to really start to understand the opportunities. Really, that took focus and took a squaring on things like the value of the critical habitat, and negotiating the caribou mitigation and offset plan for that habitat. It was a conversation that was way more effective when we had all the different levels of government sitting at the table alongside the proponent, and quite frankly, working collaboratively and together on creative solutions and driving towards objectives and outcomes, rather than maintaining kind of a positional stance.

4:05And that took a lot of work and conversation to get there. But once we were able to say, let's get to those outcomes, what are the desired outcomes? What are the kind of restoration objectives or habitat offset kind of components we're really looking for? The conversation was able to move far more quickly. So, you know, with that in mind, I would say that coming into the surge copper team and really focusing in on the Berg Copper Project, our goal is to very early on start to surface what we anticipate will be those harder issues or those interests that folks really want to understand we've turned our minds to and start to look creatively at what those options are.

4:50and again really focusing on common objectives or outcomes as we have those conversations. I think bringing everyone together and being as transparent as possible is worth way more than carefully and diligently mapping out process and applying rigor and discipline to that process. It's about building that space together and as I said, really working in early stages to tackle the hard issues at the outset. The one thing I would say from that experience at Blackwater is it's also equally important to, in those early stage conversations, think about what do you do when you start to have disputes or when your technical experts don't see eye to eye or you land in a space where you're really kind of stuck.

5:40And so I think thinking thoughtfully at the start of these conversations about a dispute resolution, you know, mechanism or pathway or next step is really important because that allows the groups to collectively recognize we've done our best at this table and now it's going to move over to this next step to help resolve that issue or move it forward. So I'd say those are kind of the key components of certainly the time I spent on Blackwater. Let's talk about First Nations. Now, BC overhauled its Environmental Assessment Act in 2019 to build an Indigenous consent and cumulative effects review. From your time running permitting a transformation, is that system faster now?

6:27Is it clearer now? It's a great question, Michael. I would say, you know, the 2018 Environmental Assessment Act, and you may well know this as your listeners might as well, but it was essentially one of the first new pieces of legislation to come into effect after the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples Act. And so with that in mind, for those who don't, you know, delve deep into the underbelly of like, how does legislation get created and drafted? Just a quick kind of fun tidbit is oftentimes legislative drafting takes a long time and there's a lot of back and forth. And so one can anticipate that with both of them kind of landing between a fairly short time frame of the new EA Act and DRIPA, they were likely being drafted in parallel and within a short time frame of each other.

7:21And so I think government at the time recognized that, you know, they were likely going to need to come back and revisit the legislation after taking it for, you know, a bit of a test drive. That's not unusual. That's something that is, I would say, well understood as you sit and you have the best of intentions as you draft legislation and you review your drafts and it goes through kind of those legal drafting steps. at the end of the day, you don't actually truly understand all of the nuances and all of the different applications or all of the different process elements that will arise when you actually move to implement the legislation.

8:05So the implementation stage is a really informative stage of legislation. So I anticipate government was thinking these things through. This awareness, in my mind, is captured in the actual inclusion of a five-year review. That commitment is contained within the EA Act itself. And so I think we're seeing the BC government do that very work right now. So they have undertaken the five-year review and been very clear that they have a view to simplifying the process further and clarifying the process further. They've also, you know, I think clearly articulated that they continue to look at ways to expedite or streamline or drive some efficiencies, all while still maintaining the high environmental standards and transparency elements that the EA legislation currently holds.

9:00One concrete example I can point to is in April of this year, you know, government did come out and say that the number of dispute resolution steps that the 2018 EA Act allowed for, again, having taken it for a bit of a trial through a couple of different projects, I think that that government kind of got to a place of, by having kind of those later stage dispute resolution steps embedded within the EA process, that was not driving the clarity and certainty that perhaps they were looking for. And so those April changes that came through earlier this year are really meant to help de-risk the later stages of the EA process.

9:45So dispute resolution is no longer a thing that can happen in those later stages, but it is something that is still contemplated and allowed for in the earlier steps of the Environmental Assessment Act and the process. So I think, you know, the efforts around permitting transformation, I think it continues to evolve. I think government is keenly aware at continuing to support, I would say broadly, the natural resource sector here in British Columbia. This includes work that is underway to streamline mineral claims and notice of work permits in support of mining. There's work underway to support faster turnaround times on less consequential permits.

10:29There's ongoing focus in the use and reliance of qualified professionals, for example, or setting of clear standards. So I think for all these reasons, government continues to be seized with the idea of advancing permitting transformation across a multitude of sectors and pieces of legislation and regulations. I believe that they remain committed to continuing to bring certainty and clarity. and again looking at those levers for acceleration but have been very clear in my mind about also this needs to be done while maintaining high environmental standards. And I would say, you know, sitting now with industry, I'm certainly, I am pleased to see that balance because as a sector, I think we want to be held to those high standards.

