Invest Canada Post PDAC Investment Summit: Series 2

0:36 Okay, good afternoon, everybody. My name is Jay Martin. I'm the CEO of Cambridge House International, and I'm excited to share this next piece of content with you. We are hosting the Invest Canada North Post PDAC Series 2, we're going to cover all sorts of things. But I first want to begin by introducing our guests today. So I'm joined right now by Tara Christie, the CEO of Banyan Gold Corp. Tara, How are you? I'm well, thank you very much, Jake. Kevin Weston, CEO of Whitehorse Gold Corp. Thanks Jake. And Jeff Husey, President and CEO of Asisco Metals. Jeff, how are you? Good, Jake. Okay, now, I'm really good, I'm really good. Thank you for asking. Now what I want to cover today, we have about 40 minutes before we get into a live Q&A period.

1:24 So for anybody who's watching, if you have Q&A throughout this conversation, just pop it in the chat box right beside our heads, and we'll get to it at completion of this conversation and we'll get through as many questions as we can. So what I want to cover with the 3 of you today, you know, we have a good representation of exploration companies in the North, Tara and Kevin in the Yukon, Jeff in the Northwest Territories. And I want to talk about that. I want to talk about what it's like operating an exploration project in the North, the unique advantages, maybe the disadvantages and the opportunities that come with operating in what is a very unique part of the world. We're going to talk about ESG and the initiatives that your 3 companies have undertaken to stay ahead of the curve in this regard, something that is more and more frequently front and center for investors when they're making their decisions about where to place capital. And then to wrap it up, I want to cover what I think is the most important thing on most investors' minds, which is what are you about to do next? What's next in your company plans? So we know what kind of news events we can look forward to. Does that sound good?

2:31 Perfect. All right. I want to leave it to the 3 of you to introduce your companies and Tara, we'll start with you. So just 2 or 3 minutes, please give us the highlight reel for Banyan Gold Corp. Great. Thank you, Jay. So Banyan Gold, we're a Yukon based exploration company. Our flagship property is our Ormac property, which is located right beside Victoria Gold's EcoGold mine and Alexco's Keno Hill Silver. You know, the 2 mines that have gone into operation over this last year in the Yukon. We envision our property as being very similar to Victoria Gold, a potential open pit heap leach mineable project. We have an initial resource which we came out in May of 2020 with over 900,000 ounces. We drilled 10,000 meters in 2020 going all the way to the middle of December.

3:19 We're poised this year with a pretty healthy treasury of over $5.8 million. We started drilling about 10 days ago and we're well on our start for 2021 season. We're planning to drill at least 15,000 meters on that property. And so we'll be an exciting story to watch with lots of news flow coming from us throughout the year.

3:40 Okay, thank you, Tara. Kevin, over to you. Oh, thanks, Jay. Yeah, well, Whitehorse Gold is a newly listed company on the TSX Venture. We were listed last November after we were spun out from New Pacific Metals. Our project is the Skookum Gold project and it sits about 55km south of Whitehorse and it's on Carcross Tagish First Nation traditional territory. We've assembled a diverse team with a proven record. We cover everything from exploration to mine development, mine operations, investor relations and of course corporate social responsibility. Our project has a lot of advantages in that, we are close to Whitehorse, we have excellent infrastructure, it's a brownfield site, we have year round access, and we have 5 portals with 5 kilometers of underground development on it already. But most importantly is the high-grade gold deposits that we do have. We have already starting out, we already have indicated resources of 335,000

4:45 ounces at 7.8 grams per tonne Gold equivalent. And we've got inferred resources of 245,000 ounces at 6.9g per tonne Gold equivalent. And when we talk Gold equivalent, we're only talking Gold and Silver. So it too will be a very exciting story coming up. Okay, thank you, Kevin. Jeff, I'll pass it to you next. Sure. Thanks, Jay. Osisko, the Osisko Group, as a lot of people know, have built Canada's largest Gold mine in the Abitibi, Canadian Malartic. It continued to start various companies, a Royalty company, a development company, and Osisko Metals were the base metal arm of that group. Back in 2017, we started the company. In 2018, we were lucky enough to acquire Pine Point.

