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Canada Mining

Opinion: We’re falling further behind China in critical minerals – by Heather Exner-Pirot (Financial Post – May 16, 2024)

https://financialpost.com/

China is working hard to maintain its control of the rare earths markets that are critical to net-zero. We’re barely in the game

At the time, the opening of a small rare earths mine in the Northwest Territories in 2021 was heralded as an important step in breaking China’s monopoly over this strategic commodity. Rare earths are used in everything from electric vehicles and cell phones to wind turbines and jet engines.

China currently extracts more than 60 per cent of rare earth elements and processes as much as 90 per cent of global supply. The case of Vital Metals and the Nechalacho mine show just how far it’s willing to go to maintain a stranglehold on the rare earths market. What was once a hopeful story is now a cautionary tale.

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Canada ramps up diplomacy to prepare for possible Trump presidency – by Adrian Morrow (Globe and Mail – May 15, 2024)

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/

The Canadian government is making a full-court press to prepare for a potential second Donald Trump presidency, aiming to avoid a repeat of 2016 when his victory caught Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s cabinet by surprise.

Much of the Team Canada push is public facing. Led by Ambassador Kirsten Hillman and Industry Minister François-Philippe Champagne, it has entailed cabinet ministers, provincial premiers and Canadian business leaders fanning out across the U.S. to build relationships with American counterparts.

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DeepDive: Canada’s natural resources are a long-neglected ‘golden goose.’ It’s time to change that -by Andrew Evans (The Hub – May 13, 2024)

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Making proper use of our abundant natural resources is key to turning the economy around

It’s increasingly recognized in policy and political circles that one of the biggest challenges facing the country is economic stagnation and declining living standards. This has led policy scholars to try to understand the causes and sources of Canada’s economic malaise.

New research by Macdonald-Laurier Institute fellow Heather Exner-Pirot points to challenges in Canada’s natural resource sector as a “smoking gun.” Her basic insight is that a combination of economic forces and policy-induced harms have undermined what her colleagues Philip Cross and Jack Mintz have characterized as the country’s “golden goose” and that this has significant explanatory power for the overall decline in business investment, productivity, and economic activity.

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Miners seek exemption from Canadian tax hike to save equity deals – by Jacob Lorinc (Bloomberg News – May 10, 2024)

https://www.bnnbloomberg.ca/

Canada’s mining industry is pushing for an carveout to the federal government’s proposed increase to capital gains taxes, warning the hike will make it harder for junior miners to raise money to find new mineral deposits.

Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland’s new budget includes a measure to raise the capital gains tax inclusion rate to two-thirds from one-half. It applies to all gains made by corporations and trusts, and to individual taxpayers on gains over $250,000 in a year.

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Canada home to 5 of the world’s 10 most attractive mining jurisdictions – by Naimul Karim (Financial Post – May 14, 2024)

https://financialpost.com/

But it has plenty of room to improve in terms of regulatory policies, survey says

Canada is home to five of the top 10 most attractive mining jurisdictions in the world, but it has plenty of room to improve in terms of regulatory policies, according to a new survey conducted by the Fraser Institute. Utah and Nevada topped the latest ranking, with Saskatchewan, Quebec, Manitoba, Newfoundland and Labrador and Ontario all in the top 10. Saskatchewan was No. 3 for the second year in a row.

The analysis uses a combination of a region’s mineral potential and the policies it has in place to attract miners and is based on a total of 293 responses and 86 jurisdictions.

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José Raúl Mulino’s presidential win in Panama boosts First Quantum’s Cobre Panama prospects – by Niall McGee (Globe and Mail – May 7, 2024)

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/

The election of a pro-business president in Panama is raising hopes that Canadian miner First Quantum Minerals Ltd.’s pained prospects in the country might improve. First Quantum’s Cobre Panama mine was ordered to close late last year by outgoing president Laurentino Cortizo after the country’s Supreme Court ruled that its mining contract was unconstitutional. Mr. Cortizo’s term ends on June 30.

The winner of Sunday’s election was José Raúl Mulino. His campaign focused heavily on various initiatives aimed at boosting the economy. He became a candidate late in the campaign when former Panamanian president Ricardo Martinelli was barred from running after being convicted of money laundering.

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Fire and the mining frontier – by John Sandlos (Canadian Mining Journal – May 5, 2024)

https://www.canadianminingjournal.com/

The massive expansion of Canada’s mining industry in the early twentieth century brought miners into close contact with one of the most fire-prone ecosystems on the planet ― the great boreal forest. Although prospectors sometimes lit fires to clear land for exploration, the smell of smoke and the site of flames more often signaled a mortal threat to new mining communities in northern Canada.

With their hastily constructed wooden buildings, rudimentary fire fighting capabilities, and lack of viable transportation infrastructure, mining communities had almost no defenses against fire. Some fires might start within a town or a mine (such as the July 1909 fire in Cobalt, Ont.), but large forest fires also spelled potential doom for anyone or anything in their pathway.

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Meeting the metals mining shortfall – by Wilson Monteiro (Canadian Mining Journal – May 3, 2024)

https://www.canadianminingjournal.com/

Moving away from fossil fuels to meet essential global carbon reduction targets means mining for metals and minerals will need to increase significantly over the coming years. Electric vehicles, wind turbines, solar panels, and overall electrification are all areas of increased demand, meaning metals like copper, iron, and zinc will be continuously required.

