British Columbia is trying to turn one of its mining industry’s biggest complaints into a competitive advantage.
After years of industry pressure over lengthy approvals, new consultation requirements, and uncertainty around access to mineral tenure, the province is now emphasizing speed. Six months after introducing fixed deadlines for mineral-exploration permits, BC says every application covered by the system has remained within its target timeline.
It is a marked change in emphasis for a province where exploration permits averaged 145 days in 2024, excluding delays attributable to applicants. Beginning in April 2026, BC replaced open-ended processing with targets of 40, 90, or 140 days, depending on project complexity.
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The first two permits issued under the system came in substantially below their deadlines. Thesis Gold & Silver’s Ranch East project carried a 90-day target, while MGX Minerals’ Fran project was assigned 140 days. Both were approved in less than 70 days.
Northisle Copper and Gold’s North Island exploration program was permitted in less than three months, while Korestar Exploration’s Aspen project took less than two months, according to the province.
The push follows several years in which permitting speed became a recurring industry complaint.
Government figures show average exploration-permit turnaround reached 145 days in 2024. In testimony before a legislative committee in June 2025, the Association for Mineral Exploration said roughly 130 Notices of Work remained in the permitting pipeline and cited an average processing time of about 144 days.
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Another source of tension arrived in March 2025, when BC replaced automatic mineral-claim registration with an application and First Nations consultation process.
The change followed the BC Supreme Court’s 2023 Gitxaała ruling, which found that allowing mineral claims to be automatically registered without prior consultation breached the Crown’s constitutional duty to consult. The court gave the province 18 months to establish a compliant process.
Industry groups nevertheless objected to how the new Mineral Claims Consultation Framework was implemented. By March 2026, AME said the median wait for a mineral-claim decision had climbed to 143 days, above the province’s 90-to-120-day service standard. Only 14.8% of applications were being processed within 120 days when outstanding applications were included, according to the group’s analysis.
The relationship remained contentious into this summer. In June, AME criticized BC’s extension of mineral-staking restrictions in parts of northwestern BC, describing the use of Environmental Land Use Act orders as “draconian.”
Against that backdrop, the province has increasingly put permitting speed at the centre of its mining policy. Budget 2023 included $77 million to speed natural-resource permitting and reduce backlogs. In January 2024, BC launched its Critical Minerals Strategy, including a Critical Minerals Project Advancement Office tasked with helping expedite priority projects.
The 2026 measures go further by attaching explicit deadlines to exploration approvals. The province also provided another $3 million this year, including $1 million for staffing supporting the fixed permitting system and $2 million for the Mineral Claims Consultation Framework. AME, which had pushed for additional resources and firm timelines, welcomed the funding in January.
The results remain uneven across the two systems. While BC says every Notice of Work under the new fixed-timeline framework is being processed on schedule, mineral-claim approvals remain outside their 90-to-120-day target. AME’s September data showed a 156-day median approval time, although the backlog of applications older than 120 days had fallen by 48%, or 821 applications.
The province says approximately 80% of all claim applications received since March 2025 have now been processed, while median decision times have fallen approximately 8%.
BC’s mining policy therefore has not shifted from regulation to deregulation. First Nations consultation remains embedded at both the mineral-claim and exploration stages, and the province says the new permit deadlines do not lower environmental or public-safety requirements.
