Natural Resources Minister Jonathan Wilkinson announced Dec. 9 Canada’s strategy for mining and processing critical minerals. These minerals—such as lithium, copper, and nickel—are necessary for the government’s energy transition goals. They are needed in manufacturing electric car batteries, solar panels, wind turbines, and a variety of other technologies.
A central point of the strategy is to streamline the approval process for mining projects.
It can currently take anywhere from 5 to 25 years for a mining project to become operational, the strategy report says. Wilkinson said one way to speed this up is to harmonize provincial and federal permitting processes to avoid duplicating efforts….