# “I Could Not Be More Bullish”: Pierre Lassonde’s $17,250 Gold Target

## Метаданные

- **Канал:** Kitco NEWS
- **YouTube:** https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gp8VqtZCP0U
- **Дата:** 11.05.2026
- **Длительность:** 56:20
- **Просмотры:** 127,731
- **Источник:** https://ekstraktznaniy.ru/video/50710

## Описание

With gold holding firmly above $4,700 an ounce and silver breaking into the $80 to $85 range, Pierre Lassonde returns to Kitco News to explain the architecture of the new bull market. The Canadian Mining Hall of Fame inductee and resource sector pioneer breaks down his $17,250 gold target, highlighting the striking parallels between the late 1970s and today’s macroeconomic environment.

Lassonde details how $40 trillion in U.S. debt and persistent deficits are forcing a fundamental shift in the global financial architecture. He explains why central banks are relentlessly diversifying away from the U.S. dollar, driving physical price discovery to the East and treating gold as the “currency of last reserve”.

Beyond the metal, Lassonde unpacks the immense optionality in mining equities today. He discusses why current stock prices fail to reflect the potential for 5x margin expansion, questions Barrick Gold's current strategy, and calls out Canadian pension funds for their lack of domesti

## Транскрипт

### Metals Surge Setup []

Welcome back. I'm Jeremy Saffron. Uh with gold holding firmly above $4,700 an ounce on the spot side and I mean silver also breaking into that 80 $85 range today. Now the physical metals market are sending a very clear signal here. Yet many traditional mining equities have still not fully reflected the move in the underlying metals, especially when measured against margins, free cash flow, and of course reserve scarcity. Now, we're also in a market shaped by persistent deficits, rising sovereign debt burdens, of course, central bank gold buying, and a global reserve system that is slowly shifting back towards hard assets. Now, to break down where

### Meet Pierre Lassonde [0:40]

capital is flowing, we are joined by one of the most respected figures in the resource sector. He is a Canadian mining hall of fame inductee, the former president of Newmont Mining, the pioneer of the royalty and streaming model, is the co-founder of Franco Nevada, also a major shareholder, we should mention, of uh of Orla as well, which we'll talk about today, Mr. Pierre Lasand. Welcome back to Kiko News. Thanks for making the time, — Jeremy. Thank you for having me. Always a pleasure. — Yeah, I appreciate you making this. I mean, obviously an interesting time. We're watching these metal markets go a little bit crazy here. We've seen a little bit of correct of territory. Now, it seems like we have some bullish uh tailwinds. I want to talk to you a

### Dow Gold Target [1:20]

little bit about that architecture of this bull market because I was watching an interview uh of you where you kind of explained your $17,250 target for gold earlier this year. You tied it partly to the Dow to gold ratio and in past cycles that ratio kind of moved close to 1:1, but your base case was less extreme, a lower Dow, roughly a 2:1 ratio. and gold around 17,250. Is that still your working framework? — Yeah, absolutely. And uh the parallel

### 1970s Replay Thesis [1:52]

between what we're living today and the 1970s, particularly the late 1970, 1976, 1980 is incredible. — And to use uh the French philosopher Vea, history never repeats itself, but man always does. And if you look at the 1930s, 50 years later, it was like the 19 late '7s, early 80s, and then, you know, 50 years later, we're looking at, you know, again, the 26 to 2030 time frame. It seems that every two and a half generations, we forget what happened. And if you look back to the late 1970s, uh, you saw inflation go up every year. You saw interest rate the dollar go up every year. And guess what? You saw gold going up even faster every year until a peak of $800 in 1980. — Yeah. — Well, that was a t-fold increase from $90 back in 1975. And uh when I look at what's happening in the world today, um the u you know the result of the Iran war first impact energy prices which then impacts food prices and don't be surprised if by year end this year we see inflation CPI in the US at 4 4. 5%. And again it's a repeat of the 1970s. Now in the 1970s inflation went up to like 12 or 13 14% and mortgage rate went up to 17%. I don't expect that because back then there was very little leverage in the economy very little debt. The total debt in 1981 when Reagan was first elected was $1 trillion. Today that's the amount of money that the US has to pay in interest every year because the total debt is approaching now 40 trillion. So the amount of leverage in the economy makes it you know very difficult for the Federal Reserve to raise rates which could complicate things even more to my mind. M — so I am like I could not be more bullish to be very honest with you and um what people tend to uh forget I mean the gold market is climbing a wall of worry you know we've all heard about it and I speak to I you know I was at a function this weekend people were asking me about gold they're all worried that it's you know over uh that it's too highly priced it's going to go down they don't realize that they the world financial architecture is changing and that's the reason why the gold price is so solidly anchored and very likely to go up. — Yeah. And I mean you know you could point to I mean inflation week is also kicking off just this week with Morgan Stanley warning CPI could come in spicier as they're calling and many expected you know a hot April CPI tied partly to that energy and air travel. At the same time, the economy is still carrying enormous leverage across government debts as you just talked about. I mean, consumers, private credit, uh, corporate balance sheets. I guess my question is, if inflation stays sticky while growth kind of slows here, I mean, does that strengthen your 1970s framework or is today's setup more dangerous because of the system is far more leveraged?

