Companies can now perform non-systematic drilling during the early exploration phase of their mining concessions and without requiring an environmental license.
Study released Tuesday by the Fraser Institute, British Columbia, Ontario and Quebec are the three main provinces where exploration permit processes have grown longer and less transparent over the past 10 years.
From the $939bn invested in major projects between 2008 and 2017, the world’s top 40 mining companies by market cap. wrote-off $273bn or 29% of the initial capital outlay.