Investments in critical minerals infrastructure are essential to enable Canada to seize the enormous economic opportunity presented by the low-carbon economy and to capitalize on our rich mineral resources. Canada is well positioned to be a global leader and a first-class producer of a wide variety of critical minerals that are essential to powering the clean economy, including lithium and copper, and to create good jobs and support economic opportunities across critical mineral value chains — from mining to processing, manufacturing and recycling.
Today, MP Michael McLeod, on behalf of the Honourable Jonathan Wilkinson, Minister of Energy and Natural Resources, along with the Honourable Caroline Wawzonek, Minister of Infrastructure for the Northwest Territories, announced up to $25 million in infrastructure funding, pending final due diligence, to the Government of Northwest Territories for its Taltson Hydro Expansion Project. This funding would be provided through the federal government’s Critical Minerals Infrastructure Fund (CMIF). The project is in partnership with Indigenous governments, including the Akaitcho Dene First Nations, the Northwest Territory Métis Nation, and the Salt River First Nation. This partnership-based approach ensures that these Indigenous governments play a key role in shaping the project’s direction.
The Government of Northwest Territories plans to complete pre-construction milestones for the Taltson Hydro Expansion Project to build a new 60-megawatt generation facility near the existing Taltson Hydro Facility south of Great Slave Lake, as well as a 230-kilovolt transmission line connecting the Taltson grid with the Snare hydro system grid north of Great Slave Lake. Expansion of the Taltson system and connection to the North Slave region would enhance the Northwest Territories’ green energy capacity and reliability, significantly reducing the region’s future greenhouse gas emissions and providing grid connection opportunities for multiple critical minerals projects and communities in both the North and South Slave regions. Pending final due diligence, Natural Resources Canada has conditionally approved an investment of up to $25 million under the CMIF for this project.
The CMIF is a key program under the Canadian Critical Minerals Strategy to address infrastructure gaps, enable critical minerals production and connect resources to markets through various clean energy, electrification and transportation infrastructure projects. Additional funding decisions for projects under the CMIF to further critical minerals infrastructure development expected in the coming months.
These new critical minerals projects, alongside investments toward clean energy projects in rural and remote Indigenous communities, highlight the Government of Canada’s partnership with the Northwest Territories through the Regional Energy and Resource Tables (Regional Tables). The Northwest Territories joined the Regional Tables process in 2022 as a way for the two levels of government, with Indigenous partners, to work more closely together to identify and accelerate the tremendous opportunities in the low-carbon economy. To get there, Canada and the Northwest Territories — in collaboration with Indigenous partners and with the input of key stakeholders — are developing a collaboration framework that will lay out joint actions that can be taken in the short and medium term to build tomorrow’s low-carbon economy. The collaboration framework will be released in 2025.
Critical minerals are essential components in products used for clean energy technologies such as electric vehicles, electrical transmission lines and batteries. Canada’s mining sector provides many of the building blocks of clean technologies, including lithium and copper, needed to fight climate change and build a clean economy.
