Doug Ashbury
Northern News Services

Yellowknife (Dec 15/99) - The Fraser Institute has released its latest mining company survey and, for the most part, the NWT failed to make the highlight reel.

The territory did not make the survey's overall winners' list, nor did it rank among the overall losers.

Forty per cent of the mining companies that responded to the survey cited infrastructure, or more appropriately lack of infrastructure, as a strong deterrent to exploration investment in the NWT. Only Nunavut was higher at 50 per cent.

The think-tank's survey, entitled the Annual Survey of Mining Companies 1999/2000, is designed to assess how public policy and regulation affect exploration investment in Canada. It's based on responses from 111 mining companies (422 senior and junior mining companies were surveyed).

"Exploration investment is a key indicator of the future health of the mining industry," said Laura Jones. Jones is the survey's co-ordinator and the Fraser Institute's director of environmental and regulatory studies.

NWT Chamber of Mines general manager Mike Vaydik, attending the NWT Water Board hearings, said Monday he had received the report but he could not yet comment.

When it comes to investment attractiveness, the NWT ranked similar to last year. The NWT scored 29 out of 100, placing it 15th out of 35 jurisdictions (see chart). Nevada ranked highest. British Columbia tied for second last. Nunavut ranked 21st.

Last year, the NWT was ranked 15th out of 31 jurisdictions on investment attractiveness. The latest survey has been expanded to include Nunavut, Texas, Australia, Argentina and Peru. The 1998 survey covered North America and Chile. Chile was added because it was capturing significant investment dollars.

The companies participating in the survey, 88 juniors and 23 seniors, accounted for exploration expenditures of about $1.3 billion in 1998. They represent about 43 per cent of the total expenditure in Canada for gold, base metals and diamonds as estimated by Natural Resources Canada.

The NWT ranks 11th out of 35 jurisdictions when it comes to mineral potential, down from its tied-for-second-best ranking among companies surveyed last year. Nunavut ranked 13th.

On the survey's policy potential index -- the Fraser Institute calls this index a report card to government -- the NWT ranked 24th out of 35 jurisdictions (see chart). But the ranking is an improvement over last year when the NWT placed third last. Nunavut tied for 31st.

This index is a composite measuring the effects on exploration of government policies, including taxation, environmental regulations, duplication and administration of regulations, native land claims, protected areas, infrastructure, labour, and socioeconomic agreements. New Brunswick, Manitoba and Quebec got top marks in this index.

On native land claims uncertainty, 28 per cent of the companies said native land claims uncertainty was a strong deterrent to development. British Columbia topped this part of the survey (88 per cent).

In the NWT, taxation, labour regulation and socio-economic agreements were not big issues among the companies that completed the survey.