BC policies hurt investment

Over the past 25 years, Teck has developed, or participated in developing, more than a dozen mines in Canada, including five in British Columbia. However, the company’s next four mining operations under development are all outside Canada — in Alaska, Australia, Mexico and Peru.

Teck has watched the downfall of the mineral exploration community in British Columbia since 1992. One of the main reasons for the demise of the industry and the plummeting decrease in exploration expenditures has been the proliferation of land-use planning processes. Initiatives such as Parks ’90, the Commission on Resources and the Environment, and Land and Resources Management Plans (LRMPs) have had a negative impact on the entire industry by restricting access and imposing unworkable management regulations on everyone from individual prospectors to major companies with multi-million-dollar investments in local communities. What is potentially the final nail in the coffin is the current trend of government to consider and implement land use policies largely conceived and propagated by special interest groups, many of which have ties to larger organizations well-removed from local communities. In reality, there is no true consensus among stakeholders at many of the land-use processes regarding acceptable guidelines and recommendations. As opposed to resolving issues locally, many special interest groups have taken their representation directly to the provincial legislature in Victoria.

Teck’s spending on exploration in B.C. prior to 1992 was about $3.5 million per year. That translates into an infusion of roughly $10,000 every day into the provincial economy, with most of it supporting local businesses in small communities outside the lower mainland. In the past five years, annual expenditures have been less than $1 million, hitting a low of $500,000 in 1999, and they are projected at $300,000 for this year. Hence, we now put less than $1,000 a day into the provincial economy. One of the main reasons for the ten-fold decrease in investment is the corresponding increase in land use management policies.

The most recent disturbing plan coming out of the government’s misguided public land-use planning process is the Mackenzie LRMP. Over the past decade, Teck has spent several million dollars on exploration in this mineral-rich, northeastern part of the province. The area has tremendous mineral wealth and, in better economic times, would be a strong contributor to the provincial economy. Certain parties within the Mackenzie LRMP now want to alienate, restrict access to, or impose vague management guidelines on an area three quarters the size of Vancouver Island. By doing so, they will effectively take the potential economic benefits of future mineral exploration away from the people of the province.

Another result of the flawed land-use process is that the original goal of setting aside 12% of the land base for “bio-diversity” has been exceeded in virtually every jurisdiction. In many cases, bio-diversity is no longer even mentioned as a concern for setting aside huge areas of potentially valuable land.

The people of B.C. are losing out, not only on their right to jobs and income from the resource sector but also on their right to professional management of public resources by government.

The men and women who work for Teck want to live and work in B.C., and they believe that the land-use process and government policy must be changed. Land zoning should not be at the whim of one or two stakeholders representing a minority or even one sector. Teck is not opposed to land-use management per se, only its poor application by the present government. The company has experience with systems that work in other parts of the world and is developing and operating new projects in these places. The New Democratic Party government of B.C. should take back that which was surrendered and keep their fiduciary duty to the public.

Land use is only one of several issues affecting the mining industry in B.C. Government policies on land use, native title, the environment, expropriation, and taxation are all major components of the investment equation. It will take a sustained period under new, more enlightened policies before industries of the world wake up to the realization that B.C. may once again be open for business.

— The author is vice-president of exploration for Vancouver-based Teck. The preceding was originally published as a letter to the editor in the Vancouver Sun.