Thank you, Mr. Chair, for the opportunity to appear before committee today.
Critical minerals are the base inputs to electric vehicle batteries and advanced manufacturing sectors, including clean energy, information and communications technology, and defence applications. The demand for critical minerals is forecast to skyrocket in the years ahead.
In December 2022, Minister Wilkinson announced the Canadian Critical Minerals Strategy, with an overall goal of stimulating the development of Canadian critical mineral value chains—from exploration and research through to full-scale production, to recycling.
Representing the largest single investment that the Government of Canada has ever made in mining, the Canadian Critical Minerals Strategy includes the circular economy as a key tenet of supporting economic growth and competitiveness.
This commitment to a circular economy is also reflected in the Canadian Minerals and Metals Plan—a pan-Canadian policy framework to boost the competitiveness of the entire minerals and metals industry in this country.
Circular economy approaches will be essential to meet the material requirements of a low-carbon transition and ensure the long-term competitiveness of Canada's minerals and metals sector in meeting those requirements.
The Government of Canada is committed to helping embed circular economy principles into our sustainable mining practices, both here at home and on the world stage. For example, Canada announced the creation of the sustainable critical minerals alliance at COP15 in December 2022, which includes a commitment to building a circular economy.
And we are making progress. Canada is already a leading recycler of a number of minerals and metals including iron & steel, aluminum, scrap copper, lead, nickel and zinc, through our existing smelters and refining capacity. As first generation clean technologies like wind turbines and solar panels reach their end of life, new economic opportunities to recycle will emerge.
Further, the sector continues to innovate. Some of the leading practices the Canadian mining and minerals industry is undertaking here in Canada include CVW CleanTech, extracting titanium and zircon from oil sands tailings; Geomega recycling, building an alumina waste-processing plant and active in rare earth magnet recycling; and Li-Cycle, scaling up their lithium-ion battery-recycling facility in Kingston from 5,000 tonnes to 10,000 tonnes per year and expanding globally into France.
These are important examples to bring the concept of a circular economy to life and to demonstrate how it connects to economic activity and prosperity for our communities.
We are actively developing policies and working with provinces and territories on the regulatory frameworks to encourage more circular solutions.
Where supply chains are nascent or developing in Canada, as in the case of rare earth elements and battery materials, we may provide funding where this can help advance solutions and development.
We also develop science and technology policy more broadly. As well as conducting research and development, NRCan—Natural Resources Canada—leads the “mining value from waste” initiative, which is part of our ongoing green mining innovation research.
Governments can also play a role in de-risking technology adoption through initiatives like the Critical Minerals Research, Development and Demonstration program where Natural Resources Canada is supporting industry, including in the areas of recycling and from alternative sources.
I hope these examples of the innovative work happening on critical minerals and circular solutions to support the clean energy transition will inform the committee's thinking on approaches being undertaken in this important area.
Thank you.
I would be happy to take questions from members of the committee.