..of course Elmer did claim ignorance about that paragraph that has been his marching order for all these years

In my opinion, we should be glad if that 4-years clause does not exist. Because if it does, then we are also subject to that build time and if we have to sell this project to someone else then we will have a hard time if they are caught in that timeline.

The 4-year clause, as near as I can tell, exists in a 1968 agreement between Teck and Liard. I believe that it exists on some of the claims only, but not the ones that are in our starter pit. That is, in my opinion only, why Elmer has retreated from the discussion about the 4-year clause because it doesn't cover Schaft Creek, per se.

We cannot waive the clause if we are not in control of it so we couldn't expect compensation for having it removed. If it is a Liard agreement though, it makes sense that when we have 80% ownership of Liard, we can rewrite such agreements. This might turn out to be a good thing because we don't want to be subject to that time constraint.