Natural Resources Committee on Oct. 6th, 2025

[Richard Martel, Conservative, Chicoutimi—Le Fjord, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Mr. Desaulniers, when will you be ready to start extracting?

[Eric Desaulniers]

We are currently in talks regarding the funding of the Matawinie mine project. We hope to secure funding for the project by the end of the year or early next year. Then the building phase will take 24 months, and the start-up will take 6 months. In a perfect world, large-scale production would start halfway through 2028.

[Richard Martel, Conservative, Chicoutimi—Le Fjord, QC]

Is there anything that could stand in your way?

[Eric Desaulniers]

At this point, securing funding for the project is paramount. We need to have all the necessary supply agreements in place this fall in order to convince our lenders and secure the funding.

[Richard Martel, Conservative, Chicoutimi—Le Fjord, QC]

Can you tell us which permit has been the most difficult or has taken the longest to obtain?

[Eric Desaulniers]

I would say that the provincial order in council is the one that took the longest to get.

Obviously, before launching a major mining project that affects the environment, a lot of things have to be assessed. Each project is unique. We had to do an environmental impact assessment that required almost 10,000 pages of engineering information. After that study was published in 2019, we worked for about 19 months with the Quebec Department of the Environment to get our order in council in 2021, as I mentioned earlier.

For mining projects, the environmental process is long and very serious. That permit is usually the most complex one to obtain.

[Richard Martel, Conservative, Chicoutimi—Le Fjord, QC]

Do you feel like there are sometimes overlaps between the provincial and the federal governments?

[The Chair, Liberal, Terry Duguid]

Give a quick response, please.

[Eric Desaulniers]

If we had to take fish habitat into account, there could have been overlaps, as we see in many projects. In our case, it did not happen, thankfully.

[Richard Martel, Conservative, Chicoutimi—Le Fjord, QC]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Terry Duguid]

We will go on to Mr. Danko.

Mr. Danko, you have five minutes.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I'm very much enjoying this afternoon's discussion.

I think my first question is primarily for Monsieur Desaulniers.

Going to the big picture, it seems that most of our discussion this afternoon has been on critical minerals. You mentioned EV transition in other markets, and there have also been discussions about the market for batteries in China, but it seems to me that the basic premise of the discussion—what is driving the need for Canada to leverage its critical minerals market—is the transition of the economy away from fossil fuels to an electric economy. That is happening globally.

This is not an ideological question or a political question. From your perspective, what is driving that market, which in turn drives the basic premise of developing Canada's critical minerals?

[Eric Desaulniers]

You're right. In our specific market, graphite, the growth in the EV sector and the growth in battery energy storage systems, or BESS, which are using the same lithium ion batteries, are the two main reasons that justify a large graphite mine like the one we are building.

If this market weren't growing at the pace it is, we would not need such a big mine. We would need probably 20,000 or 30,000 tonnes of graphite, which we have been producing in Canada for many decades already. Now we are building a 100,000-tonne mine. We have a mine that will be five times the size in the pipeline to really cope with this potential growth we have in the EV sector and battery energy storage. All the G7 countries need at least one alternative to the domination from China.

We don't want to change what China is supplying to our market. It would be unrealistic to do that in the time frame we have. However, we need to have this safe alternative in case those supply chains are disrupted.

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

Thank you.

I have a quick follow-up. Is it your understanding that this transition away from fossil fuels is a global trend and that basically, around the world, the transition of major economies away from fossil fuel is driving this economic growth?

[Eric Desaulniers]

Yes. It used to be that North America was leading. Now that's not the case. The Asian markets have been leading this transition for over 12 months.

More than 50% of the passenger cars sold in China are EV, and now they are getting into trucks. In the shipping industry, 20% of the trucks sold are now EV. They're really going after the fossil fuel economy, because, obviously, they don't have any, so they want to decouple from that.

In Europe it's also over 20%. In the U.S., it has now slowed down, obviously, but this is seen as very temporary, because the rest of the world is going to EV and battery storage. That's for sure.

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

Thank you.

I want to switch gears to talk about the port a little bit.

I'm from Hamilton. We have the Port of Hamilton in Oshawa, which is the largest port on the Great Lakes, on the St. Lawrence Seaway.

We've talked about what we're going to be shipping out, but we haven't talked about the other side of the equation—what we're bringing in.

For the port to operate efficiently, what are the opportunities for imports into Canada from the port?

[Carl Laberge]

You're right, it could work. We're talking a lot about exports because of the opportunities we have in the mining sector, but the port is importing quite a lot of material to feed industry.

