In 2021, the federal government established an official list of 34 critical minerals and metals—including nickel, cobalt, copper and lithium—that are essential to Canada’s economic security and our role in global supply chains. They’re found in almost every province and territory and used in products like smartphones, photovoltaic cells, semiconductors and electric vehicles. Their extraction is the missing link in Canada’s multi-billion-dollar investment in EV battery plants: the whole idea is for Canada itself to supply those critical minerals, not import them. But, for the most part, the deposits remain in the ground. According to the mining industry, that has to do with issues under........

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