Natural Resources Committee on Sept. 25th, 2025

[Gaétan Malette, Conservative, Kapuskasing—Timmins—Mushkegowuk, ON]

Thank you.

My question is for Ms. Valence.

Australia and the United States are ahead of us when it comes to developing a project. What needs to be done? You talked about this, but what do we have to do to stay in the game?

[Cindy Valence]

I said earlier that infrastructure and investment are two separate things.

Earlier, Mr. Simard was talking about the valley of death in a feasibility study, but I'd say that it comes well before that. During the exploration phase, certain programs offer support. We're very familiar with some in Quebec that have come to define, or at least identify, a potential deposit.

However, when it gets to the project phase, which requires much more in-depth studies, that's when exploration programs are a little less available. Indeed, we've just moved on to another stage. In addition, large institutions often wait for companies to have a pre-feasibility study, or even a feasibility study.

This stage depends on the companies that have a project defined in the current context, in terms of critical and strategic minerals, and that have to support those studies themselves by seeking capital from investors.

It's important, then, to see how the government could get involved much further upstream instead of just waiting for the project to be defined by pre-feasibility and feasibility studies, since that's where everything starts. In a preliminary economic study, that's where the draft is supposed to be. Although it isn't necessarily very defined—we know that the level of engineering isn't necessarily as extensive as in a feasibility study—it must, at the very least, be aligned with the current context and the environment in which it is located.

For that, there needs to be studies and financial support, if not a share of responsibility at the very least.

[Gaétan Malette, Conservative, Kapuskasing—Timmins—Mushkegowuk, ON]

Thank you.

Madame Riley, to continue from what Madame Valence said, what can we remove from federal policies to be able to move faster? Are there certain things that can be removed that are a hindrance and stopping us?

[Lisa Riley]

Well, I think people bring up the environmental assessment piece a lot. I'm lucky in that my project had already gone through the environmental assessment process before it was bought by us. Only the new elements that we have brought to the party will need to go back through the EA process, which is a much less onerous process than for somebody who's coming with a new project. I'm lucky that I'm able to cut out some of those things.

I think the concept that was mentioned earlier by Isabella Chan about consolidating provincial and federal review processes makes a huge amount of sense. That would very much streamline things across the board for mining projects, definitely. That would be one of the most important pieces, I think, apart from the concept of funding, as Madame Valence pointed out.

[Gaétan Malette, Conservative, Kapuskasing—Timmins—Mushkegowuk, ON]

Thank you.

I have a more pointed question. Do you find that the federal government's current approval process discourages investment in terms of the time it takes and so on?

[Lisa Riley]

I don't think it does actively discourage. I think Canada is a fantastic jurisdiction. We have amazing natural resources.

We've come at it with a different approach, one that's very rare in the mining industry, which is working together. In the mining industry generally, it's about how this is mine and I'm going to do it. We're coming at it from a different approach. I don't think there are people who are discouraged from coming to work in Canada. I do think that having a more active situation....

I think there's been a lot of talk about indigenous investment in projects. I think that would be incredibly useful. The indigenous loan guarantee fund gets thrown around a lot. It's not a vehicle that works for mining companies at a certain level. It is for a much lower-risk profile of investment, at least in my experience and in the conversations I've had with indigenous communities on their access. I think the concept is one where all the communities—my project sits on the land of four different nations—would like to be investors, and they'd like to use that indigenous loan guarantee, but they can't in the way it's structured right now for an investment in this project.

[Gaétan Malette, Conservative, Kapuskasing—Timmins—Mushkegowuk, ON]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Terry Duguid]

Mr. Danko, you have five minutes.

[John-Paul Danko, Liberal, Hamilton West—Ancaster—Dundas, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I'd like to dig a little bit into the research and development in processing, because I think there is a real value-add there for Canada.

My question is mainly for you, Monsieur Fournier. Developing procedures to production takes time to scale, especially with evolving technologies. When it comes to research and development, coming from a riding with three post-secondary institutions—very research-heavy—I'd like to know what challenges you see in moving the pilot projects that you're working on to scale within industry.

[Francis Fournier]

Thank you for your question.

In fact, the whole demonstration aspect, the parallel work to improve existing technologies and the work on the development of new technologies will be key elements in providing leadership in technological development.

Technology scaling is very risky. There are significant associated costs. That's what led to the idea of a consortium as a way to work together, precisely to prevent each mining project from developing its own process in parallel. Instead, it's better to rely on co-operation, which will obviously make it possible to move forward more quickly.

Time is sort of working against us. In fact, we at Corem have been using the co-operative approach model with large mining companies for 25 years. We see the benefits of lowering risks and working together.

