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The upcoming election provides a clear opportunity for the various parties and their candidates to make clear their commitments to all sectors of the economy. Mineral exploration is the first step in building mines and securing Canada’s future. Our industry saw record spending of $752M last year, with 87% of that staying in the province. These are jobs not only in rural and remote BC, but in downtown Vancouver and the suburbs of Metro Vancouver. With the recent trade war between the United States and Canada, natural resources are a clear strength for our country, and a successful mineral exploration industry should be a stated goal of all parties running in the upcoming election.
We encourage you as AME members to participate in the electoral process:
- Show up to all-candidates meetings and ask questions about mineral exploration;
- Support candidates that support mineral exploration;
- Make sure you vote at advance polls October 16 to 21, or on election day October 24.
Through several years of member engagement, our team has come up with simple platform criteria. Parties that wish to support a strong and competitive mineral exploration sector should put forward policy in their platforms that:
- Enable Competitive Tax Environment – Maintaining a competitive tax environment is critical to supporting a healthy mineral exploration industry in our province. Refraining from tax increases to areas of the industry should be avoided. AME sees the targeted expansion of the Canadian Exploration Expenses (CEE) to include engineering and feasibility to help projects bridge the gap between exploration and development as critical policy change. Furthermore, existing tax credits like the METC support investment and are our competitive advantage and should be renewed for the long-term or expanded.
- Maintain Access to Land – Mineral exploration requires significant land to explore. Any restriction to where members can explore is seen as unhelpful. We feel that efforts should be made to open up land and clarify where exploration can take place and that if initiatives like 30×30 continue, government look at the low-hanging fruit of areas that already have significant conservation measures rather than seeking to shut down areas that have mineral potential, or existing tenure. Likewise, Land Use Planning should seek to enable exploration instead of shutting it down. Policy initiatives should also enable access to lands and work to ensure Forest Service Roads (FSR) and other access is maintained.
- Establish Certainty – AME has recommended reforms to the Declaration of Rights of Indigenous Peoples Act (DRIPA) and the Interpretation Act, to ensure the legislation is brought back to its intended meaning. A commitment to reform this legislation and chart a course for reconciliation must be central to any platform. AME has also worked hard to create fixed permitting timelines that are competitive with other jurisdictions and consistently met should be a priority of the next government.
Sincerely,
Todd Stone
President & CEO
Association for Mineral Exploration (AME)