Stephen Van Dine writes that Canada’s Critical Minerals Strategy not only fails to secure investment but also leaves Canada’s Arctic exposed to security risks.
Chinese balloons, ocean buoys, and ships of all shapes and sizes are navigating through our Arctic waters and over our lands. In response, the coast guards and militaries from both Canada and the United States are increasing their detection and response capability against China’s probes into North America. That response includes scrambling fighter jets to shoot down suspected Chinese spy balloons as was done in February 2023 over Yukon.
Today, there is another kind of Chinese incursion in the Canadian Arctic. This incursion is much less visible than balloons or buoys, and is something that the conventional military is ill-equipped to confront: the acquisition of junior mining companies.
Chinese state-owned enterprises are hiding in plain sight in this country, taking advantage of the ambiguity in Canada’s division of responsibilities between provincial or territorial and federal governments, an acute shortage of North American investment capital, and the limited regulatory oversight of foreign direct investment. If left unattended, Canada’s Critical Minerals Strategy will be undermined, and its Arctic backdoor will be left open.
China’s most recent effort in the Canadian Arctic involved leveraging an 18.1 percent share ownership purchase of Vital Metals to get to the front of the line with a supply agreement to acquire the existing stockpile of the only rare earth minerals mined in Canada.
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