Canada Critical Minerals

Overview of Canada's Critical Minerals Strategy

Canada released its inaugural Critical Minerals Strategy in December 2022, backed by nearly $4 billion CAD in federal funding. The strategy represents the most significant federal investment in Canada's mining sector in decades and reflects a fundamental shift in how the Canadian government views its mineral resources: not merely as commodities for export but as strategic assets essential to national security, economic competitiveness, and Canada's role within allied supply chains.

The strategy is organized around five core objectives. First, driving research, innovation, and exploration to discover and develop new critical mineral deposits across Canada's vast and geologically diverse territory. Second, accelerating project development by streamlining regulatory processes and providing financial support to move projects from exploration to production. Third, building sustainable infrastructure including transportation, energy, and processing facilities to enable critical mineral production in remote northern regions. Fourth, advancing reconciliation and partnership with Indigenous communities, who hold rights over significant portions of Canada's mineral-rich lands. Fifth, growing a diverse workforce and vibrant communities through skills training, immigration reform, and community development programs.

Canada's approach to critical minerals is deeply intertwined with its relationship with the United States. The two nations share the world's longest undefended border, deeply integrated economies, and extensive cross-border mineral supply chains. The Canada-U.S. Joint Action Plan on Critical Minerals Collaboration, first established in 2020 and expanded in subsequent years, provides a bilateral framework for coordinating critical minerals policy, co-investing in supply chain infrastructure, and ensuring that Canadian minerals qualify for U.S. incentive programs such as the Inflation Reduction Act's clean vehicle tax credits.

The Canadian list distinguishes between 31 critical minerals and a narrower subset of priority minerals that receive the highest level of policy attention and financial support. The priority minerals represent the areas where Canada has the greatest geological potential, the strongest alignment with allied nation demand, and the most advanced project pipeline. This two-tier structure allows the government to spread policy coverage broadly while concentrating financial resources on the minerals with the greatest strategic impact.

Canada's critical minerals sector benefits from several structural advantages: vast and largely unexplored geological territory, an established mining industry with world-class operational expertise, stable democratic governance and strong rule of law, one of the most comprehensive environmental and Indigenous consultation frameworks in the world, and geographic proximity to the world's largest consumer market. These advantages, combined with the strategic alignment of the critical minerals strategy with allied nation priorities, position Canada as a leading destination for critical minerals investment in the coming decade.