### Debt Deficits Dollar [5:33]

Well, it's uh first you have to understand that 80% of the value of gold is tied to the US dollar. Okay? And then 20% is everything else including interest rate which determines the sort of variability of the gold price o over you know a short period of time. But the value of the dollar you know in correspion the uh US deficit this year uh for 2026 uh will be over uh I believe it's 7. 9% of GDP. Imagine, I mean, this is the United States with budget deficit that used to be only allowed in Banana Republic. — Uh, and next year is not going to be any better. And if you have a recession on top of that, what do you think's going to happen? Well, what happened is that the Federal Reserve is essentially monetizing the debt and printing dollars. And that's why the gold price is reacting the way it is to me. And when we look at the short term, we saw a high of $5,400 gold in January. Then we went down to, you know, like as low as um uh 43 uh and even a bit lower, I think, you know, and I think that was the bottom for this cycle. Now we're on the way back up. — Yeah, great to hear. uh you know when you you're talking about that roughly 80% of gold's values tied to what happens to the US dollar and that debt load and that deficit trajectory this year are central to that kind of setup if that's the case is

### Gold Last Reserve [7:15]

gold you know less of a commodity trade and more of a vote on the US fiscal credibility here it is uh gold 90% of the time is a commodity but 10% of the time it's a it's the currency of last reserve when the dollar doesn't perform its role as currency of last reserve. Guess what? Gold takes its place and that's what's happening right now. So absolutely uh I think that uh the uh I talked about the architecture of the financial order.

### Parallel Payment Systems [7:51]

If you look at China, it has created a parallel system to the Swift system uh to bypass all the econom the US economic embargos and whatnot. And that system is growing you know like in percentage term it's like 50 100% you know not only a year but like every 6 months because more and more countries are tired of getting kicked in the rear end by the US and say like you know we're going to go our own way. So um Iran today gets paid its oil in yuan. Okay. And then they spend it back in yuan and they bypass the entire financial architecture. Um I think that uh the you know when you look at the United States there's no good answer to uh the problem that the US have and they're not the only one by the way. I mean, if you look at, you know, France or Britain or like, you know, Britain, the Germany, they're all in the same boat. The only difference is that the size of the US makes it and the fact that the US dollar is the reserve currency, uh, makes it very difficult. But if you're a US politician, will you get elected if you tell the voters, I'm going to raise your taxes and I'm going to cut your benefits? — Mhm. — No. So, what do they do? They print more money. And because that's always the easy way out. Now you know what's going to happen in 2 3 years at some point in time like back in the 1980s Reagan came in, Vulker was elected and the two of them write the ship and put the US back on course. Is that going to happen in like you know in the next election? Who knows? — But until then with you know President Trump in the White House bet on gold. Yeah. I like to say that when he got elected, he told everybody at in his inaugural speech that the golden age of America begins right now. Boy, was he right. Okay. Like, you know. — Yeah. You're not kidding. And I mean, you know, on that topic, Pier, I mean, is there any realistic policy path that breaks this gold thesis or would it require a recession severe enough to kind of force liquidations first? I think it will require a uh a major recession to reset the tone and it will require also from you know the Congress or Senate or President of the United States to have the political will to writen the ship. I either increase taxes or you know if they cut benefit you for sure going to end up with a bigger recession. So, uh, but they one thing with the United States that I've noticed is that they have this incredible ability to walk right up to the the cliff to the abbis and look at it, stare at it, and walk back. So, I'm still incredibly positive about the United States and about, you know, the US dollar. I just don't know when is that's going to happen. In the meantime, I see no will whatsoever. And that's why I'm betting on gold. — Yeah. You were talking about China there and kind of that parallel payment system is compounding at the pace you were describing 50 100% every 6 months. That that's not just, you know, sanctions avoidance. It seems like that's a structural response to dollar weaponization. At what point does this become a liquidity problem for the dollar system itself? you know, like where countries no longer just diversify reserves but actively reduce their need to hold dollars for trade settlement.

