Somebody asked me about tax and, although I have no idea about these things, I do know they are very important for us, for insiders and for both corporations involved.

Here is a good website that discusses mining tax specifically: miningtaxcanada.com

The transfer of the Liard shares should fall under the mergers & acquisitions section (I think.) It also seems to me that a great deal of time would go into arranging a deal in order to make the best sense of the tax laws for both sides. This takes a lot of time, and could be what they are up to right now (I hope.)

Where sellers are receiving something other than cash exclusively, a common acquisition strategy is structuring the sale of shares as a tax-deferred exchange in which sellers realize no gain for tax purposes (to the extent possible). Section 85 ITA provides a mechanism by which a seller can transfer most forms of property to a taxable Canadian corporation on a tax-deferred (or “rollover”) basis. In order for section 85 to apply, the seller must receive consideration for the transferred property that includes at least one share of the transferee corporation (other forms of consideration (“boot”) may also be received), and the seller and the transferee corporation must jointly elect to have section 85 apply by filing the required forms with the CRA.