5:31 Pine Point is a former producer. It produced between 64Mt and 88Mt. Kaminko produced 64Mt at about a 10% combined lead-zinc rate. It was the most profitable zinc mine in Canada. It shut down in 1988 due to several reasons, price being one of the major ones. And we acquired the property in 2018. We were able to drill and produce a 50 million tonne resource at the end of 2019. And then we started our PA at the beginning of 2020. We published our PA mid year, excellent results of $500 million NPV,

6:14 internal rate of return after tax of 28.6. And so Now we're poised in the second half of last year, we planned out what was the recommended budget in the PEA. We know what it takes to get the project shovel ready in about 3.5-years and we're working hard on advancing. Right now, we have 1 drill turning. We put out some excellent results recently, over

6:39 28m of 30% combined Lead Zinc. That's prismatic mineralization, very high-grade. We're going to be continuing to drill those deposits and increase the indicated category that we need for feasibility. Starting this year, we're continuing to drill, so lots of news flow. What we want to do with the drilling is we're also doing hydrogeological studies to better estimate the water management that we have to do during startup. And we're de-risking the project on that this year, putting out a 3D hydrogeological model and report to hopefully reduce the costs. With that, we plan on updating several variables in the PEA and posting a revised PEA in the first quarter of next year in 2022.

7:27 So it's been a busy 2 years since we've had the project and a very busy one coming up and lots of news flow to come. Okay, excellent, Jeff. Yeah, busy for the entire Cisco group this year. Okay, now I want to, I've been asked to begin this conversation with a focus on environmental, social and corporate governance. That's where we're gonna begin.

7:47 I'm gonna ask a high level question and give it to each of you independently, because I know this is very unique to each company, the initiatives that you're undertaking. So my question is just, keeping it relatively high-level, what are the most significant steps that your company has undertaken

8:02 over the years? And Kevin, maybe it'd be a bit different for you as the quote unquote new kid on the block, the new listing, but Tara, we'll open it up with you. So most significant steps regarding ESG that your company has undertaken? So I think that was connecting with the community and the Nacho N'aik Dun First Nation very early on in stage and developing relationships right from the get-go. And that's really was so important during COVID, you know, when there was so much uncertainty and fear being able and enabled us to operate. We started drilling in June of last year, but it was important to us that we had the trust of the community, that they knew that we were doing the right things and we were looking out to protect the community. So,

8:46 there's a huge range on the ESG front of things that companies need to do at different stages. And you just ask for 1. So I'd say that that was the most significant one and certainly has been one that was important to us last year. And Dara, can you talk to me about shareholder response? Have you noticed a response from your shareholders or prospective shareholders in regards to this? Absolutely. In all the latest conferences, and I've had a slide on ESG in my slide deck for quite some time, lots of people kind of, you can tell when shareholders are engaged and want to actually hear or want you to go into more detail. Lately, I've had a lot more requests for information, people asking questions, not just reading the bullet points, but wanting to know the details of what it means on both the E, the S and the G front of what we're doing as even a junior exploration company. And that's a huge change. I would say probably 20 to 30 percent

9:40 higher than before in terms of the number of people that are really engaged on that. Okay. Thank you very much. Now, Kevin, I know it's not a new project, but you are a new listing. And so you have the opportunity to craft this messaging from the jump. When investors ask you what's happening at Whitehorse in regards to ESG, what do you tell them? Well, 2 things.

10:05 Right off the bat, we recognized that we needed to communicate with the Carcross-Taggish First Nation. It's their traditional territory. We're in their backyard. We want them to, we need them to trust us. We need to go hand in hand with them. We need their input. So from the first day the management team was assembled, we reached out, we've had numerous meetings, certainly not the same as pre COVID, pre Zoom meetings, but we've had a lot of, if I'm not at 3 face-to-face and numerous Zoom meetings with the Carcass-Tagish, we do not submit anything to the Yukon government without first discussing it with the correct branches of the Carcass-Tagish First Nation to get their input, to make sure that they are part of the process in moving forward. And I think

10:54 the second thing, very significantly, we're just a junior exploration company, but we have a vice president of corporate social responsibility, Someone who's well-known in the Yukon, who has a track record of building relationships with First Nations. We saw that as being key to us having that presence, building that trust and moving forward on the ESG. Okay, thank you, Kevin. Appreciate that. And Jeff, same question for you. Most significant initiatives in your ESG front.

