Evidence of meeting #24 for National Defence in the 45th Parliament, 1st session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was china.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Conservative
Scott Anderson Conservative Vernon—Lake Country—Monashee, BC
Thank you.
Dr. Steyn, you were talking about government investment. I'd like to clarify that. Are you talking about incentivizing companies or about direct government investment? Are you talking about nationalizing the industry?
Associate Dean, Graduate Studies, Faculty of Law, University of Calgary
I'm not talking about nationalizing the industry. I am talking about direct government investment, subsidies and tax incentives and things like the Canada Infrastructure Bank. That's a variety of financial measures.
I'm also thinking about the critical minerals stockpile, which we can have in two formats. You can either have a big public stockpile or have what is known as a private stockpile, where you pay companies to keep larger stocks.
Conservative
Scott Anderson Conservative Vernon—Lake Country—Monashee, BC
You said we have an “intention” to stockpile. Have we made any progress on that, to your knowledge?
Associate Dean, Graduate Studies, Faculty of Law, University of Calgary
It was only announced in the 2025 budget.
Conservative
Scott Anderson Conservative Vernon—Lake Country—Monashee, BC
Are there any concrete steps being taken toward that?
Associate Dean, Graduate Studies, Faculty of Law, University of Calgary
Not to my knowledge.
Conservative
Scott Anderson Conservative Vernon—Lake Country—Monashee, BC
Are there any reasons we have not pursued this that you're directly aware of ?
Associate Dean, Graduate Studies, Faculty of Law, University of Calgary
Not that I am aware of.
Conservative
Scott Anderson Conservative Vernon—Lake Country—Monashee, BC
We've heard concerns about the lengthy permitting processes for mining, and we've talked about that here. Is there any indication that Canada is taking the hard steps to reduce some of the red tape and to move along on this?
Associate Dean, Graduate Studies, Faculty of Law, University of Calgary
Certainly. There's Bill C-5. There's the Major Projects Office, and there's the indigenous advisory council that goes with the Major Projects Office. I think we are moving in the right direction.
I said in my opening remarks that we need to also take a hard look at our notion of critical minerals and at the list itself. It doesn't help us to stockpile the wrong things.
Conservative
Scott Anderson Conservative Vernon—Lake Country—Monashee, BC
No, exactly.
Consulting often means that “I need to get it my way”—that's a euphemism for it—and that safety usually has a metric of zero, and if we don't achieve it, then it's no good. We have to come off that, and I think you've indicated that we have to move beyond that.
Of the minerals considered critical for defence applications, how many can Canada actually mine, process and refine domestically today?
Associate Dean, Graduate Studies, Faculty of Law, University of Calgary
That is a hard question for me to answer because I'm not a geologist. I have had a hard look at the 2026 U.S. Geological Survey critical minerals review. I would say we can probably mine at least 26 of the 30 or so minerals that I think are needed for security. However, I stand to be corrected because I am not a geologist.
Conservative
Scott Anderson Conservative Vernon—Lake Country—Monashee, BC
Okay.
Which specific defence systems require those? Let me be a little more specific. Are batteries, electronics, precision-guided munitions or communications equipment most vulnerable to mineral shortages?
Associate Dean, Graduate Studies, Faculty of Law, University of Calgary
Things like gallium and germanium for night-vision goggles, rare earths for ballistic weapons, and nickel, tungsten and chromium for anything that requires hardened steel are off the top of my head.
After the meeting, honourable Chair, I can certainly provide the committee with a more extensive list and a write-up that analyzes this.
Conservative
Scott Anderson Conservative Vernon—Lake Country—Monashee, BC
I would appreciate that.
Mr. Hernandez-Roy, do you have anything to add to that?
Deputy Director and Senior Fellow, Americas Program, Center for Strategic and International Studies
I mentioned earlier in my opening remarks that Canada already mines and processes the 12 critical minerals that NATO considers to be essential for defence. Just as a little carve-out here for a second, the USGS list of critical minerals I think is at 52.
Associate Dean, Graduate Studies, Faculty of Law, University of Calgary
There are 60.
Deputy Director and Senior Fellow, Americas Program, Center for Strategic and International Studies
There are 60 now? I know there's a new list. They added copper and things like that.
