BullMarketRun.com January 27, 2019

Makela with the 400-pound block of solid massive sulphide (insitu) from last fall’s surface discovery in the Central Zone (BMR photo, October 2017).

Everett Makela, the colorful Sudbury geologist who was instrumental in the discovery of the Golden Triangle’s first magmatic Nickel-Copper-rich massive sulphide system at Nickel Mountain, has passed away at the age of 58.

BullMarketRun.com January 27, 2019

Makela has forever secured a place in B.C. and Canadian exploration history.

It was the late summer of 2016, shortly after some initial surface sampling at the historic Nickel Mountain E&L deposit by geologist Jeremy Hanson, when Garibaldi Resources‘ (GGI, TSX-V) President and CEO Steve Regoci quickly reached out to an expert in Nickel exploration.  That individual was Sudbury native Everett Makela who had honed his Nickel skills for many years with Inco and Vale.  Makela’s first advice to Regoci was to have a lab carry out detailed analysis of the channel samples at E&L in order to determine Nickel “tenor”.  As soon as the results came in, showing truly world class Nickel tenors, Makela instantly knew that Garibaldi had a “tiger by the tail”.  He immediately joined the Garibaldi Advisory Board (just a few months later he would be appointed VP Exploration-Canada for the company) and reached out to some of his close friends and colleagues in the Nickel industry, specifically Dr. Peter Lightfoot, Dr. Raymond Goldie and geophysicist Alan King, recruiting them to the project (followed by others).

Lightfoot, Goldie and King were equally excited by what they were seeing, and from there the Nickel Mountain story gained increasing traction among a relatively small crowd of experts and investors who were inspired by Makela’s leadership.  It wouldn’t be until the early summer of 2017, however, before the market would start to catch up to what the growing team of “Nickel Ninjas” believed they were about to discover.  Notably, it took Sudbury/Voisey’s Bay Nickel experts to find what was sitting right under the nose of geologists in British Columbia who for decades were focussed instead on Gold, Silver and Copper in the Eskay Camp – they just couldn’t conceive that the area was also highly prospective for a major Nickel-Copper-rich massive sulphide system despite the clues from exploration carried out in the 1960’s and early 1970’s, and advances in global Nickel exploration in the years that followed.

Makela’s contributions only intensified.  Working with a limited budget, and starting very late in the exploration season in the Eskay Camp, he faced a critical decision as VP Exploration in mid-August 2017:  Play it “safe” with a couple of drill holes, targeting the best historical mineralization encountered by Silver Standard, or take a gamble and do something radically different in a classic “Go Big or Go Home” scenario.  

In one of the boldest moves in B.C. exploration history, one that even took Regoci by surprise, Makela went unconventional and drilled away from the historic mineralization on the hunch that the E&L system was much broader than anyone had previously imagined.  He also wanted to use the first couple of holes as a geophysical platform.

It was a huge gamble.  If Makela and his team had missed, it likely would have been game over at Nickel Mountain (and Makela would have been searching for a new job).  Instead, EL-17–01 intersected broad intervals of Nickel-Copper sulphide mineralization, leading to this statement from Dr. Lightfoot in a news release September 1:  “The range in rock types, including the chaotic-textured rock types at E&L, are similar to those found in other global examples of Nickel sulphide deposits hosted by small intrusions that provided very efficient ‘magma highways’ from the mantle.”

Investors piled in and it was “Game On” at Nickel Mountain.

In a remarkable display of his instincts for Nickel and what a legitimate Nickel sulphide system should look like, based on just the viewing of drill core ahead of assays, Makela made these prophetic comments in an interview with BMR after the completion of the first hole:

Discovery Of World Class Nickel-Copper-Rich Massive Sulphides

Makela, of course, understood the importance of geophysics to help guide the drilling of a Nickel sulphide discovery, and that’s why he brought Syd Visser’s SJ Geophysics to Nickel Mountain in August 2017.  It was both too early in the game and too late in the planning stage to lure a bigger or more well-known geophysics company, but Makela’s choice of SJ Geophysics was an astute one and of course would lead to the discovery of exceptionally high Nickel grades in massive sulphides in later holes to the east of the historic E&L deposit.  On that note, it was Makela’s call, after consulting with geophysicists and his geological team, to drill infamous hole #14 into a conductor discovered through SJ’s borehole EM technology applied in a critical early hole (EL-17–02).

