Natural Resources

The House of Commons Standing Committee on Natural Resources met to study the development of critical minerals in Canada. The first panel featured officials from the Department of Natural Resources: Isabella Chan, Senior Assistant Deputy Minister of the Lands and Minerals Sector; Kimberly Lavoie, Assistant Deputy Minister of Nòkwewashk; and Andrew Ghattas, Senior Director of the Critical Minerals Centre of Excellence. The second panel included industry and research witnesses: Lisa Riley, CEO and Managing Director of Vital Metals; Cindy Valence, Vice-President of Sustainability and Government Affairs at Commerce Resources Corp.; Francis Fournier, President and CEO of Corem; and Régis Simard, General Manager of the James Bay Joint Action Mining Committee.

Isabella Chan stated that critical minerals are strategic assets for national and economic security, and that Canada's 2022 strategy has laid a foundation for development. She noted that the government has launched a $1.5-billion critical minerals infrastructure fund and a major projects office to help projects come online faster, and that a G7 critical minerals production alliance was announced to address supply chain vulnerabilities. She acknowledged that raising capital and navigating regulatory processes are key challenges, and that collaboration with provinces and territories is essential, as mining falls under their jurisdiction.

Kimberly Lavoie explained that the federal government is working to coordinate environmental assessments with provinces through substitution agreements, such as the one already in place with British Columbia. She said the goal is to reduce assessment timelines to under two years for all projects, and that discussions are underway with Quebec on a similar arrangement. She highlighted that about 70% of natural resource projects are within 100 kilometres of an indigenous community, and that programs like the indigenous loan guarantee are designed to enable indigenous equity in projects.

Andrew Ghattas noted that the Critical Minerals Centre of Excellence provides a concierge service to help firms navigate available supports and regulatory processes, and that it has assisted over 100 firms to date.

Lisa Riley said that Vital Metals owns a major rare earth project in the Northwest Territories and that an industry-led rare earth consortium has been formed to collaborate on processing and shorten timelines. She identified infrastructure, particularly a damaged rail line, as a key barrier, and said that existing federal funding programs are too rigid to support the consortium's needs. She recommended a restructured indigenous loan guarantee that would allow for preferred share structures with periodic payments to communities.

Cindy Valence stated that Commerce Resources has a rare earth project in Nunavik and that infrastructure in northern Quebec is a major challenge. She said the consortium approach would allow companies to share costs and risks, and that federal support is needed much earlier in the project lifecycle, before feasibility studies are complete. She noted that the consortium has been redirected to various programs without finding a suitable funding vehicle, and that no federal entity has taken a lead role to coordinate infrastructure development across multiple projects.

Francis Fournier explained that Corem is a non-profit research centre focused on mineral processing, and that scaling up rare earth technologies from pilot to demonstration to commercial scale is risky and costly. He said the consortium aims to prevent parallel development by having companies work together on process innovation, and that collaboration with universities and federal labs is key to avoiding duplication and accelerating deployment.

Régis Simard said that studies have shown that secondary processing of critical minerals near the resource in James Bay could save up to $1 billion in transportation costs and reduce greenhouse gas emissions. He argued that a national northern transportation corridor including a pipeline is essential for competitive industrial development, and that natural gas from such a pipeline could be used for metallurgical processing. He stated that current environmental review processes are too cumbersome and unpredictable, discouraging major companies from investing in Canada.

The committee adopted a motion to undertake a parliamentary mission in the week of October 14, 2025, to visit the Saguenay region and Sudbury to study the Northern Corridor project, phosphate mining, port and rail infrastructure, and mining projects in Northern Ontario.