Annual Survey of Mining Companies, 2023

This report presents the results of the Fraser Institute's 2023 annual mining survey, which assesses the impact of mineral endowments and policy factors on attitudes toward exploration investment. The survey responses have been tallied to rank jurisdictions worldwide based on their overall investment attractiveness, the attractiveness of their mining policy, and their geological attractiveness.
A total of 293 respondents participated in the survey this year providing sufficient data to evaluate 86 jurisdictions.
The top jurisdiction in the world for investment based on the investment attractiveness index, which takes into account the impact of both policy factors and mineral endowment, is Utah, followed by Nevada (2nd), Saskatchewan (3rd), Western Australia (4th), Quebec (5th), Manitoba (6th), Arizona (7th), Northern Territory (8th), Newfoundland & Labrador (9th) and Ontario (10th).
Some Canadian jurisdictions fail to capitalize on their strong mineral potential due to a lack of a solid policy environment. Yukon and the Northwest Territories, despite being among the top ten most attractive jurisdictions for mineral endowment, rank 28th and 45th, respectively, when considering policy factors alone.
When assessing policy factors alone, Utah leads the ranking followed by Saskatchewan (2nd), Manitoba (3rd), Botswana (4th), Nevada (5th), Quebec (6th), Arizona (7th), Finland (8th), Wyoming (9th) and Alberta (10th).
Nunavut (65th), Northwestern Territories (45th), Nova Scotia (36th), and British Columbia (32nd) are the Canadian jurisdictions with the lowest scores in terms of policy factors.
Uncertainty surrounding protected areas, land claims disputes, and environmental regulations continue to hinder mining investment in various Canadian jurisdictions.