EDITOR’S NOTE: This article originally appeared on Parliament Today, a Village Media website devoted exclusively to covering federal politics in Ottawa.
The federal government has signed 26 agreements in the course of two days that it says will “unlock” $6.4 billion of critical mineral projects, including two investments in Ontario.
The announcement was made at the G7 Energy and Environment Ministers' Meeting in Toronto as part of the group’s critical minerals production alliance — or as federal Energy Minister Tim Hodgson called it, “the buyer’s club.”
“Our countries have worked intensively over the last five months to deliver real deals and actions with substantial financial and political commitments that testify to the real strength of the G7 alliance and positive multilateralism in action,” Hodgson told reporters.
Of the Canadian-based investments announced Thursday, over $800 million USD in “potential financing” for Ontario businesses was announced.
The majority of that money is earmarked for Vianode’s synthetic graphite facility in St. Thomas, with a “letter of interest” for up to $500 million USD in potential financing from Export Development Canada.
“Vianode will be building their first ever synthetic graphite facility, a $2 billion project, and they're choosing to do it right here in Ontario, in St. Thomas, with the support of Canada and Germany, evidence of the fact that Canada is a top-tier investment environment,” Hodsgon explained.
An additional letter of interest was signed by the Canada Infrastructure Bank, while the German government has expressed interest in potentially providing the project with an export credit guarantee of up to $300 million USD.
Ucore Rare Metals Inc.’s facility in Kingston, Ont., meanwhile, has been conditionally approved for an up to $36.3 million investment by the federal government to help it expand to “commercial scale.” The processing facility refines samarium and gadolinium and could help fill a “significant supply gap” for customers in Germany, the United States and Australia, officials said.
The federal government said that the Government of Ontario “has also committed to expanding the regulatory permitting to accelerate the development of this project.”
It’s unclear if this means that Ucore Rare Metals will be among the projects to be fast-tracked under the Ford government’s new One Project, One Process (1P1P) framework. Requests for comment were not answered by publication time.
Ontario Energy Minister Stephen Lecce announced Wednesday that Frontier Lithium’s PAK Lithium Project near Red Lake will be the first to move forward under 1P1P. The minister said it will be Canada’s first fully-integrated lithium operation, and will include a mine, a mill and a downstream conversion facility in Thunder Bay.
The process allows the Ministry of Energy and Mines to act as a single point of contact to co-ordinate provincial approvals and Indigenous consultation, which it says will reduce government review time by 50 per cent.
Hodgson spoke Thursday about the need to “move swiftly to reduce dependence on concentrated supply chains.”
“Our collective commitment is clear. Every delay is a concession of economic and national security interests; we will no longer accept that,” he said.
Hodgson also announced that the government has issued an order-in-council under the Defence Production Act, designating critical materials as essential to Canadian defence and national interest. This will allow Ottawa to stockpile certain critical minerals and “support multilateral stockpiling efforts.”
“All seven members of the G7 agreed to use tools to rectify non-market behaviour by certain market participants, to constrain the supply of minerals,” Hodgson said, adding that the federal government has never implemented national security stockpiles under the legislation before.
“Today, we are signing stockpiling agreements where we are committing to stockpile certain selected critical minerals for Canada. That creates a demand factor so that some of these projects that we talked about can move forward. Our allies are doing the same thing.”
Hodgson said that the order applies to three critical minerals, but wouldn’t dive into specifics, citing national security.
Among the other announcements made at the end of the two-day conference were the establishment of a G7 Water Coalition and a $14.1 million commitment by the Canadian government to support a partnership between Quebec-based company Focus Graphite, Ukraine’s Thermal & Material Engineering Center and the American Energy Technologies Company.
Flake graphite sourced from two of Quebec’s lakes will be purified to be used in lithium-ion batteries, fuel cells, aerospace components and defence infrastructure.
“Our Ukrainian partner will collaborate on equipment and facility design, while our American partner will focus on supplying thermal purification process services by using Quebec's clean hydroelectricity and eliminating chemical waste streams,” Hodsgon said earlier in the day, calling the deal “a blueprint for how reliable democratic partners can work together to build a secure and sustainable supply chain.”
Ottawa will also accelerate the remaining $10 million in funding it promised Ukraine as part of a larger $70 million commitment to support the reconstruction of Ukraine's hydroelectric and power grid.
Trade spat looms over energy talks
Energy and environment representatives didn’t have much to say about any Canada-United States bilateral meetings taking place during the conference.
At a news conference, U.S. Secretary of Energy Chris Wright said that “friction” in the Canada-U.S. trade relationship has created “bumps on the road” for co-operation on projects like the Keystone XL pipeline.
Media reports suggested the project — which was cancelled, revived, and then cancelled again by various U.S. administrations — was brought up during a meeting between Carney and U.S. President Donald Trump.
Trade negotiations between the two countries have been stalled since the Ontario government aired an anti-tariff advertisement on U.S. networks during the World Series.
Wright described those discussions as having “friction for some good reasons,” but noted that he remains in constant contact with Hodgson, the federal energy minister, including at the G7.
“I would say the goal is to bring those back together,” Wright added.
It’s a sentiment Lee Zeldin, administrator of the United States Environmental Protection Agency, echoed, explaining how he had substantive discussions with Canada’s Environment Minister Julie Dabruskin.
“There was no need for much of an icebreaker before being very comfortably able to jump in. I didn’t sense any roadblocks for us to be able to discuss whatever was on the mind of either nation and look forward to that continued partnership,” he told reporters at the G7 Energy and Environment Ministers' Meeting.
Those topics of discussion included wildfires, fentanyl, the Great Lakes and mining activities.