11:23We want to continue to celebrate that BC is, you know, one of the most well-respected jurisdictions in terms of sustainable development and meeting high principles of environmental sustainability as we move forward. So I think with all that in mind, absolutely, permitting transformation continues to drive some of those efficiencies. And I'm excited to see what, you know, this next year of government is going to bring forward through fall and spring sessions. So, Jennifer, let's take broader initiatives and just apply it to Berg. You Berg does sit on the Wet'suwet 'en territory. Talk about building in durable consent for what you're building up there.

12:13Yeah, well, I would start by saying, you know, genuine durable consent I don't think comes in one uniform tidy package. I think when you're working on a major project like the Bird Copper Project, it's important to recognize that there's complexity and there's relationships and there's layers of history. And those things often inform governance and they often inform the approach on how we as a company are certainly seeking to engage and build that consensus and build that understanding around the Berg Copper Project. I think a core part of what we do as a company is it's being honest and forthright with the First Nations as to who we are continuing to work with and who we have been talking with.

13:04I think ensuring that there's that transparency and clarity is fundamentally important, quite frankly, in building trust. And I really don't think it is our place or any private company's place to, you know, kind of dictate or determine what is the appropriate governance structure of a nation. And so we have to, you know, remain open to be guided by how nations want to be engaged and how they articulate that engagement ideally is going to happen for each of them. So for our project, we have very deliberately looked at engaging both levels of governance. And by that, I mean, we have deliberately engaged with the hereditary chief governance structure, which is fundamentally important to acknowledge that that reaches into structures like clans and houses, members that fall within those.

14:01We've also similarly deliberately engaged with elected chief and council and those elected individuals come through the Indian Act and are, you know, kind of through an election cycle brought into their positions of leadership for communities. Our goal is that through that engagement with both levels, we are again building trust, transparency, and quite frankly, reaching the maximum number of Wetzelitin members and people to really understand who we are as a company and to understand what the Bird Cocker Project represents by way of a project. in all of that in terms of its impacts and their interests and the benefits and the opportunities and the mitigations.

14:48So we're really trying to canvas broadly. I think that's also important in the space of working as transparently with adjacent nations like the Chiselada Carrier Nation. And so, you know, your question, Michael, is a really good one. Like, how do you get to that price of genuine, durable consent or consensus. I think it's based and built upon ensuring people of these nations who exercise their rights and interests across the project area and adjacent to the project area truly understand what this project is about and what it represents. I think our philosophy is based on early and genuine engagement that seeks to build that consensus that the project advances.

15:39And you'll see that very clearly from the work we're doing today to the work that we did, very early stage exploration. It's really about that ongoing communication, that ongoing relationship, and helping the community and leadership understand what the project is as it evolves and advances through time here. So lots of work still to do, but I'm optimistic and I'm very excited about the relationships that we've certainly developed in the last number of years and I would say intensified over the last number of months. Certainly, as we know, this project is picking up momentum in the regulatory framework.

16:20Speaking of momentum, Jennifer Berg is going into BC's Critical Minerals Office coordination stream. What does that concretely say about timelines and coordination between the agencies? Yeah, I would say the Critical Minerals Office is a really great initiative by the Ministry of Mining and Critical Minerals. It is, I would say, you know, to use a slightly different phrasing on it, it's a coordination hub. And I would also say, Michael, that the Criticals Minerals Office folks have been very clear they are not seeking to advance timelines on behalf of the projects that come into their team. It's really about the projects gaining greater time, focus, and attention in a very busy space of government and public servants.

17:18I believe that the creation of the Critical Minerals Office is really designed to support interagency coordination at the very early stages of projects as folks are trying to figure out, you know, who do I need to talk to, what are the permits that are required? and certainly in our circumstance, it's kind of evolving into ideally helping us raise and resolve some of those early stage issues that I was talking about previously in terms of if we want to tackle some of these more complex components attached to major projects, how do we do that and how do we do it in a timely way across multiple ministries?

17:57So, you know, Michael, bear with me. I'm going to briefly put my old government hat on here. But, you know, sitting in government over the time that I had the opportunity to, I can certainly attest to the huge amount of priorities that hit public servants and hit teams within government. and the oftentimes limited resources that folks have to address those priorities or put to those priorities. And that often will see, you know, time, attention, focus of staff kind of diluted across multiple priorities. What the critical minerals office does in that very busy space of public service is it very clearly rings a bell for folks working within government that the direction and the signal is to respond to critical minerals projects to support permitting related questions, policy related questions, what additional kind of thoughts or regulatory changes could be put into play to support streamlining or accelerating or transforming permitting associated with critical minerals.