11:27 Regarding environment, we just submitted our EA. So we're engaging with all of the local communities, especially the indigenous communities. We have been since 2017, actually our predecessor company was, and we've continued to do so. Currently we have collaboration agreements with the Denin-Ukwe First Nation to the east, the Northwest Territory Métis Nation in the area, and an exploration agreement with the Catalodiche First Nation to the west near Hay River. So

12:00 The process of environmental permitting has been started. As far as communicating, when I look at ESG, I think of what we've been doing. A lot of the companies we've all tried in community sustainable,

12:17 CSR as we call it. And what we're doing is we are continuing to engage with all of the communities, trying to develop some training programs. We're not that active. We're not several drills. We only have 1 drill turning right now, so there's not as much activity, but as the project moves forward, we have plans for training and education. We're also going to be starting, as we start the feasibility discussions on an IBA. Corporate governance, we're part of the Osisko group and we follow all governance principles. The 2 main things are the collaboration agreements we signed in 2019. I would say that. Okay, okay, Thanks Jeff. All right Jeff, I want to pass it to you because I'm actually least familiar with the Northwest Territories compared to the Yukon. What can you tell me about the unique advantages and opportunities operating where you are?

13:13 The Northwest Territories benefits from an enormous mineral potential. Mineral potential also goes with surface area in Northwest territories as huge as is Yukon. So there's lots of opportunity that the government is looking at since the diamond mines are maturing, they're building infrastructure out to the Great Slave Geological Province, and that should lead to more discoveries for the territory. With respect to our project, Pine Point, infrastructure was built by the government back in the 60s. They built a railhead from Edmonton to Hay River, and all the way in the Pine Point. There's an electrical substation on site that we will benefit from. It's in the same location as we would put the mill where Kaminko had theirs.

13:58 There's 100km of haul roads that interconnect all the deposits we're going to mine. Just that 100km is probably worth $100M. A big haul road for large haulage trucks. It's a brownfield site with most of the supporting infrastructure in place. We're going to complement some of the power, but we hope to draw all of the power that we can from the grid.

14:23 When looking at my colleagues, for Gold, you can drive out your Gold bars, your Doré bars, but with concentrate, we need a railhead and it's 60 kilometers away in the town of Hay River. So we put that into our PA and that's what really allowed us to get our NPV so high for the CAPEX without the infrastructures in place.

14:44 Got it. Thank you, Jeff. Jeff touched on the accessibility of government. Is this something that you've experienced at Whitehorse? Oh, it's excellent. I've been going into the Yukon or through the Yukon since about 1980. I'm sorry, that's a long time ago, 2008. And I see that all the time. In the time it'll take you to find a parking spot in Victoria or Toronto or Quebec City, you can have your meeting with the regulators, sort out issues and then get onto your project. So I see that as being a big advantage. And you're also dealing with communities that understand the value of responsible development because the Yukon has such a rich mineral history.

15:27 It continues today with 3 operating mines, the 2 Tara mentioned in Bintul are still operating today. So it's a huge advantage. Now, you know, us, I'll tell our horn a little bit, we have excellent access, which is probably a little different from some people up in the north that you can be on our property in just over an hour outside of Whitehorse. So we don't suffer the access issues, but there's still good infrastructure throughout the Yukon for getting to your properties, getting to your projects. Tara certainly doesn't have any access issues, I don't think, she's pretty close to town.

16:09 And we love working in the Yukon. And I think it's an advantage. You look at the Fraser Institute's 2020 investment survey, the Yukon ranked 18th globally for investment sentiment, positive sentiment. So I think that that plays well. That's definitely a positive that people see the Yukon, the Northwest Territories as being great places to invest.