It really allows us to maximize the benefits for the mining sector.

[John-Paul Danko, Liberal, Hamilton West—Ancaster—Dundas, ON]

Thank you.

You're working on a number of demonstration projects. What specifically is the difference between a demonstration project and when it's at scale in industry?

[Francis Fournier]

In fact, it's all a matter of volume. When we work at the laboratory scale, we're working at the kilogram level, with a few kilos.

At Corem, we specialize in the pilot testing scale. At that point, we're talking about tonnes, or tens or hundreds of tonnes to be able to demonstrate a process's viability. When we get to the demonstration, it's more like thousands of tonnes. We'll work on it 24/7 to refine all the data to reduce the risks at the commercial phase.

[John-Paul Danko, Liberal, Hamilton West—Ancaster—Dundas, ON]

Thank you.

In your opening remarks you talked about competitiveness and evolving technologies. Something that's of big interest for me is in evolving research. We talked a lot today about lithium, for example. Everyone in the world is doing research on how to change battery chemistry so lithium's not required, along with motor technology that doesn't use rare earth magnets and that kind of thing.

In your view, what weaknesses are there in Canada's critical mineral supply chain in particular when it comes to the process in refining in the context of evolving technologies?

[Francis Fournier]

I will say partnership, not only inside Canada but also outside Canada, and making sure that we don't reinvent the wheel. We identify the most promising technology—and again it can be inside Canada or outside Canada—and work in a real partnership to increase and accelerate the development and the deployment of new technologies and processes.

[John-Paul Danko, Liberal, Hamilton West—Ancaster—Dundas, ON]

Thank you.

Critical mineral development impacts various areas of Canada differently. Just changing gears a little, looking across the country, are there specific regions of Canada that you see have a real potential for success when it comes to critical mineral development? Are there different barriers depending on different geographic regions—political as well as just remoteness of places?

[Francis Fournier]

It's better than it was.

If I can speak for the research and innovation component, Lisa mentioned in our consortium we look forward to working with universities, other research centres and also federal labs, like CanmetMINING and NRC. We have to make sure that we don't duplicate the work, that we work all together.

I see at the Canada level that we have a more and more unique approach instead of having the regions working alone in their sites.

[The Chair, Liberal, Terry Duguid]

Thank you.

Our last three slots—Monsieur Simard, Monsieur Rowe and Monsieur Hogan—are for two and a half minutes or less.

[Mario Simard, Bloc, Jonquière, QC]

That's a very short speaking time.

In order to emphasize some things for our analysts, I'm going to summarize what the witnesses have just said.

The sector is facing challenges in terms of infrastructure and ease of access to funding and programs, which don't always meet the sector's requests and needs.

Several of you have pointed out that the Business Development Bank of Canada doesn't support mining projects until the feasibility study is completed, which is true. If you want federal support, you have to have done a feasibility study. I think it's important to highlight this point for our analysts.

I understand that it's difficult for the federal government to find you a source of funding.

When you were talking earlier, I thought of Elysis, a Saguenay—Lac-Saint-Jean company that manufactures carbon-neutral aluminum. That company receives a form of funding through an equitable partnership with the Government of Quebec. The amounts paid by the federal government are quite high. That may be a model worth looking at in your ongoing discussions with the federal government.

There isn't a one-stop shop for critical minerals, and that may be a problem. When you submit an application, you go to Natural Resources Canada, the Department of Finance, or Innovation, Science and Economic Development Canada.

[Cindy Valence]

We also tabled a brief in the context of the pre-budget consultations on the consortium.

[Mario Simard, Bloc, Jonquière, QC]

That's excellent.

[Cindy Valence]

We've done our homework.

[Mario Simard, Bloc, Jonquière, QC]

If you want to table anything else, please feel free to do so. The analysts will take that into consideration, and it would be beneficial for our report.

[The Chair, Liberal, Terry Duguid]

Thank you, Mr. Simard.

Mr. Rowe, please go ahead.

[Jonathan Rowe, Conservative, Terra Nova—The Peninsulas, NL]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

My first question is for Mr. Simard.

Sixty per cent of industry representatives flagged the lack of infrastructure as a major barrier to investment, and Mr. Simard brought up the pipelines for natural gas. I was in the heartlands in Alberta, and I saw that they were taking ore from all around the world to Alberta because they had cheap natural gas to refine it.

I'm just curious if you'd be able to elaborate on how that plays with the high-grade and low-grade ore and how we can potentially unlock more ore and more production by bringing the energy to the ore, rather than the ore to the energy. Could you explain the correlation of that?

[Régis Simard]

Are you talking about iron ore?