The British Columbia Energy, Mines and Petroleum Resources Ministry is putting additional resources into its two mining divisions to improve safety for workers, while encouraging investment and job creation with a more efficient approval process.
Energy, Mines and Petroleum Resources Minister Michelle Mungall announced this week that the Mines Health, Safety and Enforcement division would include a greater number of mines inspectors and a new auditing function to increase industry safety. The division’s priorities would be focused on health, safety, compliance management and enforcement activities. A new compliance auditing and effectiveness monitoring team within the division would function as an independent oversight unit.
The Mines Competitiveness and Authorizations division would promote increased investment in British Columbia's mining sector through an improved and properly resourced approvals process. This should help position the province as an attractive jurisdiction for investment.
“We are putting additional resources in place to enable more frequent inspections and upping enforcement to keep mines safe, for workers and for our environment,” said Mungall. “At the same time, we have a more efficient and predictable permit approval process, to encourage investment and get new projects built without unnecessary delays.”
The province is investing C$20-million over three years to support these changes, which help foster a healthy, thriving and responsible mining sector. The Ministry is creating 30 additional positions in 2019/20 in the two new divisions, with up to 35 additional positions added next year and the year after.
The two new divisions support the BC Mining Jobs Task Force’s recommendation that government should improve industry safety and oversight by providing the Ministry with additional resources over the next three years to ensure continuing mining regulatory excellence and increased efficiency.
The Mining Association of BC responded that it had continually advocated for an “adequately resourced” system and welcomed the government’s commitment to address some of the competitiveness challenges facing the mining industry.