British Columbia exploration rules unstable: AME

A new British Columbia consultation framework for mineral claims fails to address key industry concerns and runs the risk of scaring off investors, the provincial association of prospectors said.

BC on Thursday published the long-awaited Mineral Claims Consultation Framework (MCCF), barely a week before the expiration of a court-imposed timeline. The province’s Supreme Court found in 2023 that the existing online system for registering mineral claims didn’t meet the government’s duty to consult Indigenous people.

In the face of metals shortages and growing resource nationalism, miners in BC and elsewhere have been clamoring for clear rules to encourage prospecting. Inordinate regulatory delays will only push prospectors to look outside the province to develop new mines, industry participants say.

Implementation of new claims framework “creates instability for the mineral exploration industry,” Trish Jacques, board chair of the Association for Mineral Exploration (AME), said in a statement.

Confidentiality concern

Despite promises by BC Premier David Eby to make the permitting process more predictable, timelines in the framework are not firm and are only targets, AME says. What’s more, applicants must be named, which takes away their confidentiality and the protection of their intellectual property and means that the process cannot be guaranteed to be unbiased and objective.

“AME does not endorse the final version of the framework as there are serious issues that have not been addressed,” Jacques said. “While we have provided consistent recommendations, the government has chosen to apply a political response in some of its decision-making. This is disappointing to AME and to the members we represent.”

At a time when Canadian businesses are grappling with US tariffs and a new BC law that gives cabinet sweeping powers, the framework “risks further deterring investment in the sector,” he added. “AME strongly encourages the government to slow down and allow for the MCCF and government’s management of it to prove itself out prior to piling further change and instability on the industry.”