National Defence Committee on March 9th, 2026

[Rodrigue Turgeon]

We don't think it's up to us to answer that question. It's up to the Government of Canada to identify threats to Canada's so-called supply chains. Then the government must act in a manner consistent with the threat assessment. Transparency, integrity and consistency in the Canadian critical minerals strategy are crucial.

If China is identified as a threat, Canada will have to respond to the extent of its capabilities, taking into account the mining industry's overall impact on national security. I think it's important to remember that today's discussion is not only about national defence, but also about security. We know for sure that, if we increase the impact on the environment and the climate by encouraging more mining, that will have a direct impact on the safety, health and lives of Canadians. That's a given. We see it every year. The climate crisis is a threat, but it has real consequences for our society as a whole, including the mining industry.

That's why, if we want to have a resilient economy and support local communities, we must act with humility and respect the planet's ability to provide these resources. Let's not forget that it's not just about figuring out where the deposits are; it's also about having the ability to mine them within the time frames imposed by the climate emergency and by the national security or national defence emergency. Let's not forget that, from prospecting to opening a mine, it can take between 10 and 20 years. There's also a limit to the number of workers that can be recruited in the mining sector to operate the number of mines desired. We must use all these indicators to focus on priorities. We can't supply all the minerals we want, so we should act with sobriety.

[Simon-Pierre Savard-Tremblay, Bloc, Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot—Acton, QC]

Yes, you used the word “sobriety”.

How long did you say it takes? You said 10 or 15 years.

[Rodrigue Turgeon]

From the discovery of new deposits to the opening of a mine can take as few as 10 years or as many as 20. Earlier, witnesses talked about the idea of reopening old mines that were closed at a time when prices were lower.

Let's be honest: The main interest there is gold deposits, and the market value of gold tumbled dramatically at the beginning of the millennium. In other words, we're not talking about rare earth deposits that have hardly ever been mined in this country, such as graphite and other resources on the critical minerals list.

[Simon-Pierre Savard-Tremblay, Bloc, Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot—Acton, QC]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Charles Sousa]

Thank you.

Mr. Bezan, you have the floor.

[James Bezan, Conservative, Selkirk—Interlake—Eastman, MB]

Getting back to Ms. Exner-Pirot's comments about supplying more of our critical minerals as raw resources to our allies, just take a look at the lithium we mine in Canada. One of the mines in Quebec sends only about a quarter of its lithium to the United States because that's all the capacity the United States has to refine lithium. The rest of it goes to China. Even among our allies, we don't have sovereign control, nor do our allies have sovereign control, over the further upgrading and processing of the critical minerals that are so important to our national security and sovereignty.

Mr. Balsillie, you talked about missed opportunities within the defence industrial strategy, as well as in the last budget. You mentioned that we should be setting up a secretariat within the Privy Council Office.

When we look back on the war in Afghanistan, the Conservative government of the day set up a secretariat of the key ministers and deputy ministers to make sure that the civil service was driving the agenda to get the job done of procuring what we needed and supporting our troops in theatre. Do we need the same type of mentality and leadership to ensure that we get the job done to leverage our critical minerals and the downstream value-added and IP?

[Jim Balsillie]

Yes, that's exactly what I'm saying. These are nuanced issues. You have to be careful, because people will misconstrue this as autarky, which is not at all what I'm saying.

If you listened to what I said in my testimony, I said it's an “and” issue. It's a 1970s issue and a contemporary issue. If we do not start to do the value-add, own reasonable parts of processing and reasonable parts of the value-added technologies, control reasonable parts of the data and AI, and reasonably participate in standard-setting activities, we are going to an economic structure.... We have evolved to something much closer to the Democratic Republic of Congo and Russia rather than, say, a sophisticated Scandinavian economy. We have all the potential to do more. There's been an abdication of this.

I'm 100% saying that if we orient to this and do the “and”—which is not about money, but about expertise and orientation—we will see our prosperity, our security and our leverage soar. We've let our leverage go, but in this world, you corral your leverage if only for resilience. If we push these things to foreign countries, whether they're allies like the United States or have complex relationships like China, we're still subject to leverage and predation all day, every day.

[James Bezan, Conservative, Selkirk—Interlake—Eastman, MB]

Do you believe we should be making amendments to the Defence Production Act to ensure that not just the mining and stockpiling of critical minerals are covered, but the processing of critical minerals is also covered under the Defence Production Act as part of our sovereign control?