EL-17–14 was the biggest game-changer of all, occurring in the midst of extremely challenging mountaintop weather conditions, as it returned a whopping 8.3% Nickel, 4.2% Copper, 0.19% Cobalt, 6.4 g/t combined Platinum-Palladium, 1.1 g/t Gold and 11.1 g/t Silver over 16.75 m within a broader core length of 40.9 m grading 3.9% Ni and 2.3% Cu.  Not only were the grades astounding, but the purity of the mineralization as revealed through lab analysis was also something Makela would consistently point out.

2018 produced more major developments at Nickel Mountain including the discovery of massive sulphides in the Central Zone, a significant expansion of the Discovery Zone in all directions around EL-17–14, and the possibility of something big under the 1.6-km-long icefield to the north and east.  Makela also took major steps to dramatically increase the understanding of structural controls on mineralization at Nickel Mountain.

Makela’s instincts in the early days of the discovery were proven correct, so we would all be wise to pay particular attention to what turned out to be his last words to BMR in October of last year:  “We’re figuring this out.  It’s going to be a mine.”  

Makela has left a lasting legacy, not only for Garibaldi and its shareholders but for the Eskay Camp, British Columbia and the Nickel exploration/mining sector in general.  He also maintained incredible enthusiasm, despite battling health issues the past couple of years, and had a heart as big as the Eskay Rift.  He will be sorely missed.

He’s now looking up from above, smiling at what he knows will unfold at Nickel Mountain in 2019 and beyond.

Well done, Everett.  You blazed a path that others will now complete.

Contacted by BMR this morning in Smithers, B.C., Garibaldi Technical Advisor Dr. Lightfoot stated the following:

Dr. Peter Lightfoot (BMR photo).

“Everett brought enthusiasm and passion to exploration that sets the standard.

“In 1995 his major contribution to Inco’s Voisey’s Bay Project was the creation of a detailed geological map of the property.  It was a masterpiece and even now it remains at the heart of the new understanding of the rocks that contain this ore deposit.

“Everett played a key part in exploring the Sudbury Structure, and his contributions to both regional and deposit scale exploration were many.  He was part of the team that made discoveries.  

“His real passion was exploration outside of the shadow of camps.  I was so privileged to work with him in East Greenland where his field skills pushed the envelope of understanding, and his colourful personality made him the heart of the camp.

“At Garibaldi’s Nickel Mountain Project, Everett was the heart of the strategy that led to the discovery of massive sulphide mineralization in the Discovery Zone.  I still remember when he phoned me up to share some of the first assays.  His enthusiasm for doing the work and sharing the passion made all of the crew feel like a team.  He will be missed so very much.  My sympathies, and those of Garibaldi’s entire team, go out to his family and friends.”

December’s lows marked a key turning point for the Venture, the 3rd major bottom of the last decade…

Visit the BMR comments section throughout the day for updates and helpful information!

1. Gold has traded between $1,281 and $1,296 so far today…as of 7:00 am Pacific, bullion has jumped $13 an ounce to $1,294 as the greenback takes a hit with the Dollar Index currently off one-third of a point at 96.26…Gold appears poised to close at a technically bullish weekly high which should draw more buying interest at the start of next week…key psychological and technical resistance is $1,300…Silver has shot up 39 cents to $15.57…key support held at $15 and Silver will really start to shine once it overcomes resistance in the $15.70’s…base metals continue a favorable trend…Copper is up 3 cents at $2.71 while Nickel and Zinc have each gained a penny to $5.33 and $1.20, respectively…Zinc is now at a 3-month high on worries that weak refined output in China could send the global market into deficit…Crude Oil has climbed 39 cents to $53.52…rail-car loadings of heavy Canadian Crude hit a record 356,000 barrels a day in the week ended January 11, up from a daily average of 296,000 barrels in December…Oil by pipeline is more efficient, less risky and more environmentally friendly – but that’s what the anti-pipeline craziness has led to…Canadians are letting foreign activists and a vocal extremist minority within Canada screw their country…earlier this week, the City of Victoria announced plans to launch a class action lawsuit against the Oil and gas sector…the idea is to tally up the various “damages” done to the city by “climate change” and send the bill to the likes of Suncor or CRNL…

