In April 2010, the Canadian Securities Administrators (the CSA) issued for comment an amended draft (Proposed NI 43-101) of National Instrument 43-101 - Standards of Disclosure for Mineral Projects (Current NI 43-101).  Following a comment period, the CSA made few minor changes to finalize the revised versions of NI 43-101 (New NI-43-101), Form 43-101F1 (the New Form) and Companion Policy 43-101CP (the New Companion Policy).  This Update is a reminder that New 43-101, the New Form and the New Companion Policy come into force on June 30, 2011.

In May 2010, we issued a Global Mining Update generally summarizing the changes in Proposed NI 43-101.  In April 2011, the CSA issued a brief description of the changes from Proposed NI-43 101 (Appendix A to the Notice of New NI 43-101). 

In particular there are a few items to highlight in connection with the coming into force of New NI 43-101.

Technical Reports

All technical reports must be prepared in accordance with the New Form.  However, the CSA will continue to accept those technical reports prepared in accordance with the current Form 43-101F1 and filed prior to June 30 as "current" technical reports.  Whenever in the future an issuer is required to file an updated technical report, it will at that time be required to file in accordance with the New Form.

Management's Discussion & Analysis

A minor change related to the coming into force of New NI 43-101 relates to MD&A, requiring issuers with producing mines or mines under development to not only identify milestones such as mine expansion plans, productivity improvements, plans to develop a new deposit, or production decisions, but also to state whether the milestones are based on a technical report filed under NI 43-101.

Short-Form Prospectus Trigger

Proposed NI 43-101 had left open for comment the possibility of changes to the technical report filing requirement in connection with the filing of a preliminary short form prospectus.  New NI 43-101 introduces a change to relax the technical report trigger for short form prospectus transactions.  Under New 43-101, a technical report will be required to be filed in connection with a preliminary short form prospectus where the preliminary prospectus discloses for the first time mineral resources, mineral reserves or the results of a preliminary economic assessment that constitute a material change in relation to the issuer or a change in the foregoing if such change itself constitutes a material change.

Foreign Code Reporting

We had highlighted that under Proposed 43-101 it had been proposed that issuers would be able to report in accordance with acceptable foreign codes without reconciliation.  However, this proposal was not ultimately adopted in New 43-101, which was amended to include a minor change to Current NI 43-101, by requiring a reconciliation "of any material differences" between the mineral resource and mineral reserve categories used and the categories under the CIM Definition Standards.

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