Biden’s Ottawa Visit Will Include Focus on Critical Minerals, Minister Says

Minister of Natural Resources Jonathan Wilkinson rises during Question Period in the House of Commons on Parliament Hill in Ottawa on Feb. 14, 2023. Patrick Doyle/The Canadian Press

Natural Resources Minister Jonathan Wilkinson says there will be “lots of conversation” on the issue of critical minerals during U.S. President Joe Biden’s two-day visit to Canada that starts on March 23.

“It’s an area that’s really important, and that is not just cobalt and lithium and graphite—it’s also things like uranium and nuclear fuel cycle,” Wilkinson told reporters before attending his caucus’s weekly meeting on Parliament Hill on March 22.

“There will be lots of conversation and I expect that there will be something to be said in the final [meeting].”

According to a White House press release on March 9, Biden is set to address the Canadian Parliament during his visit to “highlight the importance of the United States-Canada bilateral relationship.”

The release said the president and Prime Minister Justin Trudeau will discuss shared national security issues and defense cooperation including modernizing the North American Aerospace Defense Command, strengthening supply chain resilience, and “accelerating the clean energy transition.”

Canada and the United States also indicated last year the need to develop their domestic production of critical minerals, a sector currently heavily dominated by China.

“Concurrent geopolitical dynamics have caused like-minded countries to reflect on the need to have stable and secure resources and the clean technologies they enable,” said a press release issued by Wilkinson’s department last December on Canada’s critical minerals strategy.

“There is no global energy transition without accelerated activity in the critical minerals space.”

Although the release did not specifically mention China, critics have warned that the communist regime could cut off access to critical minerals to develop its own high-tech sectors.

To counter China’s dominance, Canada has committed to explore, extract, process, manufacture, and recycle 31 critical minerals that include graphite, nickel, cobalt, copper, rare earth elements, potash, uranium, and aluminum.

Responding to criticism that the federal government isn’t approving mineral projects fast enough, Wilkinson said decisions to speed up have to be made “without cutting corners from an environmental perspective.”

“We have a process in place right now at the federal level that’s looking at how we can actually make our systems more efficient. I would say the Impact Assessment Act was part of that,” he said.

The Impact Assessment Act outlines a process for assessing the impacts of major projects and projects carried out on federal lands or outside of Canada, according to the Canadian Environmental Assessment Agency.

The government of Alberta is currently challenging the federal government in the courts on the legislation, saying it’s interfering in the jurisdiction of the province and preventing investments in major projects.