19:19So these are all kind of subtle signals that are sent certainly into, I would say, the public service. And it really helps direct staff and those limited resources to come around projects like the Berg Copper Project and to, quite frankly, deprioritize potentially other things and really prioritize the conversations that are going to help support moving these projects forward and answering some of the questions that we bring to those conversation tables. We always talk about bottlenecks in terms of regulatory for advancing these projects. I take it from the way that you've answered in the past or your previous answer to the question, there's not one big structural fix, I assume.

20:09It's just kind of, you know, you have these large complex projects, which is going to involve a lot of different shareholders. And at that point, there's just going to be kind of small improvements, small fixes, I guess, around the whole regulatory process that is actually kind of moving these things forward in terms of like there being one thing that is out there. Is it a correct assessment? Yeah, actually, I probably couldn't have said it much better myself, Michael. I certainly wish for my old self and for folks who continue to try and do this very important, very hard work, that there was one thing, one structural element, one lever that could collectively be pulled.

20:53And we all say, eureka, we fixed it. It is sadly not the case. I would also say, you know, very clearly what the solution is not. It is not about trying to surface up, you know, what is often termed as low risk permits. In my experience, that work has been done by government. It was done well before my time. and for those few permits that remain in place that, you know, add to the bottleneck that are perhaps lower risk ones, I would say that there's not enough of them in the system to really make this substantive difference that maybe folks are anticipating to reduce those bottlenecks or get rid of the backlogs.

21:38And oftentimes, you know, it doesn't work quite the way that maybe folks are envisioning. I think that absent standards, trying to move very swiftly to, let's say, erase or remove a number of decision points that are currently permitting driven or application driven, it doesn't seem to hold very well. Folks want to see standards, they want to understand objectives, they want to understand, like, where are you trying to go, government, if you're going to take away this application, are you going to take away this this permitting requirement. So I think it's really important for government to show the balance and to demonstrate in stating clearly objectives or standards that it's not environment versus economy or vice versa, right?

22:28It's really got to be both. And how can they continue to try and find those acceleration points or remove bottlenecks. If I got the chance to kind of, you know, hold a magic wand for one day, I think what I would probably point it to is looking at bringing multiple decision points under one decision maker for mining. And I think I would look to accelerate the development and clarity on standards and the use of qualified professionals. Again, that I think in my mind would bring the transparency element, it would bring the clarity that industry and the public and First Nations and quite frankly, you know, public servants are looking for.

23:15But it would also balance it in the space of, and we still have a decision maker who is going to make a decision. What is currently the model is that a decision associated with a major mind, for example, can be diffused across, let's say, five different ministries. And that can, you know, cause a lot of repetition or reaccounting of the story or the baseline or the data or the analysis. And that, of course, can take time. If you can envision a world where you can bring one statutory decision into one statutory decision maker's realm, but it is supported by the appropriate subject matter experts or qualified professionals.

24:03And again, those clear standards and objectives, I would envision that that could be a time savings and that could really help drive and remove some of the backlog or some of the bottlenecks, just because you have, again, that very hyper-focused knowledge base that has been built up around the decisions and around the project itself. So I think it could work. I think it would work in a major mine. I think it could also work in kind of those lower-level mining authorizations that don't require the full gamut of all the permits. It maybe only needs one or three types. But I think it's an interesting kind of frame and opportunity that government could maybe look at and see if there's some efficiencies to be gained by, again, driving that decision into a single decision maker, but appropriately supported.

24:55They have to be appropriately supported with standards and objectives and subject matter experts kind of chewing up around that decision space. Now, the Berg project that's being advanced by Surge is located in British Columbia. There are companies that are advancing projects in the U.S. and they are touting the Fast 41 Fast Tracking Critical Mineral Project. Does Canada need a system to compete with what is happening in the U.S., just kind of given the capital and the attention that's being taken down there. And also, do you have any insights in how the two are structurally different? Yeah, I mean, it's a fascinating, quick review on my part, Michael.

25:45So I will certainly carry my thoughts on this with a clear statement that I haven't actually experienced the process personally down in the FAST 41 and U.S. context. But I would say, you know, my review of relevant content, it kind of seems to reveal the similar themes that I was just speaking to and that the U.S. government and Canadian government, both federal and provincial, are all grappling with. And so in my mind, kind of the three buckets or themes would be around coordination. So that's the internal coordination element that I was referencing in my critical minerals office example. there's also public transparency which again that comes into like how do you talk about your objectives as government or how do you talk about your standards as government and how are you you know moving things forward how are you tracking those things so that public transparency element through dashboards or reporting and then of course not least but certainly last in my three buckets is governance and governance again.

