National Defence Committee on March 9th, 2026

[The Chair, Liberal, Charles Sousa]

Mr. Watchorn, we'll go to you for five minutes.

[Tim Watchorn, Liberal, Les Pays-d'en-Haut, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Mr. Boyd, you said that mining companies, including yours, invest a lot of money in the north to build mines and maintain a presence.

I would like to know how the government, specifically the Department of National Defence, mining industries and local communities can work with you to ensure that the infrastructure developed by mining industries is useful to all three entities. I would call it a triple bottom line.

[Sean Boyd]

I think that's the way forward. Government doesn't have a bottomless pit of money to invest, so it needs to be done strategically. As we've said from the start, the Canadian military and the Department of National Defence need to know what the mining companies are thinking and doing. They need to know where the best rocks are. The industry needs to know generally what the Canadian military is thinking.

One thing we've already started is.... We are working with the Department of National Defence right now on a high-level co-operation framework covering areas like personnel opportunities; technical knowledge sharing; community and indigenous relationships and partnerships based on our experience; and Arctic infrastructure and logistics. We would argue that we have superior logistical capacity to the Canadian military in a lot of respects, having built a number of mines. It's really about how we can collaborate. It's important that these discussions have begun. We've actually moved them along a fair amount in the last year.

This is where we're going to get alignment, because we understand what the community needs are. We understand what the Canadian government is looking at doing in its major infrastructure projects. We have an understanding of what the Canadian military is doing. It's really about coordinating all these efforts and sharing the knowledge we've gained from 20 years of doing business in the north.

[Tim Watchorn, Liberal, Les Pays-d'en-Haut, QC]

Excellent.

So there's a lot of infrastructure. Other companies have airstrips, ports and roads. Some even have surplus housing that could be used to help our military presence in the Arctic. That's what you're saying.

[Sean Boyd]

Yes, that is correct.

We're actually looking at ways we can get the Inuit associations to draw down on the indigenous loan guarantee program and invest in certain infrastructure as we think about some of these big projects. It's really a matter of coordinating the programs that are in place and also understanding where the strategic leverage comes from with government investment, combined with investment by companies in the north.

[Tim Watchorn, Liberal, Les Pays-d'en-Haut, QC]

Thank you.

Ms. Mykytczuk, as an engineer, I find your biomining processes fascinating. Can you tell us more about how biomining works? How can tailings on Canadian soil be exploited?

[Nadia Mykytczuk]

Thank you for the question. I will answer in English.

Biomining process technologies have been around for over 50 years. There have been over 300 commercial operations globally. Canada has yet to deploy a large-scale biomining process.

We're using naturally occurring bacteria as the catalyst to break down minerals. These are often found in mine waste deposits and have adapted to the particular conditions of a site. Rather than using heat or chemicals, we use bacteria to act as the catalyst to break down minerals, and then release those into solutions so we can recover them.

This is a tested technology, but it has not had the time to mature and be deployed at commercial scales in Canada. It is one of the ideal solutions to deploy for reprocessing tailings or low-grade materials that would be too costly to put back into a smelter or a large capex operation.

We're working very hard to accelerate this with our partners to have an additional tool or processing technology for various materials that could be deployed quite quickly.

[Tim Watchorn, Liberal, Les Pays-d'en-Haut, QC]

Is it profitable to move in that direction as opposed to pure extraction? Is it economically viable?

[Nadia Mykytczuk]

We're in the process of demonstrating economic viability. The key thing we need to consider when we're reprocessing tailings is that we're not simply going after one or two elements. We have to valorize and extract all the value in those tailings so that we're also solving the environmental liability and looking at the usually large array of minerals in a particular material.

We are working with a techno-economic assessment to show that this is in fact viable and that there has been a lack of imagination in trying to take all of the value out of the materials we've mined in the past.

[Tim Watchorn, Liberal, Les Pays-d'en-Haut, QC]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Charles Sousa]

Thank you.

Monsieur Savard-Tremblay, you have two and a half minutes.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

We're going to settle one thing, Mr. Turgeon.

The gentleman to my right, in every sense of the word, decided to go after the messenger. I don't get the impression that you're a spokesperson for the White House. Are you under the influence of the Americans? Answer briefly, because we're not going to waste too much time on this.

[Rodrigue Turgeon]

Absolutely not.

I just want to clarify that I thought the question about funding for my position was for our entire organization.

