For most people, Toronto's financial district is the place where Canada's big banks make their money. That's true to a certain degree, but it tends to overlook one of the primary sources of all that money: mining.

The Faculty of Law at the University of Western Ontario has taken note, so it's setting up a program in which students can obtain both a graduate degree in geology and a law degree.

Ian Holloway, dean of Western's law school, told me about the program after I bumped into him at the Prospectors and Developers Association of Canada convention this week in Toronto. "Something like 60% of the world's financing deals in mining are still done in Toronto. And all of those deals need lawyers. So there's a huge shortage of a very specialized legal skill set."