Natural Resources Committee on Oct. 20th, 2025

[Ron McKinnon, Liberal, Coquitlam—Port Coquitlam, BC]

I quickly looked up the Wicheeda mine. It looks like it's around 100 miles northeast of Yellowknife. What's getting equipment up there like? Are there decent roads? Winter roads aren't as reliable as they once were. What volume of ore do you have move out of there? How do you do that? What do you need to make that work?

[Mark Tory]

We're obviously in the early stages because it's a PFS, so we're not moving anything at this point, but we're lucky. We have forestry roads that go all the way to the mine. We have access to it through winter and summer.

When we talk about how much product we're going to take out and we're going to build our beneficiation plant there, we're not talking about a lot of product that needs to move, but we're obviously going to need that road infrastructure upgraded for us to get the project up and running.

[Ron McKinnon, Liberal, Coquitlam—Port Coquitlam, BC]

What's it like working with the territorial government and the federal government together and individually?

[Mark Tory]

Discussions are happening at the moment around who takes control over that whole permitting process. The size of our mine at the moment means that it's a federal environmental process and permitting process, whereas when I was in Ottawa talking to federal people, they were telling me that this would push it down to the provincial level anyway, and most of the work would be done at the province. It's really us talking to the provincial level and making sure that the federal government doesn't take its time in signing off on the work that's done by the provincial government.

[Ron McKinnon, Liberal, Coquitlam—Port Coquitlam, BC]

Are you going to be able to build power generation facilities up there, or do you need to, or are you going to be able to bring power in from somewhere else?

[Mark Tory]

The power should come from the hydro power line that's up there. We're not far from that. That's a discussion we'll be having with the relevant company.

[Ron McKinnon, Liberal, Coquitlam—Port Coquitlam, BC]

What kind of time frame are you looking at currently for this project to come online?

[Mark Tory]

Well, I always say to people and the potential investors that if all the planets align, everything works properly and we get all the money at the right timing, we look to start construction in probably 2027 or 2028 and to be in production for 2029 or 2030.

[Ron McKinnon, Liberal, Coquitlam—Port Coquitlam, BC]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Terry Duguid]

Ron, we'll have to move on.

Mr. Simard, you have the floor for six minutes.

[Mario Simard, Bloc, Jonquière, QC]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

Mr. Tory, I understand that you have a rare earth project. I'm not too familiar with that sector's development, but I do know that a number of elements and processes are complex. My understanding is that the risk is fairly high, but that Vital Metals, Commerce Resources—who appeared before us—and other stakeholders have set up a consortium to reduce the risks associated with rare earth procedures.

Is that something you might be interested in?

[Mark Tory]

Thank you, Monsieur Simard.

Yes, I'm part of that consortium. Defense Metals is part of that consortium as well. We joined in March of this year, when we first brought it together.

Certainly, for me, having been in the industry for 11 years, my view of the rare earth world is that there should be only about five or six really large hydrometallurgical facilities for rare earth globally, outside of China. There's already one in the U.S., at Mountain Pass, and I think there needs to be one more in North America.

For the size that we're doing, we're talking about potentially using ours as the bigger one but then building it slightly larger so that we'll take feeds from other sources.

[Mario Simard, Bloc, Jonquière, QC]

I understand it's quite a complex process to extract a permanent element from rare earths. What kind of infrastructure is needed to make this process happen? This is not a competition, but back home in Quebec, Torngat Metals seems to be moving fairly quickly. I understand the process is very complex. In terms of the research, development and deployment of these critical minerals, what kind of infrastructure needs to be in place for projects like yours and the Torngat Metals project to succeed, and for processing to take place in Quebec or Canada?

To summarize, here is what I'd like to know. Do we currently have an ecosystem in Canada for processing rare earths?

[Mark Tory]

We don't have it currently. No really large hydrometallurgical facility that would be economic has been built yet. I think that's what we're all contemplating at the moment.

When you talk about it being technical and difficult, you know, this is obviously being done around the world. China has been doing all of this for a number of years. Lynas has been doing it with the deposit out of Australia and processing in Malaysia. MP Materials has been doing it down in the U.S. near California and Nevada. These are processes that we know about. We're not talking about anything brand new. We're talking about things that people do know how to do. We're using the best people possible. We have a metallurgist consultant, John Goode, who is in his seventies. He's been around the industry and has been working in rare earths and separation since the seventies and eighties. He's been around for a long time. He knows what he's talking about. He understands the flow sheets.

The one thing I will say in relation to what we need to do in Canada is that we have the ability to build these. What we don't have is the experience to be able to run them. China has done a great job in making sure they have all of the universities developing and producing chemical engineers who are able to run hydrometallurgical plants and separation plants. That's the one thing I think we need to do in Canada. We need to make sure we get all of those in place now for us to be able to service industries in five, seven and 10 years' time.