### Central Banks Drive [11:41]

settlement. — That's a very good point, Jeremy, because as we are seeing the central banks now are the major players in the gold market. If you look at uh the gold production last year was about 3,800 tons. Well, almost half of that went to central banks. So they are like the number one players and that's because they see they want their currency to be anchored closer to gold. And when you look at the reserve uh between the central bank reserve it used to be 80 plus% dollars and gold was like you know less than 10%. Well gold has moved as more than double in weight. It's now over 20% while the dollar has come down to about 56% and it's still going down. So the central banks are diversifying out of the dollars. They're, you know, increasing their gold holdings and at on top of that you have currencies that are popping up. You look at um Tether for example, uh Tetar gold, they're buying three tons of gold a month and they're they have a currency that's like a world currency. uh the uh they have 540 million wallets 150 60 billions behind it. Uh that's becoming a world currency anchored on gold. So there's a lot of things going on in the gold world that have nothing to do with jewelry. I mean like the jewelry market is a shadow of what it was 20 years ago. — Mhm. If I look at when I was chairman of the world gold council, our major client was first India which used to take over a thousand tons of gold just for jewelry and second was you know China but way you know uh after uh today the central banks of China and the Chinese people just them take over half the gold mined every year. So there's a com and then you got all the central banks from Poland to Azerbaijan to you know Russia to like you know they're all buying gold to diversify out of the dollar. So as I said the entire world architecture of financial uh of finance is changing and that's what we are looking at and that's why I see the gold price you know still going up over the next 2 3 years and I reiterate that my $17,250 gold price is as solid as can be. I mean I'm convinced we will see this in the next I say 3 years could be sooner could be later but you know and that will be depending on what happened to the Dow or whatever it could be 2 one 3 one I don't want to be extreme because like you if you look at one the Dow today is 50,000 could that happen — I mean anything can happen the reality is that the gold price more and more is getting set in Shanghai on the Shanghai gold exchange change. — And we all know that, you know, Chinese in particular have a very high propensity for gambling. And I said it when I was chair of the W gold council, what you're going to see at the end of this bull market is you're going to see essentially a casino type atmosphere in the gold space and mostly that's going to come out of Shanghai. — Yeah. I want to talk to you about China. I have a couple of questions planned for it. But you just mentioned

### India Demand Shock [15:17]

there briefly Pier India and it's obviously a major gold market. Uh just today Prime Minister Modi is reportedly asking citizens to avoid buying gold for a year to protect foreign exchange rates or reserves rather. I mean this is extraordinary. Does this prove your point that gold is no longer just a cultural savings asset but a national balance of payments issue? — Well for India it really is. It's their second largest purchase after oil. Okay. So, uh, Modi is on his knees. He's asking his resident. But what do you think they're going to, you know, think when your president tells you not to buy something? They're going to say, well, you know, he's going to depreciate our currency even more and it's going to have the complete total opposite effect. Okay? The demand for gold is going to go up. And in India they have a lot of backdoor to the official you know uh way for entering gold. There's a lot of it comes in through the Middle East you know on felucas and different means and uh and that's what's going to happen. So now the Iran war has caused a bit of a uh a tremor in the market because I mean between Iran and in the Middle East they are major gold purchaser gold players and that has been severely disrupted. Uh but notwithstanding that the gold market you know like maybe had a slight hiccup — uh but it's just you know like digested it and moving right on. You know, you talked about central banks picking it up and obviously a major theme driving physical demand is this relentless central bank buying, especially from the east. Uh you made an important point earlier this year, China's restricted crypto. So the Chinese investor is looking for an alternative to the Renini. Gold becomes kind of the natural outlet here. Is that one reason price discovery is migrating east faster than Western investors understand? Um I don't know whether or not uh it has anything to do with crypto to be honest with you. Well the fact is that you know crypto are banned in China. So uh if you want to diversify gold you know in terms of asset gold is a natural uh but it's been that way for hundreds of years. it's not nothing new to uh the Chinese and um so I I see that as just a natural way for you know um for gold. Um you know I remember visiting uh in Beijing there's a gold store that's like threetory high. All they sell is gold in every shape form you know from jewelry to bars to decorations to eagles to whatnot. And I asked the manager, I said like, you know, when people come here, do they buy the gold bracelet or necklace, earring, uh because it's jewelry or because it's an investment? And she goes, "No, no, they buy it because it's jewelry. " But in the back of their mind, if anything goes wrong, it becomes an investment. — Yeah. And of course, I mean, you