[Jim Balsillie]

You could do that. You could do it through the budget. You could do it through updated approaches in the defence industrial strategy. We could do it with proper considerations for the $7.5 billion that Canada does in research funding every year. We could do it in purchasing requirements under PSPC—how they do it. We could do it with proper sovereign compute, which has yet to be implemented, and the utilization of our data. We could do it with updated spillover analysis in FDI things and by having the kind of tool kit that Australians and Americans have in institutions like CFIUS.

It's a web of frameworks. That's what I tried to show you. This is a web structure, and that's why you have to create expertise and understand its tentacles in an integrated manner.

[James Bezan, Conservative, Selkirk—Interlake—Eastman, MB]

Where tangible versus intangible comes into play is in making sure that we have more connectivity between both levels and government leadership, but not necessarily ownership in all segments of that web.

[Jim Balsillie]

Yes, the tangible is not really contested. You own the oil in the oil sands and the minerals in a mine. How to turn them into something much more valuable, that 92%—

[James Bezan, Conservative, Selkirk—Interlake—Eastman, MB]

You don't necessarily own them if it's done through FDI, foreign direct investment.

[Jim Balsillie]

They're physically owned in Canada. You're right that there are complex control issues there, but the possession is here. The possession of the ideas is through legal restriction. It works by totally different rules. We don't have that expertise in our negotiation with treaties like the USMCA. We don't have it in our research strategies. We don't have it in our data strategies. We don't have it in our standard setting. We don't have it in our FDI. We don't have it in how we support our companies. We've been last place in the OECD for the last 40 years on this. We have eroding productivity, and it's 100% attributable to that lack of attention to this expert realm.

I reiterate that it's an “and” function, not an “or” function. I'm completely supportive of our natural resources. We have all the potential to get much more out of them. It's about doing both together, not one or the other.

[The Chair, Liberal, Charles Sousa]

Thank you, Mr. Balsillie.

Ms. Lapointe, you have five minutes.

[Viviane LaPointe, Liberal, Sudbury, ON]

Thank you, Chair.

Mr. Boyd, several allied countries are now seeking to diversify their mineral supply chains away from geopolitically risky jurisdictions. How can Canadian mining companies contribute to building more secure and more resilient critical mineral supply networks among trusted partners?

Dr. Exner-Pirot, I'll let you know that I'll be asking you the same question, except instead of asking what Canadian mining companies can do, I'll be asking you what the government can do to contribute to building resilient supply networks.

[Sean Boyd]

That's a really good question. Canadian companies have been at the forefront of putting investments to work in other countries, both in politically friendly countries and in countries that have tougher geopolitical environments. We have that expertise, and we're basically lending that expertise now.

We have enough expertise to do what we need to do at home. To be successful, Canadian companies should be taking that expertise, whether it's from exploration, from project development or from mine operations. We're extremely good at that. We're predominant players in many continents because of the skills we bring to the table. There's a real lack of skills.

Agnico has been aggressively courted by U.S. interests to bring our expertise into the United States to help them develop critical metal deposits. We have that expertise. We should be selective where we use it, and we should use it in instances where we're getting more direct benefit to our own companies and to our own countries.

When we look at ownership, Agnico Eagle is 50% owned by American institutions, 25% owned by European and Asian institutions and only 25% owned by Canadian institutions. Even with that 70-year history, we're based in Canada and run by Canadians, with a largely Canadian board of directors. What's more important is to be able to control critical deposits here in Canada, but we shouldn't just be insular. We should look outward. We should invest in important geological districts to have some control over those metals and minerals.

[Viviane LaPointe, Liberal, Sudbury, ON]

Dr. Exner-Pirot.

[Heather Exner-Pirot]

The number one thing is to be more competitive so that our allies naturally want to buy from us. Then it isn't a choice of cheap China or expensive Canada, and we're providing a comparable product at a comparable amount. Better regulation, better policy and better export infrastructure all help to bring the cost of the Canadian product down.

In terms of the defence supply chain, when we say just “critical minerals”, it tells me that we're still not quite at the right level of sophistication. When we start to have a product-by-product plan.... What is our plan for gallium with NATO? What is our plan for graphite with NATO? What is our plan for indium? Who is going to do it? Canada is not going to do all 12 of the NATO minerals, but are there three, four or five that Canada can take the lead on and say we can do the production and the initial level of refining? Then look at who else in the alliance is already refining some of these products that could expand.

