Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s first significant mining strategy will focus on lithium and handful of other minerals that are key to building electric vehicles, the latest evidence that Ottawa intends to play an active role in ensuring Canada takes advantage of the global rush for the raw ingredients needed to make batteries.
Natural Resources Minister Jonathan Wilkinson was set to release Canada’s first critical minerals strategy on Dec. 9 in Vancouver at around noon local time, a day after Industry Minister Franois-Philippe Champage announced proposed amendments to the Investment Canada Act that would make it harder for China and other investors that the government distrusts from making a claim on Canadian resources.
Wilkinson’s 58-page strategy was shared with various news outlets ahead of its official release. The strategy aims to expand exploration activities to find more mineral deposits; speed up mining projects; advance relations with Indigenous groups, which often own land rights where mineral resources are located; tackle labour shortages; and build secure supply chains with allied nations.
The strategy comes with a list of 31 minerals that the government has deemed as “critical,” although officials will initially prioritize six: lithium, graphite, nickel, cobalt, copper and rare earth elements.