### Shanghai Volatility [18:29]

warned about it just there that as Shanghai becomes more important, gold could almost kind of trade with a more of a casino style mentality as you call it. Does that eastern price discovery make gold more fundamentally anchored or more volatile? — More volatile. We're seeing it in the price volatility like you know in the morning for example the gold can be up or down $100 because of Shanghai and then it the relays gets on when London get starts in the morning and then the uh and then the comx in New York and it's a battle between the three uh but you know where the majority the physical goal ends up it's Shanghai it's China and you know whoever buys that last ounce of physical gold is the one who dictates the price. — I mean, it's actually it's a good point. I mean, all of that kind of points to that bigger shift from paper exposure to the physical control, too. I mean, so it sounds like we're moving into a market where COMX and London still set maybe the screen price, but the real power sits with whoever can source and hold the physical metal itself. — Yeah. And we see that in uh in the silver space even more. And uh we saw for example that one trader on the Shanghai exchange, you know, made like half a billion dollar profit on the silver because he squeezed uh you know, like they he he cornered the market and then he dropped it and uh they're able to I wouldn't call it manipulate, but um you know uh it's let's say a very concerted effort. Okay, let's call it this way. uh the gold market is so much bigger that it's very difficult for anyone to do that. But you know if you come in and you dump 200 tons of gold in the morning uh the price will be down $100. Mhm. — You know when I was chair of the world gold council, I asked to do a study on the uh volatility of gold price visav the uh quantity and the elasticity of gold price if I say if I can say that and uh for every 100 tons of gold that is either bought or sold the gold price moves by $40 $50 a ton. Um so you can see like not a ton per 100 ton sorry. So you can see like you know uh if 200 ton that's 100 bucks for sure that volatility and that's the kind of you know volume and volatility that we're seeing today. — Mhm. Let's get back to that 1970s parallel only because I mean you you lived and invested through that great gold bull market. Um many economists are drawing parallels between that decade seglation and what we're entering today including yourself. But I mean from your perspective, how does the current macro set up kind of compared to the 70s and more importantly, what lesson should investors apply right now that they're currently ignoring?

### Mining Stocks Leverage [21:28]

— Well, the lesson is you want to own in particular uh you know, gold mining companies that have very stable uh costs. I I remember buying Free State Gadold, which was a South African underground mine in 1976 for $5 a share. — Now, you know, inflation to the 76 was raging and the price of oil went up, but this was run on electricity because it's underground and you know, you can't really dilute the grade. you can't go like open pit mining. You can, you know, like dilute your grade and increase your tonnage. You're not producing any more gold, but you for a longer time. And the stock went from $5 sold in 1980 for $105. Okay? And that's the kind of leverage that you get to gold price. So if you look at most of the miners today, they have, you know, total cost in of $15, $1,600. Well, on $4,600, that's $3,000 an ounce margin. I mean, think of like gold goes to $17,000. The margins are going to expand by a factor of five. None of that is in the stock price. None of it. Okay? And it doesn't have to go to 17,000. I mean, you know, God bless if it just goes to 7,000. You're still going to have like a more than doubling of the margins. Yeah. — So, I don't think people think of that. They, you know, like they're still too afraid that they're climbing the famous wall of worry, — but it's going to happen. — Yeah. I mean, you kind of also pointed out that before, you know, that the entire gold sector remains tiny compared to individual companies like Tesla, Nvidia. If institutions decide that they need even a small hard asset allocation right now, is there enough investable mining equity capacity to kind of absorb that capital? — Well, the point that uh I made is yeah, the gold world is a very small world. Okay. Yeah. — And if 1% of total worldwide savings wanted to go into gold, for example, gold will be well over 25,000 tomorrow morning simply because there's only 222,000 tons of gold that exists. And of that, you know, like 50,000 is in central bank's reserve. It's never going to go out. And then you've got like, you know, probably another h 100,000 that's in jewelry in bottom drawers of people. They're called heirloom that, you know, people will never consider selling. So the amount of gold that is available on a yearly basis for transaction is limited at you know 5 6,000 tons. Even if you push the price to 20,000, I don't think you could get like 10,000 ton out of the uh underground anywhere. And so it makes for, you know, a market that is quite volatile. In terms of the mining company, again, you know, you've got thousands and thousands of junior companies. — Yeah. — 90% of them will go bankrupt. Okay. They have no business plan. Okay. They're essentially uh I mean to be kind, they are as good as going to Las Vegas. Okay. They're a essentially like you know they're a uh a ticket that you know for gambling that's what they are. when you look at mining operating companies um you know including the senior the intermediate you don't have more than about 40 companies with a total market cap that's like you know far less than a Tesla or you know I mean it's like a fraction of Nvidia so it's a niche market — yeah I I'm sure you read that story out

