When John Horgan’s BC NDP formed government with the help of the BC Green Party in 2017, investors in B.C.’s mining and exploration sectors may have crossed themselves and prayed they weren’t in for another “lost decade.”
That’s what some in the industry called the 1990s, when an NDP government presided over a decade-long flight of capital from B.C.’s mining and exploration sectors.
The killing of the Windy Craggy project and a promise to expand parks and protected areas to 15% from 5% helped usher in an era of declining investment in exploration, which totalled just $25 million in 1999.
It wasn’t all the NDP government’s fault, however, as there was generally a commodities “depression” in the 1980s and 1990s, followed by a super cycle, driven by China’s rapid growth, in the 2000s.
For the rest of this article: https://biv.com/article/2022/02/investment-bc-mineral-exploration-booming