16:34 Yeah, thanks for that. Thanks for that. Cause you know, jurisdiction is more and more part of the conversation whenever we're talking to retail investors. I mean, my audience over at Cambridge has all retail and more and more frequently, you know, jurisdiction is the 1st or 2nd question that company CEOs are getting asked, or money managers, gurus, anybody in the sector. But there's a spectrum there, right? It's not like good versus bad. It's not binary, right? There's sufficient, there's good, there's great, there's amazing. And access to government officials is pretty unique.

17:03 Now, you touched on the value of responsible development for the local communities. Tara, expand on that a little bit. What's the value of responsible exploration development to northern communities, specifically in the Yukon?

17:16 Well I think we've seen that through this last year with how well the Yukon economy has done, despite the economic challenges in so many of the other areas. And that's largely due to the mines that were in production and going into production, along with all the exploration, which was very active. And communities are very aware in the Yukon that it is really one of the primary drivers and in the absence of tourism which was absent last year, the Yukon's GDP did exceptionally well compared to other jurisdictions in Canada. And just a quick flashback to the infrastructure because I think and what's different about northern properties is I think we are debunking the myths along with you know some of our our colleagues here about that because we are a year-round project. We drilled into December, we started in February. You can when you have the exceptional infrastructure which we have in the Yukon, we have a main highway, which the Yukon and federal governments just committed $63 million. They are going to upgrade the section near us.

18:12 They just put a new power line right to the hydroelectric dam, which goes right through our property. Our cell phone network covers our whole property and just got better this last year. And that itself has its own problems because now we've got drillers that are distracted with cell phones, but such problems to have, that's a pretty high grade problem in my view to have this exceptional infrastructure. And just speaking to Jeff's point about the potential of the North, you know, we made a new discovery right beside a main highway, like 100 meters off it in 2019.

18:41 The Yukon and the North is under explored. Kevin's got a property with lots of exploration potential on it as well. You know, all 3 of these projects are growing and shows that the north, we've got a lot to deliver. You can actually permit projects in our jurisdiction as well, which is another really unique feature of the Yukon. And we've got the evidence of that. Brand new mines that were just permitted. So that's right. Pretty exciting jurisdictions.

19:07 Yeah, 100%, 100%. And really leading the way, you know, it's funny, I had a conversation with the former Prime Minister Stephen Harper in January at one of our events. And one of the big topics that we touched on was the factors that contributed to Canada's recovery out of the 2008 recession. And we were really set up to win there because we had a relatively favorable,

19:30 Well, we had a favorable administration in regards to mining and exploration, and we had all the commodities the world wanted moving into a secular commodities bull market. Now we've got a lot of that set up right now, because inevitably coming out of COVID is going to be tough for a lot of countries, especially developed nations who really expanded their balance sheets. But we're largely moving into a commodities market. Canada again could be set up to capitalize extraordinarily well if we play our cards right at the government level. But Tara, I want to throw it back to you just talking about commodity trends that you're paying the most attention to right now. You're a gold company. What do you see? What should investors be paying the most attention to when it comes to sentiment in the precious metals sector right now?

20:15 Well, you know, I'm a strong believer in the precious metals. You know, we've seen last year we had quite a strong sentiment towards and lots of investment in gold companies that's positioned many gold companies very well being financed coming into this year. And, you know, we've seen a little bit of softness here coming into the new year, but because lots of companies like Banyan are financed, we're able to get drilling. So I think that's an important thing for investors to look at is where's the company in the cycle? Have they been able to finance prior to seeing this softening in the prices. My current belief is that the fall is going to be a great time to be coming out with results and for all the gold companies. It's a challenging market and positioning yourself is something that every investor has to make their own choices on. But certainly I'm in favor with a gold given what we've seen in the world and how much money has been printed to help deal with the impacts of COVID.