How the need for more metals will be met with our current infrastructure is uncertain. Taking copper as an example, production is predicted to reach a crisis point by 2030 with an annual deficit of five million tonnes. Stemming from a surge in demand driven by the exponential growth in electric vehicles and a myriad of other electrification applications, surpassing current production capacity, this is an alarming prognosis that would ultimately impede global sustainability goals.

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The smoking gun for Canada’s weak economic growth? A collapse in energy and resource investment – by Heather Exner-Pirot (The Hub – May 2, 2024)

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The number of major natural resource projects completed between 2015 and 2023 declined by 36.4 percent

There’s a lot of hand-wringing going on in Canada these days as we try to figure out how our productivity, economic growth, and per capita GDP have sunk so badly. If you’re looking for a smoking gun, look no further than the precipitous decline in investment in Canada’s resource sector.

Canada’s resource and energy sector suffered two hits in 2015. One was the global commodity bust. The other was the election of the Trudeau Liberal government, which was intent on transforming the Canadian economy from its rollercoaster dependence on global commodity prices to one built on a more resilient and scalable knowledge economy. As Prime Minister Justin Trudeau articulated to his audience at the World Economic Forum in 2016, “My predecessor wanted you to know Canada for its resources. Well, I want you to know Canadians for our resourcefulness.”

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Resources are still our golden goose. We need to protect them – by Philip Cross, Jack M. Mintz (Financial Post – May 2, 2024)

https://financialpost.com/

They drive exports, productivity, incomes and government revenue. It’s time we stopped being embarrassed about them

Let us now praise Canada’s resource sector. It’s long past time somebody did. Natural resources generate 14.9 per cent of Canada’s GDP, with energy alone accounting for half that. They also account for over 45 per cent of our country’s manufacturing output. Nearly one in 10 Canadian jobs is related to resources, more than that for those of us living outside our major cities.

Natural resources have a heightened importance in investment and exports and the sector’s productivity is by far the highest of any industry’s. Canada’s comparative advantage in trade is heavily slanted to resources, which generate 58 per cent of all merchandise export earnings.

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OPINION: Natural resources are more important to the economy than city-dwellers realize – by Preston Manning (Globe and Mail – May 1, 2024)

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/

Preston Manning is the former leader of the Reform Party of Canada and a former leader of the opposition in Canada’s Parliament.

What is Canada’s strongest feature on the global economic stage? We don’t have the largest population on the planet. We don’t have the biggest GDP. We aren’t a financial powerhouse and we don’t have the smartest or most economically astute government.

But area-wise, we are the second-largest country on Earth, which means that we have the second-largest, or perhaps even the largest, stock of natural resources on the planet – an enormous source of strength and responsibility if we would only recognize it, capitalize on it, and make its future development and stewardship a national priority.

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Barrick accused of using virtual AGM format to misrepresent or ignore shareholder concerns – by Niall McGee (Globe and Mail – May 1, 2024)

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/

Barrick Gold Corp. is being accused of using the virtual format for its annual general meeting to suppress critical questions from stakeholders. After holding a hybrid AGM last year that allowed stakeholders to show up in person, the Toronto-based gold mining company, which is the world’s second biggest by market value, went to a virtual-only format this year.

Virtual AGMs have attracted the ire of some shareholder-rights groups. In an open letter to members of the S&P/TSX 60 Index in April, a group of 38 institutional investors, advisers, portfolio managers and non-profits argued that online meetings can undermine shareholder rights, by allowing companies to cherry-pick questions, or change the wording of them.

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Will Changes to Canada’s Capital Gains Tax Hurt Mining Investment and Innovation? – by Georgia Williams (Investing News – April 26, 2024)

https://investingnews.com/

On April 16, the Canadian government tabled its 2024 budget proposal. Called “Fairness for Every Generation,” it is aimed at helping Millennials and Gen Zs, with C$535 billion earmarked by the Trudeau government for investments in housing, clean economy initiatives, childcare, healthcare and national security. But one section of the document has garnered widespread attention — changes to the capital gains tax scheme.

Starting on June 25, 2024, changes to Canada’s tax system will aim to “enhance fairness” by adjusting the inclusion rate for capital gains. Individuals with over C$250,000 in annual capital gains will see their inclusion rate increase from one-half to two-thirds, while those with gains below this threshold will maintain the 50 percent inclusion rate.

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OPINION: Canada needs to have a plan for the U.S., no matter who becomes president. That starts with making us matter more – by Edward Greenspan, Janice Gross and Drew Fagan (Globe and Mail – April 27, 2024)

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/

It’s not just about Donald Trump. It’s about us, the indispensable ally that has allowed ourselves to dwindle into dispensability. That Canada’s neighbour is turning its back on the liberal values and internationalism that propelled the United States up the Billboard charts of world powers over the past century-and-a-half – that’s on the Americans.

We don’t get a vote, after all. That we are less consequential in the face of rising American nationalism and fragmenting geopolitics, however – that’s on us. We have become inward-looking, too. When our long-time allies, such as Germany, Japan and Korea, come seeking our resource-rich assistance with their energy insecurities, we demur.

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Airbus granted reprieve from Canadian sanctions on Russian titanium, sources say – by Steven Chase and Robert Fife (Globe and Mail – April 25, 2024)

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/

Ottawa has granted Airbus a waiver from sanctions targeting Russian titanium that could interfere with its business in Canada, two government sources say. Reports of the decision Wednesday prompted anger from Ukrainian Canadians and criticism from the Official Opposition.

The sanctions in question were only applied by Canada in February this year. Back then, Ottawa announced sanctions on Russia’s VSMPO-AVISMA Corporation, one of the world’s largest producers of titanium.

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