2. Global stocks climbed today to reverse most of the week’s declines as investors assessed fresh signals on the health of the corporate sector…downbeat readings on the world economy negatively impacted stocks at the beginning of the week…however, encouraging corporate results have also helped many markets recover those losses…of the S&P 500 companies that reported Q4 earnings through yesterday, 75% beat analyst expectations, according to Refinitiv…most of today’s gains in Europe and Asia came from more economically sensitive corners of the market including banks, autos, industrials and energy companies, all of which have been at the forefront of January’s rebound in stocks…this comes after very steep falls in those sectors in the final weeks of 2018 as investors grew overly pessimistic about the U.S. and global economic outlook, thanks in part to negative mainstream media  headlines…

3. S&P 500 companies will execute $800 billion in buybacks and return an additional $500 billion through dividends this year, according to J.P. Morgan’s U.S. stock strategist…“Despite the recent market volatility, buyback activity has been very strong during the 4th quarter and we expect it to remain robust,” writes Dubravko Lakos-Bujas…Canaccord Genuity echoes that call, saying that equity prices are “near the point” where buyback desks would likely feel the pressure to purchase and chase equities higher…

4. The Dow, on track for its 5th straight weekly gain, has jumped 224 points as of 7:00 am Pacific…traders responded positively to a report in The Wall Street Journal this morning that the Fed is weighing an earlier-than-expected end to its bond portfolio run-off…the bar is set low for Apple’s earnings next Tuesday, so Morgan Stanley believes it’s a good time to buy the stock…the firm says investors have already lowered their expectations for Apple’s December numbers following the January 2 guidance, so next week’s report will unlikely tank the stock further…all eyes will be on any forecast for the current quarter…here’s a switch – a Venture-listed tech company has announced a “change of business” as it moves into the resource sector…Eurocontrol Technics Group (EUO, TSX-V), which last traded at 3 cents, has entered into an asset purchase agreement to acquire Sable Resources‘ (SAE, TSX-V) properties in British Columbia…completion of the transaction is subject to regulatory approval and certain other conditions…Eurocontrol will carry out a 1-for-4 share rollback, change its name to Talisker Resources and list on the CSE…Andres Tinajero, the current CFO of Eurocontrol, is an independent director of Sable…Roscan Gold (ROS, TSX-V) is moving in early trading after reporting a new drilling discovery yesterday at its property in Mali, West Africa, including 8.5 g/t Au over 18 m…Charlotte’s Web (CWEB, CSE) has hit a new all-time high of $18.93 in early trading on the CSE….

5. Khiron Life Sciences (KHRN, TSX-V) is up on news that it’s significantly expanding its cultivation capacity to a 3rd jurisdiction…the company has entered into a binding letter agreement to acquire 100% of NettaGrowth International, an arm’s-length party, which will own, at the time of completion of the transaction, all the outstanding shares of Dormul SA (doing business as Cannapur)…Dormul has obtained the first licence to produce medical cannabis with THC for commercialization in Uruguay…through the Mercosur Regional Free Trade Bloc, Khiron will also gain access to an export market of approximately 75 million people in Southern Brazil…as consideration for the acquisition of NettaGrowth International, Khiron will issue 8.5 million common shares to the shareholders of NettaGrowth International, at a deemed price of $1.61 per common share…

6. No urgency among most politicians in Canada when it comes to getting our Oil to market, but pot of course is a much different matter…consumers in Ontario will soon be able to smoke pot on the same day they place an on-line order…3 months after the legalization of recreational weed, Ontario remains the only province with no same-day access to legal pot, but faster marijuana delivery to the country’s largest market is weeks away…bidders have until early February to express interest in a $450,000 contract to provide “expedited/same-day home delivery service” for the Ontario Cannabis Store starting March 1, and lasting until 2021, say documents posted on a provincial procurement web site…the OCS says it is “undertaking a competitive bidding process [and] looks forward to announcing a timeline and service territory for launch of same-day service as soon as an agreement is finalized and the service offering has been clearly defined”…the OCS has not said how much of the province it intends to serve with same-day delivery..

