Thank you, Chair.
Mr. Gratton, you have said this, and of course, we agree with you: “Canada must foster a more efficient investment and regulatory environment.” You also said, “For the federal one, that involves an impact assessment, an environmental assessment, and that takes several years.” You've also warned, as you have again here today, “The timelines that it takes to get mines through both federal and provincial processes present a real risk to [Canada's] ability to take advantage of this opportunity.”
I noted, too, the comment that Mr. Gaulin made about the risk in operations in places like Indonesia or Brazil, where you may get an approval yanked after you have it. I would just alert the committee that this is, of course, precisely the concern with Bill C-5, because allowable in Bill C-5, which is a problem I tried to fix, is the ability for the federal government to take a project off the national list, even once it has made it.
There still remains great uncertainty for junior explorers and producers in Canada and for major mature mining operators, such as the ones that your organization represents. It is a fact that, in 2024, a survey of mining executives found no Canadian jurisdictions among the top five, globally, for mining investment, and Canada does have the second-slowest approval times in the OECD. That goes to your point about needing to improve the way in which Canada develops mines.
These facts, as they are, include the fact that it takes 23% longer than in Australia and 38% longer than in the United States to get a mine approved and operating in Canada. I wonder if Pierre and Jeff have comments in terms of the policy levers that tip Canada over into an uncompetitive position, given the kinds of challenges there are for our amazing Canadian miners, such as geography, geology, access to land, climate and uncertainty in policy. These are some things that tip the scale for some of our international competitors.
Maybe you want to give some best practices among international competitors that Canada could adopt to fix this issue of developing mines in Canada.