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Canadian Media Resource Articles

Canada’s new defence policy isn’t winning America over, analysts say – by Bryan Passifiume (National Post – May 28, 2024)

https://nationalpost.com/

According to NATO, Canada ranks only ahead of Spain, Belgium and Luxembourg on defence spending

OTTAWA — The Liberal government’s new defence policy has landed with a resounding thud in Washington and it could be a sign that U.S. politicians are losing patience with Canada’s stinginess on defence spending, analysts say.

A letter released Thursday by 23 Democrat, Republican and independent United States senators took Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to task for Canada’s defence spending, demanding that Canada meet NATO benchmarks requiring members to commit at least two per cent of their GDP to defence spending.

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What’s behind a historic, unusual U.S. military cash transfer to Canadian mines – by Alexander Panetta (CBC News World – May 26, 2024)

https://www.cbc.ca/news/world/

The Pentagon fears global unrest, a shortage of raw materials, and seeks to kickstart projects here

The United States was growing desperate, months before its entry into the Second World War. It was gravely short of aluminum, and scrambling for suppliers. Its solution: turn north to Canada.

American public money flooded into Quebec, building the aluminum industry that supplied raw materials for Allied planes and tanks. “I would be willing to buy aluminum from anybody,” said Harry Truman, then still a U.S. senator, in 1941 hearings on the topic.

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NGO sues Norway over deep-sea mining plans – by Cecilia Jamasmie (Mining.com – May 24, 2024)

https://www.mining.com/

Environmental activists have once again turned to the Norwegian courts, this time suing the government over its plans for seabed mineral exploration, which they claim has failed to test the possible impacts of such activity.

The case, led by the World Wildlife Fund (WWF), argues the decision breaches national law, goes against the counsel of the government’s own advisers, and sets an alarming precedent.

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New gold mine in northern Ontario could become biggest in Canada – by Lydia Chubak (CTV Northern Ontario – May 24, 2024)

https://northernontario.ctvnews.ca/

IAMGOLD’s Cote Gold open pit mine, located off Highway 144 between Timmins and Sudbury, had its official ribbon-cutting ceremony this week as production ramps up. Cote primarily produces gold, with silver as a by-product.

“Our production is growing, we’re still not at nameplate capacity yet,” said Bryan Wilson, general manager of Cote Gold. “We’re still going through teething problems in the process plant, but it’s getting to where we need to be.”

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Sudbury becomes a major nickel producer – by Ailbhe Goodbody (CIM Magazine – May 22, 2024)

https://magazine.cim.org/en/

In this edition of Mining the Archives, we examine the development of Sudbury as a Canadian nickel hub, which later became an example of how pollution-impacted lands can be reclaimed successfully

The Sudbury Basin was formed by a meteorite impact approximately 1.85 billion years ago, which made mineral-rich magmas rise from deeper in the earth to create the valuable mineral resource deposits in the region.

Robert C. Stanley [CIM Bulletin, July 1927] stated that the first authentic discovery of nickel in the Sudbury district was recorded about 1856. “Sudbury was at that time the terminus of the Canadian Pacific Railway, from which point construction was being pushed westward,” he said. “In the course of this work, a cutting was made which passed through an outcrop of copper ore that was later to be the Murray mine. Prospectors after copper immediately flocked into the surrounding country, and a very large number of claims were staked.”

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Lithium Miners Shake Up Trading to Tackle Wild Price Swings – by Annie Lee and Yvonne Yue Li (Bloomberg News – May 19, 2024)

https://www.bnnbloomberg.ca/

(Bloomberg) — The world’s lithium miners — facing an unprecedented demand surge and wild price swings — are shaking up the way the commodity is bought and sold. As lithium emerges as a linchpin of the global energy transition, the industry is in the grip of a slow-motion revolution that earlier upended commodities like iron ore: a push for more transparent and industry-wide pricing.

Albemarle Corp., the No. 1 lithium supplier, has held a series of auctions since March where potential buyers compete for cargoes via bids. These sales are a significant step for lithium, which until relatively recently was largely sold at prices fixed in long-term contracts.

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Solaris abandons proposed financing with Chinese company after deal stalled in national security review – by Niall McGee (Globe and Mail – May 22, 2024)

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/

Canadian critical minerals company Solaris Resources Inc. has called off its financing deal with China’s Zijin Mining Group Co. Ltd. after failing to receive regulatory approval from Ottawa, which had been vetting the transaction on national security grounds. Vancouver-based Solaris in January said that Zijin intended to pay $130-million for a 15-per-cent equity stake in the company.

Solaris had planned to use the funds to advance its early-stage Warintza copper project in Ecuador. If the deal had been approved, Zijin would have been entitled to a seat on Solaris’s board, giving it influence over the strategic direction of the company. Copper, along with nickel, lithium and graphite, is used in electric-vehicle batteries and other low-carbon energy sources.

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Feds lean on B.C. to produce more critical minerals – by David Carrigg (Vancouver Sun – May 22, 2024)

https://vancouversun.com/

B.C. has large tapped and untapped reserves of minerals deemed critical to Canada’s economic future

B.C. is playing a crucial role in the federal government’s plan to ensure Canada produces 31 minerals deemed critical to the economic future. During a Conversations Live project hosted by Stuart McNish on Wednesday night, an expert panel outlined how these important minerals are part of a larger geopolitical movement and that B.C. has huge prospects for growth and job creation in mining.