### Majors Discipline Shift [25:38]

today I guess Bareric is kind of a perfect case study because you know the company reported stronger Q1 results uh authorized a $3 billion share buyback and is still moving towards a North American gold IPO. Is this what disciplined capital allocators look like at the top of a gold cycle or is this a signal that the majors would rather return cash and restructure than take on new mine building risk? — Well, I'll be very candid. I mean, I don't quite understand what Bareric is doing because, uh, floating 20% of something that you already own. Uh, when you own Barrack, I'm not sure that it's going to help the Barrack shareholders one way or the other. I mean, I've seen it done in the past and these, you know, uh, companies become orphans and then they end up all by getting by back. Uh, so to me, this is not evident. Uh, you know, like this move is not evident. Um now in terms of capital and discipline allocation yes this cycle has been from that perspective absolutely different from anything else that we've seen in the last 25 30 years the CEOs that are in place have been incredibly disciplined at capital allocation at acquisition you haven't seen like you know the the huge premiums and complete fiascos that we've seen in the pass and uh most companies rely on internal growth. Um they do buy projects if uh need be. Um and um you know there's been a number of mergers of equal so there's no premium paid. They understand that you know the market doesn't like that and they have been very successful and that's what we're seeing. And then the companies of you know as soon as they get cash flow they start to pay dividend and then if they have surplus cash they buy back their shares. This is something that we have never seen. I mean like I've been in the business for 50 years and this is the first time ever that I've seen buybacks in the gold space. — Yeah. I mean you're talking about management teams kind of finally learning and becoming more disciplined. What changed? I mean was it shareholder pressure? Was it the scars from the last cycle or maybe higher financing costs or is it simply the fact that investors stopped rewarding growth for growth's sake? — Jeremy, all of the above, my friend. All of the above. Okay. Like you know the CEOs that you know were responsible for the disasters have been mostly turfed out. the new, you know, crew, the younger crew have learned the lessons and uh the shareholders have been incredibly vocal about what is it that they want. They don't want growth at all costs. They want money in their pocket.

### Shareholder Returns First [28:34]

They want returns. And the CEOs have learned that if they want their share price to appreciate, they need to be responsive to their shareholders. — Yeah. is I guess you know a sharper question I could ask you too is the real bull case for mining equities not just higher gold but that this is the first cycle where management might actually let share shareholders you know keep the upside — yeah I mean exactly okay uh you know like if you're not making money at $4600 gold and you're not returning money to your shareholders you should not be in this business okay like get out of here uh you know any decent mining company, their total cash cost should be no more than $1,600 plus or minus $100. That's the what the allin, you know, all-in cost. The cash costs only probably closer to a,000 1,200 maybe. And um by the time you pay your taxes, you should have, you know, you should be very profitable and have money enough to pay dividend and to do buy back if necessary and still finance internal growth. Uh because you know most companies you look at Agnico Eagle, you look at you know we talked you mentioned Ora earlier uh you took at you look at Equinox in the middle space they you know Alamos they all have internal growth plan that are you know self-funded and they're all moving in the right direction. — Yeah. I was going to ask you, I mean, a

### Spotting Disciplined Miners [30:12]

lot of people ask me to ask somebody like you that sees deal flow. How do you separate the structurally sound kind of well-run companies from the ones that are just simply being rescued by the metal price? I mean, what's that one metric that you trust most right now to prove management is disciplined? Is it kind of that all-in sustaining cost? Is it free cash flow per share, reserve life? you know, there's not one metric that I would use because um like each mine is different in its uh operation, its cash costs and whatnot. Um, you can go from, you look at Alamos, you know, their uh their mine, their mine complex in Quebec is incredibly profitable. Uh, and uh, the company is incredibly well-run. And when you look at that, they have what I call the golden halo, okay? Like if you look at uh the share price per ounces of production, they're the highest in the business with Londinine Gold for example that has an exceptional mine in Ecuador. Uh but it's Ecuador there's some you know political risk there. — Uh but even at that they are getting the golden halo. Why? because great

### Orla’s Playbook [31:33]

management, great or body and uh disciplined capital allocation, return to shareholders. — Yeah, let's get into Ora a little bit here, Pier, because it seems to capture a lot of what you're describing. I mean, discipline growth, you know, aligned ownership, uh long life assets in a market that still may not fully price execution. I mean, what has Orla kind of done differently than other mid-tier miners should study here in this market? I mean, is it asset selection? Is it management discipline? Is it the willingness to build rather than to chase size? — Uh well, you know, Orla did buy the muscle white mine from uh pneumont back like a year and a half, two years ago. So we have done acquisition but very disciplined and uh it comes back to number one management. Okay, management is fully aligned with the major shareholders in creating growth uh but not at all costs and also minimizing dilution. Uh the bane of all gold stocks and uh you know particularly at the junior level is uh you know too many management takes their stock as um uh you know they issue it like toilet paper. Well, if you do that, guess what you get? Okay. Uh, and, uh, I, you know, personally, I've been incredibly strict about, you know, stock issue and I would rather, you know, do anything that I can, uh, not to issue stock so that the value per share goes up. I mean, that's the ultimate criteria. Are you increasing the amount of ounces per share that you have? are you increasing the you know operating earnings per share? If you're not doing that you're not doing your job and at Ora the you know Jason Simpson the CEO everybody is align on these metrics and they have been very successful doing it. We put our first mine in production for 135 million US during COVID. This mine is producing over 150 million of cash flow a year. Okay. uh it had a nine-month payback. — Um you look at Muscle White, it's going to be the same story. like, you know, a two-year payback. And this is the kind of uh of company that Orla, you know, has become. And now we're going to put our third mine into production, uh starting the construction this summer in Nevada. And to me, when you build a company, it's a bit like building a portfolio. you need a different asset. And I love the fact that Orla is going to have three mines in three different jurisdiction. Canada, US, Mexico and they're all brand new and they're all long life. And when I say brand new because muscle white essentially we're recapitalizing the mine and uh that will essentially become the brand new mine. So, and with 20 year life — and a company like that, you have to treasure it.

