Government process adds months of consultation to process after 2023 court decision
VICTORIA — The NDP government’s new policy of consulting First Nations before registering mineral claims threatens the survival of the mining industry, says the Association for Mineral Exploration. The association issued the warning in a letter to Mines Minister Jagrup Brar as the province prepares to implement the new court-ordered consultation framework on March 26.
“The association and its board do not endorse the current mineral claims consultation framework,” association chair Trish Jacques wrote last week. “This is an existential crisis for our industry and has the potential to materially harm our members.
“The framework will negatively impact our members’ ability to stake claims in a timely and commercially viable manner,” she continued, citing the feedback from a recent survey of the AME’s membership of 5,000 operators, large and small. The key change in the consultation framework, responding to a 2023 B.C. Supreme Court decision, would end the long-standing practice whereby claims were automatically registered, and thus recognized, upon filing.
For the rest of this column: https://vancouversun.com/opinion/columnists/new-claim-staking-process-an-existential-threat-to-mining-in-bc