Some of them have greater commercial applications than defence applications. Some of them have very niche defence applications. If we're talking within a defence context, you don't necessarily want to consider all of these minerals that are considered critical. “Critical” doesn't equate necessarily to “defence”. It just means critical for our industrial base and for our defence industrial base.
The 12 that NATO considers—and NATO obviously has just a defence lens—are aluminum, beryllium, cobalt, gallium, germanium, graphite, lithium, manganese, platinum, rare earths, titanium and tungsten. Canada has reserves of all of these and produces some of them, some in great quantities—aluminum, for instance—and others in much more limited quantities, like gallium and germanium, which, apart from night-vision goggles, are also essential for semiconductor manufacturing.
Conservative
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Charles Sousa
Mr. Anderson, you're out of time.
I'm going to pass it over to Ms. Romanado.
You have five minutes.
Liberal
Sherry Romanado Liberal Longueuil—Charles-LeMoyne, QC
Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.
Through you, I'd like to thank the witnesses for being with us today.
I want to start first with Professor Steyn.
You mentioned circular mining. I wanted to get your opinion on what role defence research and innovation can play in improving mineral efficiency, substitution or recycling.
Associate Dean, Graduate Studies, Faculty of Law, University of Calgary
Absolutely. This is a crucial question. Thank you so much for this.
Natural Resources Canada has had a project called “creating value from waste” for a number of years now. It has done really extraordinary work on this. It's the CanmetMINING division that has this project, but I think defence should be involved in this project as well, because of the fact they've been focused more on the energy transition. If we look more towards defence and security, then I think the metals we are interested in are different—for instance, more towards rare earths, such as scandium and yttrium and things like that.
The other thing is that we have vast reserves. We don't need to construct the mine to get to them, but there is a lot of research that still needs to go into the processing. I spoke recently with an engineer who explained to me that the technology is not quite there. There is more research that needs to be funded for them to really do it at scale.
Liberal
Sherry Romanado Liberal Longueuil—Charles-LeMoyne, QC
You mentioned this briefly in terms of the budget. As you know, we're going to be releasing our defence industrial strategy quite soon. Key initial investments include:
...$443.0 million over five years...to Natural Resources Canada and ISED to support the development of innovative critical minerals processing technologies, support joint investments with Allies in Canadian critical minerals...and [to] develop a critical minerals stockpiling mechanism to strengthen Canadian and Allied national security.
I wanted to flag it because you're probably not aware that the reason it has not been implemented yet is that the budget implementation act is held up right now in committee. It's being obstructed, and we haven't been able to actually implement the budget. I just wanted to flag that to you.
My next question is for Dr. Byers.
You mentioned the Investment Canada Act. In terms of some of the safeguards that have been put in place, I recall that—I want to say in 2010—there was also a possible purchase of a potash mine. If I remember, it was an Australian company that wanted to purchase the potash mine. That didn't pass because of national security reasons. Would you have any updates for us in terms of what we should be doing to strengthen the Investment Canada Act in terms of national security to make sure other projects are also protected?
Professor, University of British Columbia, As an Individual
You're right about the potash company. I don't remember the details.
Yes, this issue has cropped up repeatedly over the years. As a result of amendments adopted after the RADARSAT-2 situation, we do have an explicit national security test. My understanding is that the regulations that are being developed will enable the Government of Canada to review any proposed foreign investment concerning a list of particular minerals. What goes on that list is probably still undetermined, but certainly it will be rare earth elements and other critical minerals.
There's no threshold and that's entirely appropriate. A national security review should happen any time a foreign company wants to buy into Canadian critical minerals located here. One thing you might do as members of Parliament is make sure that those regulations don't compromise on that particular issue. For instance, I know that there will be a higher threshold with regard to the financial size of foreign investments when critical minerals are not at issue. This is as a result of Mr. Carney's trip to Beijing. But that is different. Here, if we're talking about critical minerals and rare earth elements, as long as the Canadian government has the ability to scrutinize any proposed investments into those areas, we are okay, provided that the bureaucracy and the political will is there to implement that.
If I could just take another 20 seconds, all of this is related to not just particular government initiatives concerning critical minerals but also major infrastructure projects. We need an all-weather road to Grays Bay in Nunavut to enable mining to be developed there. We need a hydroelectric line to Baker Lake and Rankin Inlet to support the mining industry there.
This is all related. It's part of the entire government's push. I'm generally supportive of that. I would encourage you to look at the critical minerals issue in that broader perspective.
Thank you.