21:20 I'm with you, yeah. Yeah, now Kevin, I wanna pass it over to you. You know, with your experience in this business, what do you have to say to investors who participated in the fantastic rally last spring and through early summer, and now are witnessing a softening in price as Tara described. What do you have to say to investors right now who are questioning their bullish sentiment and the longevity of this bull market and the precious metal space? Well, I'd look at people that are a lot smarter than me and what they're doing. There's an awful lot of consolidation in the industry going on. There's a lot of vergers going on because people believe in the sector. You're seeing, depending on the timing, this be the last couple of weeks, evolution and battle north. These M&As are boarding well. That means people are willing to invest in this sector for long-term.

22:10 There's no doubt that all the money that's being printed around the world right now to pull us out of COVID, which, you know, much of it was needed and necessary, is going to have a long-term impact on finances for economies. And gold is a good safe haven. It still is, always has been, and still is. So I'm bullish on Gold. I believe Gold's going to be strong. Where is $1,700 Gold right now? Those are great prices. It wasn't that long ago, go back 15 months ago, it wasn't at $1,700, it was $1,100. So these are still good prices to be investing in gold and especially high-grade gold. Yeah, that's good perspective. I appreciate that, Kevin. Now, Jeff, over to you as our representative from the base metal sector. What are the macro trends that you're paying the most attention to right now?

23:02 That's an excellent question. So there's been very little investment, especially in the zinc space. We see coming out of the uncertainty period of last year, we're going into what's gonna be probably a bull market for base metals. We see that in Copper and Iron ore right now, peaking at record levels. Zinc is well on its way up. Lead is holding. The demand is, we consider it to be about steady. There are new applications for Zinc that are being developed, but mainly it's galvanization for construction and the auto industry. Demand being stable, supply is going to, we see a crunch coming. In North America in the next few years, we're going to have a 35% drop in Zinc producers.

23:49 Globally, some of the biggest Zinc producers have shut down. Century, Brunswick Mining, etc. In the last 10-15 years, there's been very little investment in the base metal space, especially in Zinc. What we see is that there's a supply crunch coming, the government-backed stimulus packages that are going to be proposed this year and then as we go forward, that build will happen. Iron ore at record prices and good production levels from China, half of that has to get galvanized. We see the future bright for base metals. We see a rise in the price. For the next couple of years, the concentrate market is balanced, But after that, there's very few more projects in the pipeline with demand increasing. We see it's a great time to be in Zing. Okay. Now I want you to speak to anybody who's watching this right now and prospective shareholders, Jeff. So Talk to us about the upcoming catalyst trigger points, news flow. What can investors expect over the next 12-months?

24:58 Over the next 12-months, we'll be drilling. We have our winter drill program going on. After spring breakup, we'll be at it again. We hope to increase the drill count as the year goes on. So there'll be a constant news flow from that. We also are working on the environmental assessment. We'll be talking about that. We'll be talking with communities about that a lot. With regard to the PEA update that we'll be starting this year and putting out in Q1 a year from now, basically, with updated values, reducing the dewatering management cost, probably a different price regime as well. When we look at the price of zinc, some of the low prices are dropping off back into the moving average. And also we're looking at optimization, more metallurgical testing. So We'll roll that into the PEA, describe our results and release our results as we go through this year and put out the PEA 1 year from now.

25:57 Thank you very much. Kevin, same question. We're talking to prospective shareholders who have taken a look at Whitehorse, how are you going to pull them over the line? What can we expect in the next 12 months? Well, to give you that, I've got to get a little perspective on what we've been doing for the last 8 months with the project. And that is a new geology team getting to know the property. And we've spent last fall pulling old core, re-logging old core, prospecting over our 170 square kilometer land package, getting to understand and build this database. We've got 140,000 metres of drilling on our property. We've got underground development, underground mapping, and all of that has been brought into one singular database.

26:47 Everything in space geographically, It's quite fascinating what our geologists have done. And this is really the first time that anyone's been able to bring this big land package together. There's always been a fragmented ownership. And now we're going at it with a fresh set of eyes, modern geophysical and exploration techniques in order to unlock the full value of the property. We have 3 separate deposits. We've got the Skookum Creek deposit, which is our largest resource, and it contains 250,000oz and indicated 100,000oz is inferred already. And that will be our main focus is drilling on Skookum Creek and expanding that resource this year. And then, but we will not, we'll continue to look at the past producing mine, the Mount Skookum, our geologist field, there's still potential there.