7. Nickel prices are up nearly 10% the past 3 weeks and long-term charts are showing a potential dramatic run in 2019…Macquarie Bank says the metal will be the #1 commodity over the next 12 months…stockpiles are low…Macquarie also believes Nickel will be the 2nd-best performing commodity behind Uranium over the next 5 years…after Nickel very briefly touched $7 a pound last June, a 3-year high, a number of large Indonesian Nickel smelter projects were announced, stoking oversupply fears and pushing down prices…there was a widespread perception (misperception) that all of this declared Nickel tonnage could come to market at the same time and quickly – as early as the 2nd half of 2019 – but Wood Mackenzie disagrees…“Our view is that the timelines will be longer than implied so that the amount of Nickel coming to the market will be smaller, slower and more costly than so far alluded to.  This should be reassuring to the market.  In fact, a consequent absence of commissioning news in the 2nd half of 2019 should support higher prices”…

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1. Gold has traded between $1,276 and $1,284 so far today…as of 7:00 am Pacific, Gold is up $1 an ounce at $1,284… Silver is off a penny at $15.33…very strong new support exists at $15…Palladium, which hit a record high of $1,434 an ounce last week on low inventories and rising demand, has dropped another $29 an ounce to $1,301 as a pullback continues…Copper is off slightly at $2.68…Nickel, continuing its bullish pattern, has added 2 pennies to $5.29 while Zinc is up a cent at $1.19…on-warrant Zinc stocks in LME warehouses are at their lowest levels since 2007…exacerbating fears of low availability of metal is LME data showing 2 entities between them hold most LME Zinc warrants…cash Zinc still commands a premium over the 3-month contract, suggesting nearby supplies are tight…Crude Oil has reversed higher, up 11 cents at $52.73 after some early morning weakness…the U.S. Dollar Index, meanwhile, has gained one-tenth of a point to 96.20…the European Central Bank left interest rates unchanged today and continued to say that rates would remain at current levels until after summer…“The Governing Council expects the key ECB interest rates to remain at their present levels at least through the summer of 2019, and in any case for as long as necessary to ensure the continued sustained convergence of inflation to levels that are below, but close to, 2% over the medium term,” the bank’s policy statement said…business growth in the euro zone all but stalled at the start of 2019 as consumer uncertainty, trade tensions and political woes meant incoming new work fell for the fires time in over 4 years, according to fresh data today…the slowdown has spread across both the services and manufacturing industries, with factory activity in Germany, the bloc’s powerhouse, also contracting for the first time in more than 4 years…meanwhile, Statistics Canada reports that retail sales in Canada fell by a larger than expected 0.9% to $50.4 billion in November…

2. Venezuelan opposition leader Juan Guaido declared himself interim President in a defiant speech yesterday before masses of anti-government demonstrators who took to the streets to demand President Nicolas Maduro’s removal – a bold move that was immediately recognized by the Trump administration and a growing number of other Western nations including Canada…President Trump called on Maduro to resign and said the U.S. would use the “full weight” of its economic and diplomatic power to push for the restoration of Venezuela’s democracy…Canada as well as Brazil, Colombia and several other Latin American nations followed suit in throwing their support behind Guaido…“The people of Venezuela have courageously spoken out against Maduro and his regime and demanded freedom and the rule of law,” Trump said in a statement…Maduro responded by swiftly cutting off diplomatic relations with the U.S., the biggest importer of Venezuelan Oil, and said American diplomats had 72 hours to leave the country…“Before the people and nations of the world, and as constitutional President, I’ve decided to break diplomatic and political relations with the imperialist U.S. government,” Maduro told a crowd of red-shirted supporters gathered at the Presidential palace…“Don’t trust the gringos.  They don’t have friends or loyalties.  They only have interests, guts and the ambition to take Venezuela’s Oil, gas and Gold“…an economic disaster under Maduro has decimated Venezuela’s Oil industry, cutting its Crude output to near 70-year lows around 1.2 million barrels per day (bpd), from double that 3 years ago (climate change extremists should be ecstatic, though – Venezuela will help save the planet!)…destruction of the country’s Oil industry has devastated the overall economy…

3. U.S. Copper deposits have quietly drawn more than $1.1 billion in investments from small and large miners alike as Tesla (TSLA, NASDAQ) and other electric carmakers scramble for more of the red metal…4 U.S. Copper projects are set to open by next year – the first to come online in more than a decade – with several mine expansions also underway across the country, home to the world’s 5th-largest Copper reserves, according to the U.S. Geological Survey…the rising popularity of electric vehicles – which use twice as much Copper as internal combustion engines – and increasingly pro-mining policies in the U.S. while other nations exert greater control over their mineral deposits are driving the spending…“Fifteen years ago, U.S. mining was thought to be a dead industry, but now it’s a profitable area for us,” said Richard Adkerson, CEO of Freeport-McMoran (FCX, NYSE)…the Phoenix-based miner, which last month relinquished majority control of the world’s 2nd-largest Copper mine under pressure from the Indonesian government even though it will remain the project’s operator, is set to open a $850 million expansion of one of its Arizona copper mines next year…“The U.S. is really the core for our future growth,” Adkerson said…the U.S. is home to half of Freeport’s reserves…the buildouts are expected to boost U.S. Copper production by at least 8% in the next 4 years, according to data from the International Copper Study Group and DBS, with Excelsior Mining (MIN, TSX), Nevada Copper (NCU, TSX), Taseko Mines (TKO, TSX) aiming to open Copper mines by the end of 2020…

