The Chamber hosted three Manitoba Progressive Conservative MLAs at their meeting yesterday promoting their Northern Lights program that lays out their framework for a northern strategy.

Mineral Resources Critic Cliff Cullen was critical of the government’s policies regarding mining noting exploration numbers are quite dismal.  He says we’re down to 25 million dollars of exploration last year in Manitoba and three years ago we were at 140 million and the number is dropping.  He says the percentages we are seeing coming to Manitoba versus other jurisdictions in Canada are dropping as last year we only took in one percent of all the exploration dollars in Canada and a few years ago we were close to six percent.

Cullen said Manitoba has to be competitive so companies will invest in exploration in the province. We’ll have more on tomorrow’s news.