Two recent events have revealed the enormous consequences when dubious sampling protocols are used or the integrity of laboratory staff is compromised. The Bre-X gold mining fiasco in Indonesia and the wrongful conviction of Guy Paul Morin in Ontario are currently dominating the headlines; both shed new light on the role of analytical and assay laboratories.

The irony is that while you need a licence to run a hotdog stand or a hair salon, professional chemists are unlicenced in all provinces except Quebec.

Bre-X stock soared like a rocket after laboratory and assay results suggested huge gold reserves at the Busang mining site in Indonesia. Investors initially saw their stock values skyrocket in a matter of weeks, only to crash on the trading floors when doubts were shed on the core sampling techniques. Bre-X stock was later delisted by the Toronto Stock Exchange after billions were lost by investors.

The list of institutions burned by the Bre-X fiasco reads like a corporate Who's Who. They should have focussed on the quality of core sampling protocols and laboratory analyses, rather than stock analysis. Canada, as the leading mining nation in the world, is already feeling the consequences as Bre-X has contaminated investor confidence in our legitimate mining operations.

Much more tragic than the Bre-X fiasco was the wrongful conviction of Guy Paul Morin for the murder of Christine Jessop. Having first been acquitted on a charge of murdering this nine year old girl, he was later found guilty in a second trial where forensic laboratory evidence played a large part in his conviction and jailing.

Just four days before his appeal was to be heard, new evidence in the form of DNA testing led to his acquittal of the charges. He was awarded compensation in excess of one million dollars and a public enquiry was ordered. Costly as it undoubtedly is, this enquiry is clearly a good investment for Canadian justice. Christine Jessop's murderer is still at large while millions were diverted towards convicting the wrong man.

For Guy Paul Morin, relief came only after he had spent time in jail, faced financial ruin and endured more than a decade of anguish before and after the trials.

It is appalling to think what he must have gone through after his first acquittal in 1986 and the 1992 retrial which led to his conviction. His ordeals and frustrations still continued ten years later as an enquiry unfolded an unbelievable string of sloppy police procedures and disgraceful laboratory work which led to his jail term.

But while it was analytical science which acquitted this unjustly convicted man, the subsequent enquiry ironically became a startling indictment of Ontario's Centre for Forensic Sciences, often claimed to be Canada's foremost forensic laboratory. Evidence at the enquiry has revealed a virtual litany of undisclosed scientific data and contaminated or even lost evidence, including the inexplicable disappearance of hundreds of slides of microscopic fibres between the first trial and the second. Evidence of fibre contamination which could be observed by the naked eye was suppressed at the trial. Critical comments from bench technicians were ignored by senior Centre staff.

The Ontario Centre for Forensic Sciences, its reputation now in tatters, gives a new focus on government-run institutions. The Centre was supposed to be completely impartial in its work and it did not charge police for any of its services or analyses.

To paraphrase the second law of thermodynamics, it turns out that there really was no free lunch. The Guy Paul Morin case has already cost untold millions and you can bet your gas chromatograph that many inmates, convicted on the Centre's evidence, are already in consultation with their lawyers with a view to appealing their convictions.

I predict that this dubious forensic laboratory work will cost even more millions in the future.

Which brings us back to the environment industry where price, not quality of data, has traditionally driven the laboratory industry ­ driven some into the ground perhaps, for the casualty rate has been high in the analytical industry, which should have boomed in this era of environmental concerns.

It has always amazed me that real estate developers and lenders, seeking soil analyses for projects which will ultimately be worth millions, have a low bid mind-set when it comes to purchasing laboratory services.

The price differential between labs with superlative staff and equipment and those with mediocre capabilities is often not very great. Moreover, the cost of laboratory analyses is mere petty cash compared to the overall construction cost of most projects.

And more than just money is at stake. Some industrial operators have been heavily fined or gone to jail for not practising due diligence in environmental compliance cases where analyses often play a key role.

Good laboratories have expensive state-of-the-art equipment which needs highly trained technical staff to conduct analyses and interpret data, which can then be used with confidence in siting projects or as a defense in environmental law cases.

Sampling data and chain-of-custody protocols require highly trained analytical staff whose integrity can be relied on in courts of law. To those shopping around for bargain basement prices, it might be wise to recall that there are no free lunches. Go for quality, not price ­ then sleep at night.