As an example, Michael Goehring, President and CEO of the Mining Association of B.C., said that B.C. produces 80 per cent of Canada’s copper and that mineral is turned into the “electrification metal.”

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OPINION: Make no mistake, there’s an economic war happening, and the West is losing – by George Salamis and Mike St-Pierre (Globe and Mail – May 23, 2024)

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/

George Salamis, Lieutenant-Colonel (Hon) of the Royal Westminster Regiment, is executive chair of Integra Resources, a Canadian-based mining company that develops gold and silver mines in Canada and the U.S. Mike St-Pierre is a Lieutenant Commander in the Royal Canadian Navy.

A global race is under way to secure critical minerals essential to power the next generation of civilian and military technology and to electrify the future. Control of global supply chains has become the new strategic centre of gravity, where access to minerals and metals are strategic weapons. The West is losing the resource war that targets our core social and political values. At stake is the national security of the West.

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Boeing, Airbus Working With Saudi Arabia on Metals for Planes – by Fahad Abuljadayel and Matthew Martin (Bloomberg News – May 20, 2024)

https://www.bnnbloomberg.ca/

(Bloomberg) — Saudi Arabia said it’s working with top airplane makers Boeing and Airbus to get its aluminum and titanium approved for use in their planes as part of a push to get more manufacturing done inside the kingdom.

Achieving certification would potentially help the jet manufacturers overcome supply hurdles, including difficulties securing some raw materials. Saudi Arabia is also discussing making more aircraft components locally, according to the Saudi General Authority of Civil Aviation.

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Canada’s at the front of the pack in the EV race — but there’s a weak link – by David Olive (Toronto Star – May 21, 2024)

https://www.thestar.com/

China still boasts the largest EV ecosystem. But like other EV contenders including India and Indonesia, it is reliant on fossil fuels for power, David Olive writes.

Two months before Honda Motor Co. announced in April that it will build $15-billion worth of electric vehicle (EV) factories in Ontario, Canada had already eclipsed China as the country with the greatest potential to build a leading “global lithium-ion battery supply” chain.

That’s the finding of BloombergNEF (BNEF), a leader in monitoring global EV initiatives. It’s worth quoting at length why BNEF says Canada, among the 30 countries it surveys, is at the front of the pack in the race to create EV ecosystems.

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U.S. tariffs on the EV supply chain pose policy dilemma for Canada – by Gabriel Friedman (Financial Post – May 21, 2024)

https://financialpost.com/

Canadian companies now have more incentive to sell south of the border than in their own country

Eric Desaulniers, chief executive of Montreal-based Nouveau Monde Graphite Inc., figured it was spam when he received an email inviting him to the White House for a vague policy announcement.

But his IT department told him the email was authentic, and days later, on May 14, United States President Joe Biden announced sweeping tariffs on China’s electric-vehicle supply chain that affect everything from EVs themselves to critical minerals, including a 25 per cent tariff on Chinese graphite beginning in 2026.

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OPINION: The transition from the U.S.-led global order will be rocky – by Robert Muggah and Misha Glenny (Globe and Mail – May 18, 2024)

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/

Robert Muggah is a co-founder of the Igarapé Institute and the SecDev Group and a senior adviser to the United Nations. Misha Glenny is a British journalist and currently serves as rector of the Institute for Human Sciences.

The rise in doomscrolling is a morbid sign of the times. The obsessive consumption of negative news isn’t just bad for physical and mental health, but our very survival. Recent studies confirm that overexposure to social media short-circuits the brain’s natural self-defences, leaving us disoriented and depressed. It turns out that optimism is good for us. People fortified by an optimist mindset are less prone to conspiracy theories and are generally happier, healthier and live longer.

Yet there are reasons why optimism is in short supply. Widespread screen addiction is partly to blame for headline anxiety, especially among young people. Another reason the algorithms are winning is because the world is objectively more volatile today than at any time since the Second World War.

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Ottawa, Washington join forces to fund junior Canadian critical-minerals companies in face of trade war with China – by Naill McGee (Globe and Mail – May 17, 2024)

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/

Ottawa and Washington have teamed up for the first time to invest in two Canadian mining exploration companies, as both governments attempt to bolster the North American critical-minerals supply chain in the face of an escalating trade war with China.

Ontario cobalt developer Fortune Minerals Ltd. and Quebec graphite exploration company Lomiko Metals Inc. have been awarded about $32.4-million in combined funding, the U.S. and Canada said in a joint statement Thursday. The Canadian contribution is part of the $3.8-billion in funding for the critical-minerals sector that was unveiled in the 2023 federal budget and is coming from Natural Resources Canada.

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Billionaire-backed KoBold, Midnight Sun team up for Zambia copper discovery – by Henry Lazenby (Northern Miner – May 2024)

https://www.northernminer.com/

KoBold Metals, a U.S.-based startup supported by high-profile investors such as Bill Gates and Jeff Bezos, is venturing into Zambia’s rich copper belt. In February it partnered with Canada’s Midnight Sun Mining (TSXV: MMA) to explore the promising Dumbwa target within the Solwezi copper project.

This strategic alliance will leverage KoBold’s advanced data science techniques and Midnight Sun’s extensive local experience. The goal is for KoBold to earn a 75% stake in the Dumbwa target by investing US$15 million in exploration and making US$500,000 in cash payments over 4.5 years.

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