Geoff Russ is a writer and columnist based in West Vancouver.British Columbia has spent nearly a decade trying to think and promise its way into modern prosperity through reconciliation frameworks, endless consultations, and yet more committee planning. The result has been delays, stagnation, job losses, and a crippling effect on the province’s resource economy.Fortunately, the mining industry stands out as a bright light amid it all. It succeeds where other industries fail in the most old-fashioned way possible, by building real projects that pay good wages and generate revenue for the province.According to the Mining Association of BC (MABC), there are 24 mining projects at an advanced stage in the province’s northern reaches. Together, they represent more than $69 billion in economic activity. Their construction phase alone is pegged at over $40 billion in investment, alongside $21 billion in pay to employees and $11 billion in government revenues..FLETCHER: BC gold mine sets path for independent nations.Over decades, these same 24 projects are expected to generate more than $660 billion in economic activity. No boutique “green jobs” promised in a press release could ever hope to create comparable wealth and dynamism.Global demand for critical minerals is set to grow rapidly, and BC has a ready-made engine for unprecedented growth to accompany it. Even NDP Premier David Eby has come around. On May 26, he called mining a “nation-building” opportunity in a column, and emphasized that every direct job in a mine or smelter supports at least two more in supply or white-collar sectors.Eby has been keen to portray himself as an ally of the mining sector, but the current boom is happening in spite of the BC business climate, not because of the government’s economic doctrines.Much of the rest of the resource economy could not be more different. Forestry entered a state of perpetual crisis years ago and has not exited it, with mill after mill shuttering and industry uncertainty continuing to rise. A recent government-commissioned review called for the province’s forestry regime to be “razed and rebuilt” around the pillars of “trust” and “transparency,” alongside a new forest inventory managed by an independent body rather than government. To illustrate the problems with the existing system, closures and job losses persisted, and fibre-supply shortages worsened.Mining shows the opposite: investible projects selected for development by industry, with clear timelines, under a government that has a vested political and economic interest in their success..If BC’s mineral sector can attract tens of billions in investment, why not expand that approach across the entire resource economy? Even in 2024, natural resources as a whole contributed almost $32 billion to GDP, far more than construction, which produced $25.4 billion. The BC government has been eager to build mining projects since the start of 2025, and to build them fast. Imagine if that urgency were applied to the entire resource portfolio. In the northwest, the Montney Formation is a durable foundation for liquefied natural gas (LNG) exports, and Prince Rupert is a natural export gateway.The Montney region itself contains 449 trillion cubic feet of potential natural gas and is British Columbia’s dominant producing basin. It currently accounts for roughly 67% of BC’s monthly raw gas volumes, making it the province’s most important basin. The 670-kilometre Coastal GasLink pipeline transports gas from the Montney near Dawson Creek to the LNG export hub in Kitimat, home to LNG Canada and the future Cedar LNG project. While BC is well positioned to win the Pacific LNG race against planned American projects in Alaska, the province’s natural gas reserves can also be converted into domestic energy surpluses. That would help eliminate the persistent annual need to import electricity to cover BC Hydro shortfalls..GOWAN: The bad actors of Vancouver's overdose magnum opus.A surplus of affordable power is essential for expanding any resource project, especially mining, and foreign capital will not wait. The American government is even buying stakes in Vancouver-based mining firms to nearshore critical mineral supply chains, including a 10% stake in Trilogy Metals for $35.6 million USD. Buy-in from the American government signals there is real strategic leverage in extracting our resource wealth, but only if we have a clear pathway to do so.Right now, the provincial government can call for more “certainty” in investment, but it will not get there as long as process is prioritized over outcomes. Industries remain trapped in bureaucratic sludge, energy policy is cornered by green ideology, and genuine progress too often arrives only after the damage is done.Mining shows what BC’s resource economy can do when it is treated as a serious jurisdiction, and allowed to behave like one.A system of predictable approvals, competitive operating conditions, and a political and ideological embrace of the whole resource sector is the best way to make BC’s economy the envy of Canada.Geoff Russ is a writer and columnist based in West Vancouver.