4. Ontario municipalities had until Tuesday night to opt in or opt out of recreational pot shops within their boundaries and 337, or about 81%, said yes, according to the Alcohol and Gaming Commission of Ontario…while Toronto and Hamilton did opt in, other large centres such as Mississauga and Markham were among the 77 municipalities that said no, dealing a blow to would-be pot retailers who wanted to tap their dense populations and relatively high income levels…recreational pot can only be bought in Ontario through a government-run website…private retail stores are set to open on April 1, but the provincial government limited the initial number to 25, citing cannabis supply shortages as a factor…

5. The Dow has fallen 72 points through the first 30 minutes of trading…futures were positive until Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross said in an interview with CNBC prior to market open that the U.S. is “miles and miles” from a trade deal with China…however, the market is taking those remarks pretty much in stride…in Toronto, the TSX is flat in early trading…Ontario Premier Doug Ford has been honoured as a “Red Tape Crusader” by the Canadian Federation of Independent Businesses (CFIB), winning the “Golden Scissors Award“…the award is given every year to a politician, public servant or government that eliminates unnecessary bureaucracy standing in the way of small businesses…this year, Ford raised Ontario’s grade in the eyes of the CFIB, earning the province an A- for introducing Bill 47, which brought sweeping changes to labour legislation, and reduced red tape for small businesses…BMR can confirm that the Premier’s office has also gone to bat for companies in the exploration and mining sector – the McGuinty/Wynne years are thankfully over and Ontario’s exploration/mining sector is about to enter a new boom…Oceanagold (OGC, TSX) announced this morning that it has achieved 2018 consolidated production and cost guidance for the 7th consecutive year…annual Gold production came to 533,000…the Venture has retreated 2 points to 591 as of 7:00 am Pacific…

6. Pascal Biosciences (PAS, TSX-V) has come to life this morning, announcing that it has started human trials as it ramps up the testing of cannabinoids for its immune stimulatory program in cancer…furthermore, the company has filed an international patent application to protect this work for future therapeutic indications…since discovering cannabinoids that can stimulate the immune system, Pascal has extensively studied many different cannabinoids in a variety of immune stimulatory assays…more than 375 cannabinoids from numerous sources have been examined, including natural cannabinoids from Cannabis (known as phytocannabinoids), synthetic cannabinoids prepared by chemists, and endocannabinoids naturally found in the human body…specific natural cannabinoids have been identified that have potent activity in immune assays and also have a good safety profile…“Our laboratory experiments have been very encouraging and suggest a potential to enhance the activity of cancer drugs,” stated Dr. Patrick Gary, CEO of Pascal…“Human subject testing of cannabinoids has already been initiated.  We plan to test both healthy volunteers and patients with cancer.  Our first volunteer and our first patient with cancer have been treated to examine safety and pharmacology.  We will extend these studies during the coming year with a potent cannabinoid for determination of its immune stimulatory activity.  We will be testing cancer patients undergoing treatment with checkpoint inhibitors.  We believe this work will be of great interest to patients, oncologists, and companies focused on cannabinoid therapeutics”…PAS is up 6 cents at 31 cents through the first 30 minutes of trading…the chart has taken on a bullish tone with the 50-day SMA starting to reverse to the upside…

7.  This is Trudeau’s way of ending the black market in pot?…Quebec’s cannabis agency says it generated about $40 million in sales in its first 3 months of operation, but supply shortages are forcing the public retailer to reduce its expansion plans…the province expects to have 40 points of sale by March, 2020, 20% less than the 50 outlined in the original expansion plan…retail store shelves became empty soon after recreational cannabis was legalized on October 17, a situation observed across the country…the subsidiary of the Societe des alcools du Quebec cut back its hours of operation so that its 12 stores were open just 4 days a week…Jean-Francois Bergeron, President of the Societe quebecoise du cannabis, says it put the network’s expansion a bit on ice, which explains the network size being reduced to 40 stores…he also said more time is needed to adapt to the recommendations of the provincial government, including a prohibition on stores openings near community colleges and universities…while supply shortages continue, Bergeron said there should be an improvement by late spring when new volumes become available…