### Jurisdiction Risk Discounts [34:46]

— Yeah, Pierre, I mean, you brought it up there. Jurisdictional risk is becoming one of the biggest valuation gaps in mining. I mean, two companies can produce the same amounts of gold, but the market will pay different very different multiples depending on where the ounces are from. Do you think investors now value jurisdiction almost as much as grade and margin? — Uh, no. I think that um unfortunately what we see what I see is investors wait until something happens in a jurisdiction to take a discount. Uh they assume that because the mine is you know in Timbook 2 that it's going to you know keep functioning the way it has over the last 5 years. Well, in these jurisdiction where you know politics can change literally overnight um there should be a discount but unfortunately that's not what happens in reality. In reality um you know people assume that things that happened yesterday will go on to tomorrow until it changes and then god knows you know like they strike a discount.

### Canada Policy and Pensions [36:00]

— Yeah. Uh, well, I guess we could bring this back to Canada as well. I mean, you've been one of the loudest voices pushing Canadian pension funds to stop ignoring our own resource sector. You know, whether or not some of those allocations have happened, I guess, is the question. But are we finally seeing Canada kind of open for business again, or is the tone friendlier while the permitting and capital problems remain the same? — Well, the tone is definitely friendlier. Okay. Um, you know, Mr. Carney, the prime minister, and uh Tim Hutchson, the minds minister, sorry, have made it clear uh that they want to push natural resources and for good reason because they are the motor of the economy and they've been left behind by Trudeau for 10 years. — So, they are the first, you know, friendly uh people in Ottawa that our industry has had in probably 40 years. Thank God. Okay. like you know this is I find that absolutely fantastic. Now between the thought and the action uh sometimes politicians forget okay well in the case of Canada uh that is so far not the case like Mr. Carney is putting in front of uh you know parliament that he wants to cut regulation. the time to market. He wants to make sure that pipelines are going to get built and mines built. I mean terrific intention. Uh I think in terms of the pension fund uh you know the attitude has been Canada is not investable. uh you know we are worldwide and the Canadian market only represent 2% of the worldwide market. So we're going to put 2% there and then the rest is uh going to go in the US and everywhere else. To me they are derelic in their function. Uh I look at the Quebec pension fund where they have a dual mandate of return to uh shareholders but as well to uh clearly support the Canadian economy. And if you take a company like Kushtar, which is now one of the or the largest single company in the 7-Eleven space market, they would not be in Canada if it wasn't for the Quesa Depo. If you look at Bombardier, they would not be in Canada without Quesa Depo. And that's the kind of attitude that we have to have for, you know, the almost $3 trillion of the Maple 8 uh that are not in Canada. I find egregious the fact that uh the Canadian pension plan has 2% of its money invested in Canadian equities. 2% of which practically none is in the mining sector. I mean to me it's an indictment you know of these pension funds managers and uh these funds were created by politicians and therefore it's to the politicians to address that question and I've you know made it clear to both Mr. Carney and Mr. Hudson that they have to take a far more uh you know positive attitude toward the pension fund and get them invested in Canada. — Yeah. I mean, you know, the pension the pensions will say their mandate is returns, not national policy. But how do you convince them that backing Canadian mining and infrastructure is not patriotism, but a long duration kind of returndriven allocation? — Well, if you look at the pension funds that are run totally in Canada, their return is no different than the Maple 8. Okay? like you know they seem to you know imply that only by doing this diversification that uh they're uh or by being like 98% outside of Canada that they can you know produce the kind of return that they have. Um you know I I'll point out to one other thing the CPP is something like 34% invested in private equity. This is going to come and bite them in the rear end real bad at some point in time. And that some point in time may start to be now because too many private equities are not able to return money to their shareholders and they keep delaying and these are you know uh the way they mark them is they create a fiction markup and say well it's worth that. But if they were marked to market, the CPP would be losing billions and it's a proportion that's way too high and there's no oversight of that. And so and you know some of the other pension funds are nowhere near that high but if you look at Australia's pension fund the superanuation fund they only have 5% of the entire amount in uh private equity versus 34% for CPP. So like who's writer if I may say so. — Uh then you know in terms of taxes as well I think that the Canadian government's got to look at the Canadian tax system and you know make it far more encouraging for people to invest in Canada. The one thing that Australia does which I think is you know would do incredibly well in Canada is once the company has paid full taxes on the profit those profit can be distributed to the shareholders tax-free. They're called fran dividend. So it encourages people to buy, you know, stocks in Australia. Australian to buy Australian stocks because they get free dividend, — right? — Not taxable because the company has already paid taxes. In Canada, not only the company pays taxes, but when you get the dividend, you pay another 44% taxes. Like why is that? I mean, that's double taxation. Now you're paying, you know, God knows like 64 70% taxes. That's confiscation. — Yeah. Well said. And you know, you were going back to what you were talking about there. You're thinking that Canada at least it's, you know, it's in the early action. It seems to be moving in the right direction and so far it looks okay. What do you think is kind of a next concrete test? Is it permitting timelines, friendly tax as you just said? I mean, is it even comparable to the US with this narrative about strategic metals interest? Well, it's still not comparable to the US because we have far many more entrench interests in Canada. First of all, like the provinces are all their own domain. Each province has its own uh mineral jurisdiction and then the federal comes on top of that and then we have all the aboriginal claims and um you know you have to reconcile all that to get going. So, it's not anywhere near as easy as in the US or like in Nevada for example, which is probably the easiest place in the world to do business. Um, but still it can be done if for example the federal government finally goes back to reality and says okay you know the province have the jurisdiction over mining. we will essentially take, you know, uh our lead from the province. You take over the entire permitting process and we'll tag along and we'll make sure that we deliver our part which is the water and like you know some of the other stuff and uh but you know we're not going to be the one directing traffic that will cut permitting probably by half right there. — Okay. Uh and then the province are also keen to get on the act so they can also act and uh you know um diminish that permitting time in my aonomous uh you know lan curve um in the middle there you know it used to be 2 to 3 years for permitting and now it's like some anywhere from you know five to seven years and I call that the killing fields because you get killed and I made the point for example to the premier of the Yukon when I was there to give a speech not too long ago that a project worth 10 billion if it's discounted at 10% per year for 10% it's worth zero. Okay, zero. How can you finance a project like that? You can't because your company can't raise any money. So I said, if you just look at permitting and you cut it down by 50% and you make it five years, you're finally going to get and attract money in this province. And they should because they've got an incredible mineral endowment. And um so cutting permitting time is absolutely essential if you want Canada to become a really investable place on the planet. — Well said. Um, you up here, one of your