27:39 And the Goodell deposit, which could be the sleeper, which could be our biggest deposit, but it's gonna require us to get back underground. Already at Gaddell, we have 86,000oz in Indicated and 110,000oz in Evert. Because of the terrain, we're going to get some drilling into it this year, probably use directional drilling techniques because of the length of the holes, because of the terrain. And then hopefully in 2023, we'll have a class 4 permit, which will allow us to go back underground. So this year's catalysts are drilling. The new flow will be drilling results from Mounts, from Skookum Creek primarily. And then hopefully at the end of this year, we'll have enough drilling done that we'll be able to go and get another resource estimate done in preparation for 2023.

28:27 Okay. Okay. Thank you. Maybe, maybe you touched on this. Maybe it's the consolidation of the land package like you mentioned, but for any investors who've already looked at the Skookum project, anything else you want to add on there, Kevin, about how you're approaching this differently from previous operators of this project? Well, again, it's the fact that we were really the first ones to look at it as a singular package. Not only do we have the 3 deposits, but we have 10 other showings on this property that could all with good geology could be advanced to deposit stage as well. There are showings, there are workings on this property, they're back to the 1920s, but no one's ever drilled into them because of the fractionate ownership. They didn't own the ground right next door where they needed to step out and drill a long hole. So the fact that we've got it all under 1, we can look at it singularly now and really bring it together as a single project.

29:28 We see this as being a project flow. We have a mill. We have the past producing mill. It was a leech mill with a Merrill Crow finish. And so you can see that becoming a central processing facility as we bring these other projects along to PEA and further studies. And with multiple deposits, you can see that as being your organic growth within the company as we develop them. Okay, excellent Kevin, thank you. Tara, over to you. I know you're launching a drill program. What should investors focus on? Here we're taking a look at Banyan. Well, 2020 was pretty transformative for us. Coming out with that new resource, showing that our geological model worked and very similar to Kevin's story.

30:16 Our story was when we acquired it in 2017, we were the first people to put the property package together. We took 35 rock types, reduced it down to 7 and really put together a strong geological model, which we drill tested over several years, culminating in the drilling that went into that resource. It was drilling in late in the fall of 2019. We financed for that in October and drilled it out. You know, our airstrip resource already has 774,000 ounces in it and growing, you know, similar grade and similar low strip ratios envisioned as Victoria Gold. But what's really exciting to us is our new power line discovery, which we made in 2019. And which we now, but that resource only had 14 holes into it and already had 129,000 ounces, mostly drilled in October and November of 2019, so a really short window. And then last year's results just are building on that. We now have drill holes that demonstrate that mineralization goes over 2.5 kilometers in drill holes with a very large target area. So, you know, investors should expect to get some more strong drill results for us this year. Our model is proving out that power line is open in all directions and all the way to Oryx Hill, 2.5 kilometers away.

31:27 Airstrip continues to be open and our team has showed that, you know, we understand the geology that's going on and we've been delivering solid results growing that. Our plan is to this year show that we have the potential for 2 million plus ounces and that we would drill it out in 2022, but we're also getting set up so that we can ramp up very quickly. We still have results from last year coming in because we delivered them to the lab just before Christmas and we're expecting them back in the next couple weeks. And then we've already submitted our first samples to the lab for this year, So should be a pretty exciting year for news flow for us. Yeah, it sounds like it. Okay. And I hope so for everybody. I think there's a lot of pent up demand pent up energy, pent up investor interest.

32:14 I'm looking forward to getting back in airplane. That's for sure. The novelty of working from home is beginning to wear off a little bit. I really enjoyed it. I'm enjoying it a little bit here. A little bit. Well, look, Tara, Kevin, Jeff, it's been a pleasure having you on this panel. Thanks so much for your time. And now I wanna open it up to questions. So anybody viewing, please pop your questions in the chat box I believe just to the right of my head could be the left but you should see it there and let's get into it I'm looking forward to this ♪♪