Mining engineering education in Nova Scotia is about to get a second life, as Saint Mary’s University (SMU) in Halifax prepares to launch a new resource engineering program to fill the gap left when Dalhousie University shuttered its program.  

Don MacNeil, director of the engineering program at SMU, told CIM Magazine in an interview that the new program will graduate “a new generation of engineers.”  

The program is meant to teach students essential technical skills as well as soft skills including project management, financial analysis, engagement with First Nations communities and an understanding of the full life cycle of a mine, from project proposal through to its closure and legacy. 

“We’re looking to produce engineers with a much more well-rounded approach —through experience, familiarity and education—to a project, as opposed to just the technical skills that might have been focused on earlier,” MacNeil said.  

SMU currently offers a two-year engineering diploma, from which point students can transfer to Dalhousie or other universities to complete two more years of study in a specialized area, such as civil or mechanical engineering. SMU’s engineering department is currently in the project proposal and development stage for its own final two-year program, with a 16-month co-op in between years, that would give students a bachelor’s degree in resource engineering.  

MacNeil said the department finalized its proposed curriculum in mid-August, which it expects to submit to the Maritime Provinces Higher Education Commission for provincial government approval in the fall, and to Engineers Canada for program accreditation in 2026. He anticipates the university could have its first cohort of third-year resource engineering students by September 2026, and its first graduates of the program by April 2028. 

Students will be able to choose a specialization in mining engineering, or a renewable energy engineering specialization that would prepare students for working on projects such as wind farms or battery development. Students in the mining stream will have technical classes, as well as full courses dedicated to project approval and First Nations engagement, the environmental impact of projects and more. MacNeil noted that other mining engineering programs sometimes cover these topics as a single “mining and society” course or as modules within other courses. 

He said the engineering school heard consistently from members of industry that they were looking for more well-rounded mining engineering graduates. “They said, ‘we don’t really need an engineer with an in-depth knowledge in any given area.’ But they did want the engineers with an appreciation for, or an understanding of, these other topics.” 

A critical moment for mining education 

The new program is coming at an ideal time. The federal and provincial governments are seeking to make Canada a critical minerals powerhouse; in Nova Scotia, the Progressive Conservative government lifted a long-time ban on uranium mining this year and also put $1 million of funding from Natural Resources Canada towards studying how the province’s critical minerals can be developed and creating a model of critical mineral potential in the province. 

At the same time, the industry is facing a looming workforce shortage. According to the Mining Industry Human Resources Council, one in every five mining workers was 55 or older in 2023. “With the rising demand for critical minerals, one thing is clear—Canada’s mining industry needs a fresh influx of talent,” the council said in its mining talent pipeline report. 

When Dalhousie shut down its program, MacNeil said it paved the way for SMU to create its own. The university had a long-standing agreement that it would not impede students from going to Dalhousie after they completed their diploma at SMU.  

“This was always an idea, and always something that we floated. And then with Dal’s suspension of their program, it basically freed up that opportunity,” MacNeil said. 

Dalhousie’s engineering school an­nounced in 2019 it would eliminate its mineral resource engineering program. The university’s final graduating class crossed the convocation stage in 2024. 

Dalhousie’s engineering school declined CIM Magazine’s request for comment. 

Dalhousie’s program dates back to the dawn of the 20th century. When the Nova Scotia Technical College opened in 1907, it started with four engineering disciplines, including mining. According to the Mining Society of Nova Scotia, the first graduating class, in 1910, consisted of two mining engineering students, and seven from other disciplines. In 1980, the college was renamed the Technical College of Nova Scotia, and in 1997 it amalgamated with Dalhousie. In total, the program graduated 1,073 mineral resource engineers over its 114-year life. 

With the closure of Dalhousie’s program, there are currently 10 mining engineering programs in Canada, and none in Atlantic Canada (there are also none in the territories). 

Don Jones, a former Dalhousie professor who is advising SMU on its curriculum development, told CIM Maga­zine that small class sizes are common for mining engineering programs; his survey of Canadian mining engineering schools, presented at the 2023 CIM Convention, found that all mining engineering schools on average did not have enough students to meet their full enrolment capacity.  

Engineers Canada also reported in 2020 that mining engineering programs had seen a 33.5 per cent decline in enrolment since 2016. 

Dalhousie’s program was among the more well-attended while it was operating, Jones said. His survey found that between 2009 and 2019, Dalhousie had an average undergraduate class size of 20.9 students. That number rose to an average 30.9-student class size when looking at the 10 years from 2010 to 2019, and to 39.5 students per class in the five-year period between 2015 to 2019. Its numbers after the closure announcement were notably smaller. 

In comparison, the three most well-attended undergraduate programs had similar class sizes. Between 2021 and 2024, the University of British Columbia graduated between 28 and 35 undergraduate mining engineers per year, Queen’s University graduated between 12 and 43 per year, and the University of Alberta graduated between 16 and 37 per year, according to Jones’ presentation. 

MacNeil said SMU could economically run the program with the same class sizes as Dalhousie had. The university is planning to draw on current lecturers from other faculties, including environmental science, geology and business, though it does plan to hire some new professors. It is also able to integrate existing courses: MacNeil estimated that about half of the courses that would fall under the mining program are already operating. 

Because the new resource engineering program will be a key focus for the department, he said he believes it will be able to attract more students than universities where mining engineering is one of many offered disciplines. MacNeil said SMU is planning to host guest speakers from the industry and have mine site field trips for first- and second-year students. “That’s going to give the exposure that we think is going to convince enough students to say, ‘this is something I want to do.’”