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1. Gold has traded between $1,278 and $1,287 so far today…as of 7:00 am Pacific, Gold is down $6 an ounce at $1,279 as a minor pullback continues…in its 2019 forecast, Scotiabank’s analysts see Gold prices averaging the year around $1,300 as prices are caught in a $150 range with the peak coming in at $1,350 an ounce…according to Gold’s technical picture, Scotiabank says “a floor at $1,200 is both confirmed and respected”…a weaker U.S. dollar will be a major factor in Gold’s potential, the bank believes, with the Dollar Index averaging 89.4 this year, down significantly from its current level…“Peak dollar is simply behind us.  The U.S. twin deficit is a core reason for expected weakness and the thinking that the Fed will be handcuffed from raising rates too high,” the analysts concluded…Silver is off 2 cents at $15.29…very strong new support exists at $15…Copper is steady at $2.69…Nickel, on a nice run recently, is up 6 cents at $5.28 while Zinc is 2 cents higher at $1.19…Crude Oil has gained 19 cents a barrel to $53.20 while the U.S. Dollar Index is flat at 96.30…Chinese finance ministry officials today said the government would step up fiscal spending this year, focusing on further cuts in taxes and fees for small firms, to support its economy which last year registered its lowest growth rate since 1990…it’s believed China will also take additional measures during its annual parliamentary meeting in March…meanwhile, the Bank of Japan says it’ll maintain its ultra-easy monetary settings which have been running since 2013…this comes after the country reported that its December 2018 exports fell by 3.8%, the most in more than 2 years, dragged down as weak global demand and U.S.-China trade frictions took their toll on the trade-reliant economy…as much as President Trump wants to complete a new trade pact with China, it’s clear that he will not soften his position – nor should he – that Beijing must make real structural reforms, including how it handles intellectual property…

2. Russia should not unleash an Oil price war against the U.S. but rather stick with output cuts even at the cost of losing market share in the medium term, one of the main Russian architects of a production pact with OPEC said today at the World Economic Forum in Davos…since 2017, Russia and OPEC have cut Oil production jointly for the first time in an effort to boost the price of Crude…following their supply pact, Oil has traded mostly in the $50 and $60’s, well above the 2016 lows…“For U.S. shale production to go down, you need Oil prices at $40 per barrel and below.  That is not healthy for the Russian economy,” stated Kirill Dmitriev, head of the state-backed Russian Direct Investment Fund…“We should not take competitive action to destroy U.S. shale production”…

3. Rex Murphy, one of Canada’s most respected commentators and authors, was keynote speaker at the Vancouver Resource Investment Conference (VRIC) Sunday-Monday and hit the nail on the head in terms of how government in Canada is the biggest threat to the resource sector…“The key colonels of any of the 21st century civilizations is energy and minerals.  Without energy and minerals, there is nothing.  Every modern convenience, every miracle of the new Internet, everything that we have in an integrated 21st century computer society, depends upon sources of energy and sources of minerals.  If any other country in the world had the bounty that Canada has in both, we would have every government saying thanks Providence or thank God, and we would not be building impediments and always making the most essential industries the ones that have to prove themselves…we would be concentrating on what we have, making jobs out of it, and protecting those industries,” stated Murphy in an interview with Kitco’s Daniela Cambone at the VRIC…

4. The Loony Left in the media and elsewhere have really gone off the deep end in recent days, from last week’s false Buzzfeed report regarding Trump to the “ambush” of Christian high school students wearing MAGA caps at a pro-life rally in Washington, DC, to Vancouver City Council – seemingly with nothing better to do – declaring a Climate Change Emergency…now, hot on the heels of Democratic congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez claiming the world is going to end in 12 years due to climate change, Svend Robinson (another socialist) has made a return to the Canadian federal political scene with a goal to destroy the Oil and gas industry in this country with help from his friends in the media…“We have to recognize that fossil fuels and any new pipelines, any new infrastructure is taking us down a road to climate disaster,” Robinson stated in an interview on CTV’s Power Play…“This is an industry which we have to recognize is on its way out.  We’ve got to leave most of the Oil and gas in the ground and we’ve got to move to the renewable energy.  That means no new infrastructure, no new Oil and gas, and most importantly respecting hereditary Indigenous people – for example the Wet’suwet’en – who are saying we don’t want this,” he went on…in other words, Robinson wants to give First Nations in Canada – many of whom can’t even manage their own affairs – VETO power over the Canadian resource sector, which in turn would hurt those First Nations groups who are entrepreneurial and want to see major resource projects move ahead in order to generate much-needed jobs and prosperity for their people…on Saturday, Robinson was nominated as the federal NDP candidate for Burnaby North-Seymour, the Vancouver-area riding where the Trans Mountain pipeline’s products are loaded onto ships…the crowd erupted into cheers when Robinson advocated “the path of socialism, democratic socialism”…David Suzuki was also in attendance…

5. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is on track to spend more on federal government programs than any Prime Minister before him, according to a new study from the Fraser Institute…Trudeau’s government will have spent about $8,600 per Canadian on programming for the 2018-19 financial year…that’s about 50% more than average spending during the last long-haul Liberal tenure under Jean Chrétien and Paul Martin…according to numbers released in November’s fiscal update, the deficit for this financial year alone is projected to be $18.1 billion, and debt is expected to rise by $96.7 billion over the next 5 years to $765 billion in total…in fact, according to a December report from the federal Finance Department, the federal deficit won’t be erased until 2040 based on current trends, despite Trudeau’s election promise that a deficit under the Liberals would only be “temporary” and “limited” before books were balanced by the end of his first term later this year…

6. Canada’s economy may soon endure something it hasn’t faced in 68 years – a recession without the U.S. in the same boat…that’s the view of Jim Mylonas, global macro strategist at BCA Research Inc. in Montreal, a firm that’s been making calls on markets and economies since 1949…Mylonas says the surge in household debt combined with rising interest rates will push the Canadian economy into recession, even while the U.S. economy continues to grow…“If the U.S. economy is doing relatively well and the Fed is raising rates, it’s very hard for the Bank of Canada to just sit on hold and not follow the Fed,” Mylonas said…“We’re now at the point where the Bank of Canada is going to be flirting with triggering the next recession if it hasn’t already”…if Mylonas is right, it would be the first time since 1951 that Canada slipped into a recession without the U.S. also contracting…a serious downturn in the Canadian economy is by no means a consensus view at the moment…on Monday the International Monetary Fund predicted 1.9% growth for Canada this year, down slightly from is previous estimate of 2%, while the Bank of Canada sees an expansion of 1.7%…BOC Governor Stephen Poloz, at the World Economic Forum in Switzerland, told Bloomberg Television today that the Canadian economy is in “good shape”, although low Oil prices are delivering “a material shock” that would cut growth this year…

7. The Dow has jumped 271 points through the first 30 minutes of trading after United Technologies and Procter & Gamble reported better than expected earnings…in Toronto, the TSX has rebounded slightly after its 12-session winning streak was snapped yesterday…the Venture, meanwhile, is flat at 593…if you like investing in Guyana, Goldsource Mines (GXS, TSX-V) has something for you…GXS is the early leader in trading after confirming a high-grade Gold discovery with the first 2 diamond core holes at its Eagle Mountain Project…they included EMD18–053 with 40 m (est. true width) grading 6.5 g/t Au, and EMD18–052 with 17 m (est. true width) grading 2.8 g/t Au…results from these near-surface drill holes show high-grade mineralization below the previously announced surface trench, TRBS18–002, which returned 123 m (horizontal width) grading 1.92 g/t Au…GXS has over 200 million shares outstanding…Amex Exploration (AMX, TSX-V) has launched its 2019 diamond drill program on the Perron Property Eastern Gold zone after intersecting 393.3 g/t Au over 1.70 m in hole PE2019–22 at a vertical depth of 170 m, as announced this morning…this hole was planned to test the high-grade vein interval previously reported in hole PE2018–17 (269.2 g/t Au over 1.35 m) at a vertical distance of 25 m above it, starting from the same collar location…the Perron Property is located approximately 110 km north of the town of Rouyn-Noranda…AMX has pulled back 7 cents to 38.5 cents after a run-up yesterday…Giga Metals (GIGA, TSX-V) was halted pre-market, followed by news that the company has appointed Robert Morris, a former senior executive with Vale SA, the largest Nickel producer in the world, to its board of directors…Giga will have to do a lot better than than to convince the market that it’s low-grade Nickel-Cobalt play in northern B.C. has serious potential…

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