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CANADIANLAWYERMAG.COM/INHOUSE JULY 2015
I n d u s t r y S p o t l i g h t
British Columbia, where other bands are
now considering similar title claims.
"B.C. is looking like tough ground, I
think that's pretty clear to everybody," says
Brian Battison, vice president for corporate
affairs at Taseko Mines, whose New
Prosperity property lies close to the title
lands designated in the Tsilhqot'in ruling
and who includes Prosperity in a long list of
costly B.C. resource projects that have run up
against problems.
"If we are going to spend millions and
millions of dollars [on development] we
have to have some confi dence that we've got
a fi ghting chance that the process is going
to be fair," he says. "We look for laws and
regulations that are clear and that we can
understand, and we need to know what is
required of us."
Partly in response to the uncer-
tainties caused by Tsilhqot'in,
the Vancouver-based Fraser
Institute nudged British
Columbia down several
notches in its annual
assessment of the at-
tractiveness of mining policies in jurisdic-
tions around the globe, describing the re-
gion as the Canadian province with the most
room for improvement.
"The two policy areas signifi cantly ham-
pering B.C. are uncertainty concerning dis-
puted land claims and uncertainty over which
areas will be protected," the report said.
Other Canadian provinces fared much
better, with Saskatchewan, Manitoba, and
Quebec all ranked in the top six jurisdictions.
Thomas Isaac, head of the aboriginal law
group at Osler Hoskin & Harcourt LLP,
says the B.C. government has been slow to
respond to the latest developments, which
include the Tsilhqot'in's announcement of
the creation of a tribal park that touches on
both tribal and provincial lands. The band
says it isn't ruling out development within
the park, which it describes as "an expres-
sion of self-determination and a means of
governing a land base."
"For me the real question is where is
government in all of this," says Isaac. "Is
government simply letting these messages
fl oat around, or does it have a defi nitive view,