We're not funded in any way by the Government of Canada or the mining industry, so we have other sources of funding: donors, individuals, member associations and foundations. The foundations that pay my salary are the Echo Foundation and the Trottier Family Foundation, both of which are Montreal-based. I am in no way here at the behest of American interests.

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

Perfect, thank you. You don't strike me as being very MAGA.

That said, at the end of our last exchange, you were saying that we had to think about the increased spending and the possible consequences. Do you want to expand on that?

[Rodrigue Turgeon]

I'm actually quite surprised that the only reference to the climate crisis today, aside from my testimony, was when another witness pointed out that climate change would create opportunities in terms of access.

Let's be clear: Climate change is a national security threat. We absolutely have to consider the fact that, if a country increases military or national defence spending in the critical minerals sector, that will have an impact on the environment. That's unacceptable to us.

There were already major concerns about whether Canada is able to supply the minerals for the energy transition alone. If we add national defence needs to that, where are we going to get these minerals and under what conditions? That is the question we have to ask ourselves.

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

Would it be better to increase extraction while also developing the circular economy, recycling and mine tailings recovery? Is there a way to do that?

[Rodrigue Turgeon]

The predominant approach here is sobriety, reduction at the source. Indeed, to ensure the best economic conditions for local communities and for the country, we need to move towards processing, as my colleague to my right pointed out earlier. As the witness from Laurentian University pointed out, recycling, reuse and mine waste valorization are things to consider, always taking into account the same conditions vis-à-vis the environment.

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

I assume I'm out of time. Is that right, Mr. Chair?

[The Chair, Liberal, Charles Sousa]

Yes. I apologize.

Ms. Gallant, it's over to you for five minutes.

[Cheryl Gallant, Conservative, Algonquin—Renfrew—Pembroke, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Mr. Balsillie, how vulnerable does China's control of over 80% of critical minerals and rare earth processing make Canada's defence industrial base today? What specific binding policy changes would you recommend to build value-added IP into our rare earth processing?

[Jim Balsillie]

Thank you for that.

IP is interrelated with AI and AI sovereign computing and data. It's also related to standard setting.

We have made ourselves low participants in the value chain—a commodity country. That, in parallel, has made us vulnerable to predation and leverage. We've painted ourselves into this corner because of inattention.

The number one thing I would say—I've written about and advocated for this for a long time—is that the PCO or the PMO has to create an economic council or secretariat with expertise in this realm. It's a technical realm. We spend $7.5 billion every year on research with absolutely no strategies to capture the benefit of that. We've had no strategies for data in the past 15 years of the data economy. We've had no strategic participation in these standard economies. This is Pogo: I've seen the enemy; the enemy is us.

My one recommendation is to build expert capacity, whether it's with an economic council or a secretariat in the PCO, so we can begin to catch up to what other nations have been doing for 25 years.

[Cheryl Gallant, Conservative, Algonquin—Renfrew—Pembroke, ON]

What steps must Canada take to pivot away from having our critical minerals and rare earths processed by our greatest military adversary? Should we be focusing on the processes and AI, as you described?

[Jim Balsillie]

We have no sovereignty to turn these minerals into products. We don't. It's an abdication that no other country in the world has made. We must reorient. It's because our thinking is rooted in the 1970s, when production was sufficient. It's not. The ability to turn these things into products and have leverage so you're not easily being weaponized against is where the action is.

I could give you much more than I shared today about what the EU, the U.S. and China have been doing to capture these value chains. We need to get into the game. It's an abdication of responsibility. It's as simple as that.

[Cheryl Gallant, Conservative, Algonquin—Renfrew—Pembroke, ON]

How should the government reform defence procurement rules so that in the contracts involving critical minerals-derived technologies, the intellectual property and economic benefits remain in Canada, rather than flow to foreign subsidiaries and adversaries?

[Jim Balsillie]

The very first thing we need to do is create a sovereign patent pool for the things we do research for, and manage the residual rights so they can be shared across companies. Then when a company gets bought, all those rights don't leave with it.

The second thing we need to do is create some kind of sovereign compute data AI sandbox.

The third thing we need to do is.... We talk about being part of the EU SAFE stuff for financing. We have nothing to sell because we have not participated in chiselling into the value chains. Yes, we need capital. Yes, we need procurement, but absent the geo-expertise and strategic ability to chisel into value chains, this will not work.

We've spent tens if not hundreds of billions of dollars over the last 20 to 30 years, and we're consistently last place in productivity innovation. It's 100% attributable to inattention to how the innovation game is played globally. It's baffling to me.