### Optionality Royalties and Copper [45:06]

ideas most associated with your career is optionality. I mean, at $4,700 gold, how should investors think about price optionality, land optionality, and I guess the difference between generational deposits and those finite one or two million ounce discoveries? — Well, you know, to use the oldest adage in the business, the best place to find a gold mine is right beside a gold mine. Okay? So when you look at the mining companies that possesses the most land and where they already have infrastructures, they're the ones who are likely to, you know, create the most wealth for the shareholders because not only they've got the they've already spent the money in terms of capex, but they've got the land. You look at barrack and four mile in Nevada. I mean that they found it right beside, you know, an or body they already own. Okay. And you know um you look at the Carlin trend I mean how many deposits have been found on the Carlin trend like Barrack Gold Strike mine 15 million ounces of gold was found right beside Newmont's uh operation and there's probably 25 deposit that were found on the same trend. So to me that's where the um the intermediate company the larger company that have big land positions are the are going to be the real winner in this cycle. You always have the junior okay who you know can um find a spot on the planet that's never been touched that you know they go there like Canada I mean we have the second largest land mass in the world. Where do you find mine on land? Okay, so we should be a powerhouse in mining. But unfortunately in the early 2000, the government of the time let all of our big mining company goes. Okay, so the Niranda went and Falcombridge and Inco and Alcan and they all went out the door. So today we're rebuilding that. The good thing is that we have all this land in the Canadian north and there's going to be like, you know, incredible discovery made, but they're not cheap. They're expensive. They take time and that's where the juniors have the ability to go because you know they can one two guys with like a you know a float plane and will it happen? It will but it's one in a thousand. — Yeah. Well said. And I mean you know of course everyone knows that you built your royalty model to kind of capture upside while avoiding many of those operational risks that hurt miners as you just talked about. I mean in this cycle should investors still prefer royalty and streaming companies over operators or the producers finally offering enough free cash flow and operating leverage to kind of compete here? — Well to me like I know a balanced portfolio would have a royalty company as well as like an intermediate to senior company so that you get the leverage and um but there's no doubt that you know there's two forms of optionality. There's price optionality. So, the gold price goes from 4,000 to 5,000. You know, you've just gone up 25%. And which company will respond the most to that? And then you have land optionality. And that's a function of the operator of the land, where it is, and the geologist. You know, how good are your geologists? And uh, you know, the one that gives you the biggest bang for the buck of course is land optionality. you know, like finding a ghost strike type deposit, you know. Oh my god. I still remember like, you know, one of the hole was a,000 ft. It was 330 m of three of 10 g gold. — Wow. — Yeah. Jesus. Um — I know. — Yeah. I don't even know what to say to that, Bear. I mean, um you know, there's a few of those around. We got to talk a little bit briefly about M& A. I know our time's going quick, but I also, you know, you you you've called copper gold deposits the best deposits in the world because copper is obviously tied to the real economy. Gold protects against that monetary stress in this world of AI power demand and these grid shortages and fiscal instability. I mean, are is that system the ideal mining asset for this cycle? Yeah, because um you know today 80% of terminal energy is uh the carbon molecule and 20% is electricity. — And as the uh world goes over the next 10 to 20 years, we have to flip that conundrum around to 80% of terminal energy being electricity and only 20% being carbon based. If we're going to reach that goal, the one critical metal that you know you need is copper. Okay? Because copper is the metal that carries electricity better than anything else that you can have. So to me, there's only one critical metal and it's copper. And when you look at the world financial