It actually takes a lot of coordination. That is obviously made more difficult by the fact that the United States has been a lot more of an adversarial partner to the rest of the alliance. That's why I think working closely with Australia is fantastic. There's a lot Canada and Australia could cover on that list between the two of them. There are obviously some European countries that have excellent chemical and refining capacity, but they don't have the raw material. We need to work with them as we move up the value of the supply chain from the raw material into the final component that goes into a weapons system.

[Viviane LaPointe, Liberal, Sudbury, ON]

Dr. Exner-Pirot, we've seen China increasingly describe itself as a near-Arctic state, and it has shown a growing interest in Arctic resources and shipping routes. What does Canada need to do to ensure that our natural resources, our sovereignty and our strategic interests in the Arctic remain secure?

[Heather Exner-Pirot]

With China, the thing I worry most about in the Arctic is that they see it as an attack vector. It's an approach for them. It's the most exposed flank. The primary thing we need to do is have a presence and have monitoring and interception capabilities to deter them from even thinking about entering North America through the Arctic.

I'm not that worried about them stealing resources. Sean can tell you how hard it is to build a mine in the Arctic. China can't just come in under the radar and start extracting copper or something like that. We also want to make sure there's enough private sector free market money so that people aren't reliant on Chinese funding to get Arctic projects off the ground.

[The Chair, Liberal, Charles Sousa]

Thank you, Ms. Lapointe.

I know we have some extra time. I'd like to ask two questions, if I may, and then I'm going to pass it back to members to ask a final round of questions.

Mr. Balsillie, you have a number of research vessels in the Arctic. A few of us just came back from Washington. All the talk down there is about ensuring that Canada protects its sovereignty and does its part in the Arctic Circle. The Americans certainly want to see Canada step up and initiate the necessary steps to protect our sovereignty and ultimately the western hemisphere.

In the research work you do with those vessels, do you share intel with our navy and with Canada?

[Jim Balsillie]

I've endowed and supported the Arctic Research Foundation, which I created and have provided with several tens of millions of dollars over the years. I continue to do it personally. We have about a dozen terrestrial science stations as well as several research vessels. Absolutely we've had naval people on our vessels. We crew it.

In the Arctic, one thing I've learned is that there's no separation between the economy, the environment, communities and security. There's no hermetic separation. We're doing a lot of work in Grays Bay for the road up there. We're doing a lot of the science work for extending Churchill. We're in the Kitikmeot Sea. We're in Yellowknife in all of the advanced.... We're at Great Slave Lake for power there, and there's much else.

We co-operate extensively. It's a missing piece in the ecosystem. We're delighted to do it. It's a real opportunity to step up the game where you coordinate these pieces, because if you're sensing for environment, you're also sensing for the economy generally and for security.

[The Chair, Liberal, Charles Sousa]

Thank you for that.

Mr. Boyd, I think you referenced in your opening remarks the lack of deepwater seaports up in the north for some of our fleets. You have extensive work up in the north with indigenous...and with existing sites.

I'm just wondering about repurposing some of those facilities. Because of your private sector engagement, you're also improving our infrastructure up in that part of the region, with air bases possibly as alternatives. Can you share with us what you are suggesting or what you are doing in this very realm with regard to the infrastructure spend in the Far North?

[Sean Boyd]

That's a good question. Part of the offer that's on the table for the Department of National Defence is about when the Meadowbank mine closes. There's an 800-person camp, a large airstrip and a totally contained facility. We've said to the Department of National Defence that at some point they should look at this as something ready-made and already built. They could downsize it. They could upsize it. They could do what they want, but they should look at it. They've asked us to send them the plans.

The other thing we've put on the table, as we move forward with Hope Bay in the Northwest Passage on the northern coast, is that there is an opportunity to use our logistical capacity and help the Canadian military build some sort of installation around the Hope Bay facility, whether it's for training or whatever else it could be. We've also put that on the table, because it's all about logistics planning and barge season. We know we can do it a lot quicker and at a much lower cost than if the military was to do something like that on its own.

Those things are part of the discussions to help use our logistical capacity, our experience and our relationships in communities to get dots on the map quicker in the Far North.

[The Chair, Liberal, Charles Sousa]

Thank you, sir.

We have a few more minutes, so Mr. Bezan or Ms. Gallant, did you want to lead off with another round of questions? Then I'll come to the other two. I'll try to fit everybody in if I can.