Issue link: http://resourceworld.uberflip.com/i/554714
26 www.resourceworld.com a u g u s t / s e p t e m b e r 2 0 1 5 F or years now, the Province of Québec has been a favorable exploration and mining jurisdiction. Three times the size of France, the country of its heritage, La Belle Province is huge, encompassing 1,542,056 km². Today, the province pro- duces gold, silver, nickel, copper, zinc, cobalt, diamonds, iron ore and ferro nio- bium, plus aggregates and peat. In addition, rare earth discoveries have been made in recent years. To foster the discovery and development of mines, the Québec government has a program of exploration expense rebates that amounts to a 31% rebate in the North, 28% elsewhere and 12% for dimensional stone. With exploration funding hard to find in the extended mining bear market, receiving a government cheque for Québec explora- tion expenses goes a long way toward the following year's work programs. In addition, funding can also be gener- ated through the issuing of flow-through shares that offer tax benefits to Canadian investors. However, one Québec government plan is expected to benefit both the mining sector as well as people living in remote resource-based communities, including First Nations – Plan Nord. The plan calls for the province to invest $1.3 billion in infrastructure and other projects over the next five years with the objective of attracting $22 billion in private sector investment. The infrastructure improve- ments in Québec's North include roads, railways, airports, electric power and housing. This is exactly what the mining sector needs to help advance their projects. Below are selections of recent explora- tion highlights from Québec. Alexandria Minerals Corp. [AZX- TSXV; ALXDF-OTC; A9D-FSE] reported results from drilling a new target, 500 metres northeast of its Orenada gold proj- ect near Val d'Or, where it has intersected 23.1 metres grading 0.45 g/t gold, 0.59% copper and 8.35 g/t silver, including 4.0 metres of 0.7 g/t gold, 1.3% copper and 17.3 g/t silver in drill hole OAX-15- 056. The hole tested the western end of a 1.5-km-long magnetic anomaly on its Cadillac Break property. Québec Exploration Highlights by Ellsworth Dickson