Premier David Eby is pitching British Columbia’s mining sector as an economic and strategic pillar in a more unsettled world, while promising tighter timelines for early stage exploration permits and signalling a willingness to revisit parts of the province’s reconciliation framework.
“It’s clear we’re moving into a more transactional time, and that reality has huge implications for the mining sector,” Eby told the Association for Mineral Exploration’s AME Roundup conference in Vancouver.
Guaranteed timelines
Eby said the province will move to guaranteed timelines for exploration permitting beginning April 1, as B.C. tries to turn strong global demand for critical minerals into investment and jobs.
“Starting April 1 exploration permits in British Columbia will move within clear and fixed timelines between 40 to 140 days, depending on complexity, and we will back it up with $3 million in additional funding,” he said.
The province is set to guarantee permit timelines of 40 to 140 days, depending on project complexity, and will provide $3 million to help meet the targets. B.C. also signed a memorandum of understanding on Jan. 25 with Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba, Yukon, the Northwest Territories and Nunavut aimed at expediting development, strengthening supply chains and diversifying trading partners.
The province’s $3 million includes $1 million for extra staff to support fixed permitting timelines, with another $2 million going to the Mineral Claims Consultation Framework, which began last March. Eby pointed to record spending to argue B.C. is gaining momentum.
“2025 BC saw mineral exploration expenditures totaling an estimated historic high of $750.9 million more than ever before in our province. This is a 36 per cent increase over last year,” he said.
Adjusted for inflation it represents the fourth highest level since 1990.
A tale of two sectors
Still, industry representatives say the early stage system is not keeping pace with renewed interest. The consultation framework has struggled to meet its service timeline of 90 to 120 days and is averaging 127 days, while ministry information showed mineral claims staking fell 29 per cent and the area of claims staked fell 60 per cent against the seven year average.
AME chief executive Todd Stone described “two stories” in the sector, with momentum around advanced projects, but prospectors and junior companies struggling, and he warned that without grassroots prospecting, “there will be no mines” coming behind the projects now nearing the finish line.
Reconciliation and property rights
Eby’s remarks also leaned heavily on partnerships with First Nations as the central route to faster approvals and durable projects.
“The only path forward to certainty for major projects is through partnership and cooperation with First Nations,” he said.
The Mining Association of Canada (MABC) has urged faster permitting and policy changes to keep investment from drifting to competing jurisdictions. The group said mining contributed $117 billion to Canada’s GDP last year and supports more than 700,000 direct and indirect jobs.
Other voices have cautioned that the design of federal tax credits can miss copper projects because deposits rarely meet a 90 per cent threshold for eligible minerals, and that Ottawa’s pledged move to a 50 per cent threshold has not yet been enacted.
Eby also struck a careful note on legal certainty, after the Vancouver Sun reported AME has pressed for amendments to B.C.’s Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples Act (DRIPA), following a Court of Appeal decision last fall that overturned the province’s mineral claims regime. The province has said it will appeal.
“The second bright line is around private property, people’s homes and businesses. They cannot be chips in discussion on reconciliation… be assured that we are showing up in court. We are arguing for private property rights,” Eby said.
Not everyone is satisfied with speeding approvals, with some First Nations and environmental watchdogs warning that fast tracking could trample constitutionally protected rights and increase environmental risks, as the province seeks to build a pipeline of mining investments.
National security mandate
Eby framed the stakes as extending beyond B.C. He cited conversations with Indian executives and linked mining to broader energy security, calling it “a national security mandate and affordability mandate” for key trading partners, as demand for minerals rises in tandem with electrification and data centre growth.
The International Energy Agency has projected that demand for critical minerals used in clean energy technology could be more than 3.4 times current levels by 2040.
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