MAC appeals for more investment ahead of federal budget

The Mining Association of Canada (MAC) has urged the government to invest more in critical minerals in this year’s budget to avoid “slipping behind” its competitors in the sector, while revealing its annual report on the state of Canadian mining.

Pierre Gratton, president of the association that includes about 50 of Canada’s leading mining companies, told The Northern Miner in an interview that the sector needed “heightened investment in research and development,” especially for the development of lithium and rare earth elements in the country.

He also hoped that the Liberal government would stick to its promise to double the mineral exploration tax credit for critical minerals, aside from supporting the building of infrastructure such as roads in areas like the Yukon or Nunavut, where there’s plenty of potential for exploration.

“We would like to see some enhanced public geoscience focused on critical minerals,” said Gratton. “Besides gold, we haven’t found much new in the metal space and certainly not base metals in the last 20 years… We need more exploration in Canada focused on base metals.”

The Canadian mining sector contributes $107 billion to the national GDP and is responsible for 19% of Canada’s total domestic exports. It employs 692,000 people directly and indirectly across the nation.

It is also a global player with several of the world’s biggest mining companies listed in the country. But MAC’s president believes that there are clear signs that show Canada falling behind its competitors and that the country was no longer the “mining powerhouse” it used to be.

“In the early 2000s we were the second largest producer of nickel in the world; we are now sixth. We have slipped from our top five position for many commodities over the last 15 to 20 years,” said Gratton. “We are still significant, but we are not what we were, and we need to try and turn that around.”  

While the report does note an uptick in base metals exploration in Canada, it was still “small” and at low levels, Gratton said. He particularly stressed the need to “incentivize” the production of nickel sulphate and other materials in the battery metals space and added that Canada needed to double its current production by 2030 just to preserve its market share of nickel.

With regards to the annual report, Gratton noted that the total number of jobs in the sector in 2021 was “slightly down” from 2020, which he described as a positive, since it shows that the industry was able to recover quickly from the pandemic.