WHITEHORSE – The results are in from the Fraser Institute Annual Survey of Mining Companies, and it is bad news for the Yukon Liberal government.

“The survey results confirm the alarms we have been hearing from the Yukon’s mining industry,” said Scott Kent, Official Opposition Mining Critic. “This Liberal government’s failure to heed industry’s concerns on permitting problems has now been broadcasted to global investors just in time for next week’s PDAC conference.”

PDAC, the Prospectors and Developers Association of Canada, is the world’s premier mineral exploration and mining convention which takes place each March in Toronto, and the Fraser Institute is an independent Canadian public policy research organization whose 2019 survey of mining companies was sent to approximately 2,400 mining-related companies around the world.

“The territory’s ranking has plummeted from 9th to 23rd on the Investment Attractiveness Index,” added Kent. “The Yukon is not just out of the top ten jurisdictions anymore, it’s not even in the top 20 and this is very concerning as Yukon tries to convince companies to invest.”

The Yukon also dropped from 24th to 32nd on the Policy Perception Index, with almost 43 per cent of respondents stating that they have low confidence they will eventually be granted the necessary permits.

The survey results further demonstrate that Yukon mining companies are concerned over changes in the time it takes to approve permits, with over 57 per cent of respondents reporting it has lengthened considerably over the last 10 years, and 100 percent reporting that transparency in the exploration permit process was a deterrent to investment.

“To put things in perspective, when assessing Uncertainty Concerning Environmental Regulations, the survey ranked the Yukon below Mexico and only slightly higher than the Democratic Republic of Congo,” continued Kent. “The Yukon should be a first-class investment destination, so it is well past time the Liberals lived up to their three-year-old commitment to industry, develop a collaborative framework to address issues of timelines and reassessment, and return certainty to our primary private sector employer.”

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Contact:
Madison Pearson
Communications
(867) 393-7026