Red tape is tying up the mining industry more and more here and across Canada, according to a survey released this week by the Fraser Institute.

The institute found that the regulatory systems and duplication of requirements between different levels of government are becoming tougher to deal with, particularly in the last five to six years.

Policy analyst Taylor Jackson of the institute said Wednesday they don’t have an X-Y-Z graph that pinpoints exactly where the regulatory systems are becoming more difficult to navigate, but there’s no question it’s happening.

“What we can say is miners are certainty facing more uncertainty in those areas,” Jackson said from his Vancouver office. “Certainly the time it is taking to get a permit is increasing.”

The survey of 122 Canadian companies which responded to the survey indicated the number of companies which felt administration, interpretation and enforcement of existing regulations was a deterrent to investment increased from 16 per cent in 2010 to 33 per cent in 2014.

It was the same perception for regulatory duplication and inconsistencies between federal, territorial and provincial governments, and even overlap between departments of the same government.

For the Yukon, the survey showed very few companies would forgo investment in the territory because of uncertainty within the regulatory regime.

Approximately 22 per cent did find it to be a mild deterrent to investment while approximately eight per cent or so found it to be a strong deterrent, the survey shows.

The survey showed none of the companies would be dissuaded by duplication in the territory, though approximately 27 per cent found it to be a mild deterrent with about 13 per cent finding it to be a strong deterrent.

“It’s really since 2010 that we started seeing this increasing,” Jackson said.

He said layering uncertainty in the regulatory regime on top of the inherent risk the industry already faces with investment in exploration and mining increases the risk investment dollars will go elsewhere.

The survey found exploration companies are waiting much longer on average for permit approvals in the territories than in the provinces.

Of the 10 Canadian jurisdictions which had statistically measurable responses, Saskatchewan’s permitting system rated as the top in Canada, followed by New Brunswick. The Yukon sits in the middle to bottom half of the pack.

It did score second overall, however, when companies were asked to rate performance in the area of adhering to timelines more than 60 per cent of the time.

Forty-one per cent of companies said timelines were hit 80 to 100 per cent of the time and another 36 per cent said they were adhered to between 60 and 80 per cent of the time.

The Yukon was fourth in Canada when it came to companies receiving their necessary permits within six months.

But 55 per cent of companies said the time it takes to receive permit approval has either lengthened somewhat or considerably in the last 10 years.

The territory’s permitting process took a jolt this week from the Yukon Chamber of Mines who publicly criticized the Yukon Environmental and Socio-economic Assessment Board for two major decisions.

After two years of screening, the board’s designated office in Dawson City ruled earlier this month it could not come to a recommendation regarding the extensive oil and gas exploration program proposed by Northern Cross.

Instead, it bumped the file up to the central office and the board’s executive committee.

Last week, after 18 months of active review, the board’s executive committee announced it was sending the the Casino mine proposal to a full panel review. It’s the highest level of review and the first panel review since the assessment legislation came into effect in 2005.

For the assessment board to take two years in both cases to simply determine a higher level of screening was required is unacceptable, and only adds to the climate of uncertainty in the Yukon, the chamber said.