In the aluminum sector or the forest industry, there's some inbound material that you need. We are developing that industrial zone that will support critical and strategic mineral development in the future. That could lead to other developments. As we've been doing in the past in the regions with the aluminum industry, for example, we don't have the basic material that we are importing, so it could work effectively both ways. Having that good infrastructure could feed the region, but could also go west to help the rest of the country as part of the system.

You mention the Port of Hamilton. We like the Port of Hamilton; we're good friends with those guys. We like to work with the Great Lakes. We are able to take the very large ships from the Port of Saguenay. We are doing some transshipment operations with the Great Lakes where the smaller ships that can go into the locks are going to the Saguenay port, and then transferring to an ocean-going vessel, for example. We're working together.

[The Chair, Liberal, Terry Duguid]

Thank you.

Mr. Simard, you have two and a half minutes.

[Mario Simard, Bloc, Jonquière, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Laberge, for your explanation of the strategic role played by the Port of Saguenay regarding inputs. I know it is essential to the aluminum industry back home. I also saw on your website the wind turbine blades that were in storage.

I would like to hear you talk about the strategic role that you could also play in the military sector, since the Port of Saguenay is close to the Bagotville military base. Can you give us some details or explanations?

[Carl Laberge]

Indeed, the defence sector is one of the industrial sectors that the Port of Saguenay has been targeting for some time, even before it was economically trendy. The reason is quite simply that we are developing a world-class industrial site with a major logistics hub. However, it is also because the project site, being located away from residential areas, is more suitable than others for this type of production.

In addition, we are close to one of the largest military bases in the country, Bagotville, where significant investments are currently being made in the air force and rapid deployment forces. The proximity to the base, which is literally our neighbour across the road, means that we can serve as support. Let us not forget, when we talk about industrial development, that there is skilled labour available: The area is home to a lot of retired Canadian Armed Forces members, for example, who have significant military expertise.

In a world where we want to integrate critical minerals, strategic infrastructure and shipbuilding elements, among others, in the defence sector, the Port of Saguenay plays an important role and is extremely well positioned to help the country achieve its objectives, both in terms of investments and in terms of concrete achievements in the defence sector.

[The Chair, Liberal, Terry Duguid]

Thank you.

We'll go to Mr. Martel, followed by Mr. McKinnon, for five minutes each.

[Richard Martel, Conservative, Chicoutimi—Le Fjord, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Mr. Laberge, I believe that the Port of Saguenay also collaborated with the Davie shipyard. What did that collaboration entail?

[Carl Laberge]

In the past, regional companies have been involved in building vessel modules at the Port of Saguenay. It's a bit like playing with Lego blocks, so to speak. These modules were partially processed at the port, then shipped on barges to the Davie shipyard for assembly there. We used to play that role.

As we upgrade our infrastructure and develop our industrial capabilities, we're still working with these companies and the Davie shipyard so that we can help them with future contracts and participate in the construction of Coast Guard or military vessels.

[Richard Martel, Conservative, Chicoutimi—Le Fjord, QC]

Thank you.

Mr. Williams‑Jones, it takes a long time to complete a mining project. It takes 20 years. That's a long time. I have an issue with this. I refuse to believe that it can't be done in less time. I know that a number of steps are involved. How could we make the process faster? We're losing our people. They'll most likely choose to go elsewhere, quite often, before choosing to come to us. What could we do to keep them? What could we do to shorten the time frames?

[A.E. Williams-Jones]

Good question.

The major issue is that it takes a long time to explore a deposit in order to develop a resource. That's the first step.

Obviously, many pieces of legislation and regulations pertain to the environment. Many studies must be conducted. This takes a long time. I don't know exactly how we could easily reduce the time required to start a mine.

If we were in China and we had a resource, we wouldn't need to comply with regulation 43‑101 on mining project information. We could start mining tomorrow. China has the great advantage of being willing to accept risk. In our system, it's much harder for companies to take risks.

There are currently many barriers. Perhaps the government can take steps to alleviate these barriers. It could review all regulations concerning mining and see whether any provisions could be removed without affecting the environment, and it could do so quickly.

The issue stems in part from an incident that occurred in Indonesia in the 1990s. A small Canadian company, Bre‑X, broke all the rules and ended up creating a huge disaster. I don't know whether you're familiar with this case. Ultimately, Bre‑X had no resources on its land, even though many people had bought shares in the company thinking that it had significant resources. It was a serious issue. That's why rules were added to regulate the mining sector. Perhaps some of those rules could be removed.