B.C. is the fourth-worst place in the world when it comes to land claims issues for oil and gas investment, according to the Fraser Institute’s annual Global Petroleum Survey, released Monday.
Canada’s western-most province, which is home to a burgeoning $6 billion natural gas industry, dropped to eighth place among provinces and territories from sixth last year.
The free-market think tank said the drop in ranking resulted from “poor scores for regulatory uncertainty, cost of compliance and environmental regulations.”
The reputation of the province’s taxation regime also deteriorated.
But it was B.C.’s inability to quickly and efficiently sort out land claims issues that hit the province’s reputation hardest.
Gerry Angevine, Fraser Institute senior economist and the survey’s co-author, said B.C. had the “dubious” honour of ranking among the four worst globally for land claims issues, namely the Northwest Territories, Bolivia and Iraq.
“Land claims is certainly an issue with B.C., the province again this year didn’t do very well on that issue,” Angevine told Business in Vancouver. “I think it’s because it takes so long to get things sorted out … it’s certainly a barrier.”
Meantime, Saskatchewan overtook Manitoba as the top Canadian province for oil and gas investment.
But despite Canada’s reputation as an oil-producing nation, not even Saskatchewan was ranked among the top 10 jurisdictions worldwide for oil and gas investment.
The prairie province ranked 11th out of 136 jurisdictions worldwide, falling in behind Mississippi, Ohio, Kansas, Oklahoma, Texas, West Virginia, Netherlands-North Sea, Alabama, Hungary and North Dakota.
Joel McKay
Twitter: jmckaybiv