Policy & Positions Manual
Provincial Issues - Energy and Mines
Support for BC Geological Survey (2011)
The British Columbia Geological Survey (BCGS), a branch of the Ministry of Energy and Mines, is responsible for producing and housing public geological and geoscientific information about mineral resources and mineral potential in the province. Its core staff is composed of professional geoscientists who carry out the systematic inventory and assessment of the varied and complex geology of BC.
Principal activities include geological and geochemical surveying, mineral, coal and industrial mineral inventories management, mineral potential assessments for land use planning, monitoring exploration activities, assessing geological hazards, publishing maps and reports, and providing geoscience expertise to support government’s sustainable development objectives.
Its role was initiated in 1895, and it functions today as a highly technical institution in answer to the continuing information needs of government, business and the general public.
The inventory of information is used to attract industry investment, to assist government’s stewardship of its rich mineral resource endowment and to help manage and protect Crown lands.
For the last 116 years exploration and mining companies have relied on BCGS’s data for the identification and development or ore bodies in BC. As a result mining activity in BC today is an important source of revenue that sustains our province.
Unfortunately, recently, the BCGS has been starved of the funding necessary to properly fulfill its role inhibiting its ability to put adequate numbers of geologists in the field, to maintain its database, and to properly deliver information to exploration and mining companies and to the public.
BC is well endowed with mineralization and BCGS has provided critical support for the exploration and development of revenue producing mines in BC. If the expectation is to continue to have a robust mining sector, BC must once again recognize BCGS and fund it appropriately to allow them to fulfill their fundamental role in the Province’s future.
THE CHAMBER RECOMMENDS
That the Provincial Government;
- provide increased, adequate and sustained funding for the BC Geological Survey, to ensure this agency is able to continue their work of providing a foundation of information around our mineral resources for future revenue generation in BC; and,
- immediately inject $2.5 million funding into the BC Geological Survey to stop the present erosion of their capacity to fulfill their role in developing BC’s economic future.
