Month

As the BC mining industry’s Roundup 2013 conference winds down national and regional NGOs are emphatically calling for substantial reforms to the rules the industry operates under. While communications from the industry have focussed on the growth in exploration activity and spun... Read More →

In September 2011, Premier Christy Clark put $24 million toward accelerating B.C.’s mining-permit process. More than a year later, free-entry mineral staking continues to cost investors, the public and indigenous peoples time and money. How about putting some of that $24 million... Read More →

What will it take to build a vibrant, thriving mining sector in B.C.? Decades of experience suggest that only when B.C.’s “gold rush”-era mining laws are modernized will companies secure the social licence they need to successfully develop new mines in the province. In December,... Read More →

British Columbia is moving applications for natural resource permits online, as Premier Christy Clark attempts to bolster her economic credentials ahead of this May’s provincial election. Clark has spent the past year talking up her jobs plan, which includes a goal to see... Read More →

OTTAWA – The Conference Board of Canada has taken a close look and said that mining employment and production in Canada’s north can almost double by the end of this decade. The Board sees Canada’s overall northern metal and non-metallic mineral output growing by 91%... Read More →

The Supreme Court of Canada agreed Thursday to hear a key case that’s at the centre the decades-long legal fight over aboriginal claims to vast parts of British Columbia. The case involves the claim by the Tsilhqot’in First Nation to 4,380 square kilometres of... Read More →

January 24, 2013, Tsilhqot’in Nation Territory – The Supreme Court of Canada announced today that it will hear the Tsilhqot’in Nation’s landmark Aboriginal title claim, a decision welcomed by the Tsilhqot’in Nation and its members. “We are truly grateful for the many Tsilhqot’in... Read More →

A B.C. First Nation has launched a lawsuit in an attempt to stop a struggling, but potentially lucrative, mine in the northwest corner of the province. The Taku River Tlingit has filed a notice in B.C. Supreme Court, alleging the Tulsequah Chief Mine project must be stopped... Read More →

The Yukon government has released its final plan for the Peel watershed under threat of legal action from First Nations. As of today, 71 per cent of the watershed is open to new staking. The area has been under a staking ban for almost four years. It’s a far cry from the plan... Read More →

The arrival of 2013 should leave little doubt anywhere in Canada that most resource development in the country impacts on aboriginal lands and territories—and that the old way of doing business is dead. What is perhaps not quite so clear is that the federal government is not... Read More →

On December 27, 2012, the Yukon Court of Appeal (YKCA) released its reasons in Ross River Dena Council v. Government of Yukon.1 The YKCA allowed the Ross River Dena Council’s (RRDC) appeal and modified the declarations granted by Veale J. of the Supreme Court.2 The decision is... Read More →

The mining industry in BC is built upon the free entry system of mineral claim staking. The future of this regime is now very much in question because of a Court of Appeal for Yukon decision at the end of December. The Ross River Dena Council (RRDC), who have not signed a treaty... Read More →