Gloomy outlook hangs over mineral exploration Roundup in B.C. – by Karen McColl (CBC News North – January 26, 2015)

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/north

Yukoners looking for hopeful signs at annual event

Yukoners working in the mineral exploration industry are facing a gloomy outlook as they get together in Vancouver this week for the annual Mineral Exploration Roundup.

The federal Department of Natural Resources says exploration spending in Yukon was down in 2014, and Samson Hartland, executive director of the Yukon Chamber of Mines, doesn’t expect 2015 to be much better. “There isn’t really any projection for that to change,” Hartland says.

He is hoping to get a better sense of Yukon’s 2015 mining outlook at the Roundup in Vancouver. Hartland is one of a couple hundred Yukoners expected to be at the conference, which brings together thousands of mining representatives from across Canada and internationally.

Statistics from Natural Resources Canada show mineral exploration spending in the Yukon dipped 12 per cent last year, to about $88 million. Exploration spending decreased about 10 per cent nationally.

Hartland says Yukon’s mining industry is impacted by global markets, making investment capital hard to come by.

He says that while there’s not a lot the territory can do to influence global markets, there are things that can be done on a local level to make Yukon more attractive to investment. They include promoting the territory’s regulatory process and relationship with First Nations, but the political situation did not help the mining sector in 2014, and there’s no sign that will change in 2015.

First Nations and environmental groups took the Yukon government to court over the government’s decision to reject recommendations from the Peel Watershed Planning Commission. The court sided with the plaintiffs, and the government is now in the appeal process.

Derrick Hynes, director of business and economic research with Yukon Economic Development, says exploration spending in the Yukon is still quite healthy.

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