26:54And so I would say that labeled under, you know, the kind of the Canadian banner of the BCE context, certainly have set their own ambitions and targets around these very points themselves. I don't think that they need to exactly mirror what the US has through FAST41. I think our legislative frameworks are very different. Our policies are very different. But I do think that a lot of the key ingredients, when you think about those three buckets, are very similar and very much a focus of the work of the Canadian federal government and the BC provincial government. So whether you call it the Major Projects Office, which is the MPO, the federal, or the Critical Minerals Office, which is the CMO, provincial, or things like the Major Mines Permitting Office, which has been in existence in BC for well over a decade now, These are all efforts of signaling how government wants to, again, prioritize limited resourcing against really important projects.

28:04and how do they want to direct that resourcing in the public service across government to address the permits and the applications that are sitting in piles and really ensuring that those get surfaced to the top and tracked and understood as the items that need to move forward. I think governments have very clearly, again, in kind of the Canadian context and under a different label in FAST 41, One, they're looking at those governance elements, right? So how do you accelerate and drive internal decisions and discussions that are paramount for resolving some of these critical issues, whether they're policy components or whether they're, you know, difficult decisions that need to move up from kind of the staff technical level up to maybe perhaps senior decision makers?

28:56How do you do that efficiently? How do you do it effectively? How do you drive those decisions up through a system that's incredibly busy and incredibly noisy because of that busyness? And then I would say like the coordination component again, governments, whether it's under FAS 41 or whether it's under kind of the federal focus here, is really about, you know, how do we look at coordinating across multiple different ministries and, you know, branches or divisions, departments? How do we make sure that, again, all these folks are seeing what is the important work and what they should be collectively kind of working on together and ideally working on that collaboratively?

29:41It's kind of that proverbial, like, making sure the left hand sees what the right hand is doing. as best they can. So I would say there's a lot of similarities from my, again, kind of high-level cursory view of it. I do think that BC and Canada do compete with Fast 41 within the Canadian context. I think that the solutions are seemingly surprisingly similar. I think that those solutions and why they're surprisingly similar is likely the result of just kind of how bureaucracy and the bureaucratic process works. And governments are trying to find their way to, again, accelerate or streamline or fast track within that bureaucracy.

30:30I think capital will stay focused within Canada because of the growing number of opportunities being showcased. And I know we're focused on mining in this segment and in this conversation. I would certainly say Canada is very deliberately talking about things like the first ever investment summit to be held in Toronto kind of mid-September here, coming up very quickly across a number of sectors. I do think that when you're trying to put that sort of level of focus across over 100 global investment organizations, across dozens of countries, that says something. And that says that that capital needs to stay focused, will stay focused within Canada.

31:18So again, I take that as positive news for us. Lastly, Jennifer, looking into the distance with Berg, as you continue to advance this project into later stages, and also kind of looking at lessons that you've seen from other companies and their approval. Canada Nichols Crawford took about four years from its initial project description to complete a federal decision statement before Ottawa referred it to the major projects office. Givenberg is only just filing its initial project description. At what stage of that process would look at a major projects office referral or something similar in a national interest designation?

32:04Yeah, it's a great question, Michael. Well, I would say, you know, right out of the gate, we have deliberately had conversations, some preliminary conversations with the major projects office. And as a company, you know, I'd say that they certainly indicated to us that they remained very interested in the project and wanted to, you know, basically track alongside our progress as we continue to advance the project. I take that as, you know, positive signals. I wouldn't necessarily look to Canada Nickel's track record as kind of the mainstay for how you know government is going to continue to think its way through the operation of or mandate of the MPO or the major projects office how it will be involved or when I think that you know they are probably an early and early projects through and I anticipate that that's going to evolve and change as that new entity kind of gets its feet under itself a little bit more.

33:08And I think, you know, the major projects office is likely going to be further seeking clarity on their mandate vis-a-vis some of the federal departments, for example. So I think, you know, we will continue to engage with the major projects office as the project advances, you know, and we may seek to be brought into their process over time or at some future stage. We haven't quite determined when that would be appropriate, and we haven't exactly confirmed that working with the MPO will bring the efficiencies that maybe are hoped for by by getting onto that list, so to speak. So I think as we go forward, perhaps, you know, a different answer to your question, Michael, in my mind would be, yes, we want to maintain the relationships with the MPO and the major projects office folks, absolutely.

34:03And they're interested in maintaining that relationship. But I think what's perhaps equally important is ensuring that the federal departments who hold some of the regulatory authority, who need to understand the project in its technical details, who ultimately are going to have permitting decisions at the end of our process. I think those relationships, that understanding, and again, us working together early on key topics like fisheries and wildlife and management plans and offset and all those things, those are really important conversations that I think we've definitely got pathways on and we are advancing and to me are equally important to what the major projects office may ultimately offer.

34:55Jennifer Anthony, thank you for speaking with Mining Stock Daily. My pleasure. Thanks so much for having me today. The information presented should not be considered investment advice. Mining Stock Daily Yance affiliates are not responsible for any loss arising from any investment decision in connection with the material presented herein. Please do your own research or speak with a licensed financial representative before making any investment decisions.