Mineral Tenure Act Modernization in light of DRIPA

The Mineral Tenure Act’s 150-year-old free-entry regime remains a key tool of colonization. BC needs a modernized Act to ensure mining claims respect Indigenous title and rights, avoid growing land use conflicts, and improve certainty. Our laws should place common-sense restrictions on where mineral claims and exploration activities are allowed and require Indigenous and private landowner consent. Rather than an automatic right to a long-term mining lease, mineral claim-holders should undergo environmental review with meaningful public participation and secure Indigenous consent. This would stem the flow of millions of taxpayers’ dollars in compensation to claim-holders to meet conservation and reconciliation imperatives.

As much of the world looks towards renewable energy in the face of rapid climate change, the demand for key minerals is projected to skyrocket 30- to 800-fold by 2050. British Columbia can play a key role in sourcing many of these minerals, but without changes to current mining laws we are simply “trading fossil fuel extraction for mineral extraction” and accelerating the mining sector’s collision course with conservation goals and Indigenous self-determination.

Mineral tenure reform has been a simmering issue for decades in BC, periodically erupting in controversies over particular mining proposals in locations that are inappropriate for environmental, cultural, health or safety reasons. Whether it is the Flathead River Valley, Clayoquot Sound, Fish Lake, the Sacred Headwaters, Ajax mine or others, mineral claims and the free entry system are increasingly understood as the root cause of costly and protracted mining conflicts. Further conflict is on the horizon when we consider that 2020 Mineral staking maps of BC show: 

  • 47% of Iskut watershed is staked,

  • 22% of Bulkley River area is staked,

  • Mining claims along most of Fraser River from Hope to Lillooet,

  • Mine claims staked within the boundaries of Kamloops.

Most recently, mineral tenures played a role in preventing provincial support for Indigenous Protected and Conserved Areas (IPCAs). In many areas of the province today it has become apparent that mineral claims, and the statutory requirement to compensate claimholders for removing those claims, are among the most potent barriers to Indigenous-led conservation efforts.

B.C. remains one of the last main mining jurisdictions in Canada to modernize its “free entry” law. The key changes needed include: 

  • Align the act with BC’s new Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples Act, in particular the requirement for free, prior and informed consent; 

  • respect planning designations and other “no-go” zones; 

  • require landowner consent on freehold property; 

  • Provide stronger legal tools to revoke existing tenures that are incompatible with the public interest; and

  • rather than the current system of automatic online mineral claim registration, enable decision makers to determine whether to grant tenures based on public interest factors. 

Adopting a modern, more discretionary mineral tenure regime along these lines would better enable BC to claim that its mining sector truly does meet global expectations for a modern mining jurisdiction that upholds Indigenous title and rights and respects community interests. It would also serve to reduce conflicts over poorly-sited projects that damage the reputation of the whole sector. Only then can BC be a preferred supplier of the minerals needed to build the clean energy economy of the future.