[Mario Simard, Bloc, Jonquière, QC]

I gather from your remarks that, if a rare earth mine were operational tomorrow morning, that mine could produce concentrate in the short or medium term, but that, before processing it, a number of steps would be required to develop the necessary expertise.

[Mark Tory]

Our PFS goes to a state that we call a carbonate, which has pretty pure rare earth elements in it, mainly neodymium and praseodymium, which go into the permanent magnets for the EV industry, wind turbines, robotics, etc. The next stage down from what we had in our PFS is to have a fully separated neodymium and praseodymium oxide. That would be sold directly to metal-makers, who then sell on to magnet-makers. The magnets then go into those EVs and wind turbines.

[Mario Simard, Bloc, Jonquière, QC]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Terry Duguid]

Colleagues, we'll go now to our second round. Mr. Tochor and Mr. Guay will have five minutes each. Monsieur Simard will have 2.5 minutes.

We'll start with you, Mr. Tochor.

[Corey Tochor, Conservative, Saskatoon—University, SK]

Thank you, Chair.

Thank you to our witnesses.

Mr. Stibbard, can you just unpack a little bit more your project in the Northwest Territories? I understand that something like 80% of the GDP that was created in the Northwest Territories came from that project. Just talk a little bit about the infrastructure that was built for that project up there. With the dual use for our defence of the Arctic, a lot of it comes from our private sector right now.

[Jeff Stibbard]

First of all, 80% of the GDP was from the diamond industry itself. The mine started it, and then the second one that came on board and the third one that came on board became 80% of the GDP of the Northwest Territories. That was not including the sorting facilities and outside contractors who supported the mine.

When that mine was built, there was an ice road. First it was primarily aviation-supported with an airstrip. There was the building of a Herc strip, a 737 landing strip, an ice road to get going and a camp and major infrastructure. I think it became the fifth-largest town in the Northwest Territories. It had the largest telephone exchange and most modern water treatment, three-stage water treatment that didn't exist in the Northwest Territories, both incoming and outgoing. It was a town of about 1,600 people and it was modern, obviously, in terms of facilities, recreation, food and, most importantly, the work—the paycheques.

[Corey Tochor, Conservative, Saskatoon—University, SK]

Those paycheques are important, but this infrastructure is.... The allies are trusting us to protect our north, and Canadians are trusting our government to protect the north. The dual use that comes from industry helps us build out our ability to defend ourselves in the north. We used to have a system where a private sector would invest in the north, and through the dual use of this infrastructure, we would be stronger and more able to defend our borders against enemies.

Fast-forward to now, and it takes 18 years officially to get a mine up and running in Canada. There's nothing that's going to be backfilling right now those diamond mines up in the north, which has a negative effect on that infrastructure that we need to obtain, so then Canadians from all over Canada have to pay their taxes, and the government's going to have to—or it's proposing to—spend billions and billions of dollars in the north to keep that infrastructure up, which makes no sense at all.

It is frustrating to know that it's mostly regulation—as we've heard from countless witnesses—that has a layering effect that has killed this industry and its ability to expand.

Another government office that they're talking about is the Major Projects Office. What is your view on that project? Is it needed?

[Jeff Stibbard]

Again, it's just another layer.

I'd just like to echo the point on the infrastructure. There's a phenomenal asset in Canada's north on Baffin Island called the Mary River iron mine, the Baffinland mine. It has a port there right now, and it ships about six million tonnes of iron ore direct. It's in the process of trying to get an expansion to go to 12 million tonnes to be economical. Really, it's uneconomical at today's prices and throughput. It's a phenomenal shared resource for, potentially, the military. Obviously, there's power, and there's infrastructure for living, communications and shipping. However, this group has been forced to build a port on the other side of Baffin Island, on the west coast inland, 120-some-odd kilometres away, in the interest of environmental impacts that I think are a little bit overstated.

So, with regard to national interest, there's a reason that we should be pushing that. It's not just for the jobs and the economy of that project but also because it's an ideal spot for a port for the navy and the air force.

[Corey Tochor, Conservative, Saskatoon—University, SK]

It's interesting that you bring up national interest because we just had Bill C-5. We tried to get amendments in there that would force the government to actually have a definition of “national interest”, and it wouldn't do that. You just outlined a perfect one that would be of national interest and that would make sense. It's so frustrating.

[Jeff Stibbard]

Absolutely.

McIlvenna Bay in Saskatchewan and Red Chris in British Columbia are two projects that have been funded and that are well under way and permitted, so I don't know what the impetus was to add money to something that already exists. We're trying to get the ball rolling, not to add fuel to it.

[Corey Tochor, Conservative, Saskatoon—University, SK]

I agree with that.

We should be celebrating. It's the first Canadian-owned manufacturing facility making high-tech rare earth-based magnets for use in electric vehicles. All Canadians should be celebrating because this is the first Canadian-owned manufacturing facility. Unfortunately, it's not in Canada; it's in Estonia.

What do you think about that: that it's easier to get permitting done in the EU than in Canada?