architecture, the only real money is gold. So if you have a deposit that has, you know, like a 2/3 copper, one/3 gold, that's nirvana. I mean, that's the best of all world because yes, we going to end up using twice as much copper over the next 20 years than we're producing currently. — And that's why the copper price today is like $6 a pound and not, you know, $2 a pound. And it's also why gold is 46 and not, you know, a,000. — Yeah. So I love copper gold deposit. They are to me like the nirvana of like exploration. If you can find one of those, you're in high clover. — I mean, you know, does the Anglo American, you know, tech deal kind of show that investors are starting to put a strategic premium on copper and critical minerals while gold companies are still valued mainly as financial assets? Well, they the uh Tech Anglo deal made a great deal of sense because they already owned and shared some of the assets and also uh Anglo has been you know exploring all over South America and combining their forces makes you know a total amount of sense. Uh but you look at Freeport in the United States like their deposit in Indonesia is one of the greatest copper gold deposit on the planet. I mean that they're producing 2 million ounces of gold out of copper. Okay, those are the kind of those are the best gold deposit on the planet because they go for 50 to 100 years. You don't find that in a single gold mine. Okay. And so that's why I really like it as well. — Interesting. And bringing this back to the juniors quickly. I mean, if Canada lost too many major gold champions in the early 2000s, are juniors now the only real pipeline to build that base? I mean, are they exploration companies? Are they next generation, you know, mining champions? What are your thoughts? — They there's no doubt that uh you know, the junior companies that we have in Canada today are going to feed the uh the cycle for the next giant. We need to find more Sburies. um you know the new Ruan Orurada or Voys Bay and some of these will be found by junior companies. The fact is when you go back a 100 years on the record junior companies find approximately half of all new uh deposit and the operating company the other half. So do we need juniors? Yes we do. and they have a purpose and they will find you know the uh some of the these next generation deposit but the company that will build them are the companies that are already there today uh that are either some of the seniors or some of the intermediate companies that we see today. — Mhm. All right. Now, we covered lots macro picture, gold's role in the financial system, even got to Canada up here. But I mean, if let's wrap up with this. If investors are kind of watching this sector for the rest of 2026, what is one signal that kind of tells you this is no longer just a gold price move, but a full mining cycle. — Uh well, I mean I it's already a full mining cycle. Let's be clear about that. I mean like when I look at Ora for example, we started the company 11 years ago uh this month and uh at less than a dollar a share. The stock is now like around $20 a share. We've built a real company over 11 years. So it is a real mining cycle. And I'm not the only one. You look at Rosy and Equinox, he's done the same thing. You look at John McCcluskey and Alamos, he's done the same thing. All of us had the same view that there was a mining gold mining cycle in the making. We all wanted to be part of it. create very solid company and we've done it. Okay? And it's just going to get better because this cycle is far from over. So when I see people still on the sideline um you know in the gold market, I'm like what are you waiting for? This is going to get even better. Okay. So, you know, climb that wall of worry, get over it, get in there. — Yeah. Pierre, are you having fun these days uh with $4,600 gold? — Well, this week I've got so many things happening. You have no idea. But yes, I'm having so much fun. My kids are all thinking I should be retired. I said, I am. That's why I'm having so much fun. — Yeah. Amen. Don't retire. Don't retire yet. And I know that you got uh another deal coming out too. I don't think you can talk about it. So maybe this is kind of a cliffhanger for viewers. You'll come back on the program and we can talk about that. — Absolutely. Be happy to do that. Jeremy, thank you so much. — And thank you for tuning in to KCO News. Be sure to like, subscribe for more deep dive analysis of the top experts in the resource sector. I'm Jeremy Saffron. We'll see you next time. Heat.