While many business leaders in the resources sector are exercised over the threats of American tariffs on Canadian exports, a policy creating even greater angst for prospectors and junior miners in B.C. is a domestic one – revisions to the B.C. Mineral Tenure Act – a hot topic at this week’s annual Association of Mineral Exploration (AME) Roundup conference.
Revisions to the “free entry” claim staking process in B.C. are to be implemented in March, and there are fears that it will put a major chill on investment in mineral exploration in B.C.
Under the revised act, prospectors will no longer be able to stake claims in secret. First Nations with rights and titles claims to the area in which claims are filed will have to be notified.
Prospectors say this is akin to making proprietary information public, and will deter them from staking claims in B.C.
“I'm very, very concerned about what is going to happen now with the Mineral Tenures Act,” B.C. Conservative Leader John Rustad said at a morning session at Monday's Roundup. “It has the potential to significantly impact exploration in British Columbia.”
According to data provided Monday morning by the B.C. Geological Survey, claim activity areas were slightly larger in 2024, compared to 2023, but investment in exploration was down.
Gordon Clarke, director for the BC Mineral Development Office and BC Geological Survey, said the production value from B.C. mines in 2024 was $16.5 billion. Lower steelmaking coal prices in 2024 were offset by higher gold and copper prices, Clarke said.
Exploration investment of $552 million in 2024 was down 14 per cent compared to 2023 ($643 million), Clarke said. Notably, there was a 15 per cent drop in drilling – a key metric for exploration.
Uncertainty over new rules coming for claim staking under a revised Mineral Tenure Act is expected to result in a decline in early stake prospecting, as well as exploration.
“While we do not yet have updated mineral claim staking statistics, we expect to see a corresponding drop in activity in 2024,” said AME CEO Keerit Jutla. “This could, in turn, lead to less mineral exploration activity."
Changes to the Mineral Tenure Act were made in response to a court ruling, which found the process for staking claims violates the right of First Nations to be consulted on resource activities in territories where they assert aboriginal rights and title.
The new policies on claim staking will oblige the government to notify First Nations of any claims being staked in their traditional territories.
After a small gold mining operation on Banks Island was shut down several years ago for multiple permitting violations, the Gitxaała Nation launched a legal challenge. They asked the courts to quash several mineral claims on Banks Island, and to change the “free entry” claim staking process.
The court declined to nullify existing claims, but did find that the current claim-staking process was a violation of the Crown’s duty to consult, since claims can be staked without anyone’s knowledge. The NDP government did not appeal the ruling, and embarked on a process to revise the Mineral Tenure Act, with the changes coming into effect in March.
Meanwhile, the Gixtaala are appealing the court ruling to the BC Court of Appeal. The appeal is being heard this week.
The Gitxaala are seeking a declaration from the courts that B.C.’s Mineral Tenure Act regime is a violation of the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples Act (DRIPA).
While the exploration sector says the new claims-staking process under a revised Mineral Tenure Act goes too far, the Gitxaala say it does not go far enough, characterizing it as “no more than a glorified ‘referral’ process.”
Rustad said DRIPA is driving policy shifts, like the recent Mineral Tenure Act revisions, that are creating too much uncertainty in B.C.
While he said the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous People (UNDRIP) is a good guide, DRIPA goes too far, and reiterated that, should the Conservatives ever form government, it would be repealed, along with the changes to the Mineral Tenure Act.
“UNDRIP is a good guiding principle, something that government needs to work with, with First Nations and relationships,” Rustad said. “But the DRIPA legislation…creates way too much uncertainty and problems on the landscape.”
To address uncertainties over aboriginal rights and title, Rustad said a Conservative government would focus on resolving outstanding aboriginal title questions.
