Mining for ideas to simplify a complex process

Designing better services for people can mean a lot of things; making them easier to use and understand, more secure, faster, and reliable. This work  involves taking confusing processes and making them easier to navigate. We can do this by removing unnecessary steps or streamlining the number of applications to submit. But, what if the service is governed by multiple departments, jurisdictions, and strict regulations?

Since 2020, the CanmetMINING team at Natural Resources Canada (NRCan) has been working to simplify a complex service delivery problem. In Canada, the process for opening a mine requires several applications for permits to ensure all mining operations meet the regulations and requirements set in place by the federal government and other jurisdictions. These regulations and the legislation that governs mining are critical to protecting the environment, ensuring the safety of workers, and promoting transparency. Accordingly, these are not steps that can be skipped or removed from the process. That is why the team at NRCan is exploring how digital tools could be used to provide greater clarity to people looking to navigate the process. 

We sat down with Connie, Julie, and Michelle from the CanmetMINING team to chat about the work they’re doing, the lessons they’ve learned, and how the approach could be applied to other service delivery programs across the GC. 

Can you tell us about who you are and what your team is working on?

Our team of 3 is made up of engineering, chemistry, and geology specialists. Our challenge is supporting the mining industry to get to productivity sooner, while complying with all the necessary permitting, regulatory, and legislative requirements. In Canada, federal regulations and legislation oversee all activities associated with opening and operating a mine and provincial and territorial regulations and legislation govern all activities associated with the act of mining (what will be mined, in what quantities, with what equipment, etc).

On the federal side, navigating the regulatory landscape and permit process can be confusing, so our team launched the Streamlining to Improve Mine Permitting by Leveraging Expertise and Resources (SIMPLER) Project. The team is working closely with people in the mining industry and regulators to make the process easier to understand by sharing data and expertise to reduce time and complexity while increasing compliance.  

How did you learn about the challenges regulators and people working in the mining industry were facing?

We helped organize the Digital Streamlining Solutions working group made up of regulators from across the federal government. In 2022, we worked with the Canadian Digital Service (CDS) to facilitate sessions with the working group to explore different ways we could simplify the permitting process. We learned about how regulators process applications and the data they collect.

We also spoke directly with members of the mining industry. Our team conducted surveys and interviews to better understand their challenges, and where improvements are needed. We heard loud and clear that the current process is confusing, and people in the industry have trouble identifying what applications and permits are needed to ensure all regulations and requirements are met.

After these sessions, we identified the need to provide guidance to clarify what permits and applications are needed. The proposed solution: a mine permit navigation tool. 

What is the mining application tool, and how have you adopted a user-centric approach to its development? 

We’re working on an online mining application tool. It would allow anyone to enter in the specific details of a proposed mining project (type of mine, construction requirements, ecosystems, quantity mined, etc), and receive tailored guidance on the permits, applications, and impact assessments that will be required to open the mine. The tool will also provide a general timeline for the process, based on information provided by regulators across government. Basically, we’re building a digital sign post to help people navigate the federal process for opening a mine in Canada. 

So far, we have built a wire frame (mockup) of the user interface using Figma – a collaborative web application for designing digital products. Through outreach and engagement sessions, we contacted people from the mining industry to test the wire frame. We took the feedback from these sessions and iterated on the interface to improve understanding and ease of use.

We’ve also been working with regulators to ensure the information the tool provides is accurate and useful for the people using it. The challenge is that the regulatory landscape in mining is very complex. In addition, regulations can change or be updated, meaning the tool runs the risk of having outdated information. To address this, we’re working with colleagues at the Canada School of Public Service (CSPS) on a ‘rules as code’ pilot project. 

What do you mean by ‘rules as code’? Can you tell us a bit more about your partnership with the CSPS? 

‘Rules as code’ refers to the process of translating rules, such as legislation, policies, standards, or regulations into machine-readable code. One way to think about ‘rules as code’  is the software you use to file your taxes. For these tax applications to work, a subject matter expert takes the tax forms and converts them into code. The software guides users through the process to file a tax return. This type of software allows for anyone to quickly and easily file a compliant tax return, even if they are not a tax expert themselves. A ‘rules as code’ approach would be to have the tax laws themselves converted into code, so they could be plugged into any software (via an API) to ensure compliant, accurate tax returns for users.  

We’ve been working with a small team of technologists and lawyers at CSPS’s Public Sector Experimentation team to explore options for the mining application tool. They are using open source web-based  tools, like Blawx, to translate complex regulations and standards into code. Although experts are still needed to interpret and update rules and to code them, this translation would only need to happen once. Any tool connected to this backend would have access to updated information.

Learn more about ‘rules as code’ in the public sector

The CSPS has been working with partners across the federal government to develop rules that are machine consumable. Here are a couple helpful videos that explain the concept, based on learning from their initial pilot projects:

• ​​Part 1: Rules as code (Part 1- CSPS)
• Part 2: Rules as code (Part 2- CSPS) 

The CSPS in collaboration with the Community of Federal Regulators, the Labour Program and the Department of Justice are making rules that are machine consumable. The CSPS’s Public Sector Experimentation team hopes to work with regulators and legislators across the federal government in the use of rules as code to ensure policies, legislation, standards, and regulations are easier to understand, interpret and apply. To learn more about the work this team is doing, or to discuss how rules as code might be applied to your service delivery program, reach out to incubate-incuber@csps-efpc.gc.ca.

What’s next for you and the team? 

We are going to continue to test and iterate with the mining  industry and regulators. Our rules as code experiment with CSPS wraps up in March 2024, and the first set of rules was coded in September 2023. We’ll refine based on our learnings, and test the tool to ensure its outputs are accurate.

Thanks so much Connie, Julie, and Michelle! The work your team is doing really illustrates what can be accomplished when you keep your user’s needs at the centre of your work, collaborate widely, and experiment with new tools to solve old problems. The ‘rules as code’ experiment presents a lot of opportunities for other teams across the GC looking to make complex processes easier to navigate and understand. We’d love to hear more from you as the project develops, and will share an update as the tool advances. 

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