Critical minerals (closed)

As part of the Supply Chain Regulatory Review, we are seeking your input on regulatory challenges related to the critical minerals industry.

Context

The production and processing of many critical minerals are geographically concentrated, making supply vulnerable to socio-economic, geopolitical, environmental, and other risks. However, with its vast resources, strong manufacturing capacity, and experience in upholding high environmental, social and governance standards for projects, Canada is well-positioned to become a secure and reliable supplier of critical minerals for domestic and global supply chains. Increasingly, international trade is seeing movement towards traceability reporting as a means of demonstrating strong environmental, social and governance performance in critical mineral supply chains.

Creating the necessary conditions to remain globally competitive and attract investment to scale-up domestically is critical for Canada to realize its potential in critical minerals development. To this end, effective, predictable and efficient regulatory regimes are fundamental to supporting critical minerals supply chains. This is a complex space, where jurisdiction is divided between federal, provincial, territorial, and/or Indigenous governments, as outlined in the Canadian Constitution and depending on specifics of the context.

Ultimately, coordination and collaboration with provincial, territorial, and Indigenous partners is vital to supporting an efficient and effective regulatory regime and will continue through efforts such as the Regional Energy and Resource Tables and the Critical Minerals Centre of Excellence at Natural Resources Canada (NRCan). NRCan leads and coordinates across the federal government on the Canadian Critical Minerals Strategy, which was launched in 2022. The Strategy supports inclusive and efficient regulatory processes and has identified a leadership role for Canada to enhance traceability and avoid a global race to the bottom in our efforts to increase supply chain resiliency. This consultation complements these efforts and seeks targeted input in key areas related to the regulatory environment for the critical minerals value and supply chains, building on engagement undertaken to date.

Share your thoughts

Submit your feedback by February 5, 2024, using one or both of the following ways:

1. Share your input in the forums under the 'Questions and discussions' tab.
2. Submit your written feedback as a PDF or Word document using the ‘Document submissions’ tab.

The questions reflect outcomes of previous engagement activities and offer the opportunity to identify specific regulatory issues not already uncovered. You are encouraged to provide examples where possible, including on economic impacts.

Any feedback that falls outside of these questions can be submitted on the Additional supply chain regulatory comments page.