Industrial Policy & Trade Monitor· 2675 actions· ✨ 91 recent

At the PDAC Convention 2026 in Toronto, Canada's Minister of Energy and Natural Resources Tim Hodgson announced the Critical Minerals Sovereign Fund (CMSF), a CAD 2 billion vehicle to be operated by Natural Resources Canada that will deploy equity investments, debt, and offtake agreements into Canadian critical-minerals projects and companies. Initial focus covers six of Canada's 34 critical minerals — copper, nickel, lithium, graphite, cobalt, and rare earth elements — with capital expected to begin flowing in spring 2026. The CMSF is part of a broader CAD 3.6 bn PDAC-day announcement package that NRCan estimates will unlock CAD 12.1 bn in mining-project capital across 30+ partnerships, and is structurally modelled on Australia's Critical Minerals Strategic Reserve.

On 31 October 2025, Canada's Minister of Energy and Natural Resources Tim Hodgson announced — on the sidelines of the G7 Energy & Environment Ministers' Meeting in Toronto — that the federal government will leverage the Defence Production Act (DPA) to designate critical minerals as defence supplies and build a strategic stockpile, with the Crown acting as buyer of last resort and setting confidential minimum prices to insulate Canadian producers from Chinese price suppression. The announcement was paired with an initial round of 26 investments, partnerships and measures totalling C$6.4 billion in unlocked critical-mineral capital (~C$120m direct federal spend plus up to ~C$1.2 bn in offtake agreements, expressions of interest and export guarantees) and aligned with nine allied countries. It is the first time Canada has invoked DPA stockpiling and priority-procurement powers for non-traditional defence inputs (lithium, nickel, cobalt, copper, rare earths, graphite, uranium) and repositions Canada as an allied-aligned strategic supplier parallel to US DPA Title III action under EO 14241.

On 15 October 2025 the Business Development Bank of Canada (BDC) launched a CAD 700 million loan guarantee program to help softwood sawmills, lumbermills and remanufacturers access new term loans and letters of credit through their existing financial institutions. The guarantees are aimed at easing the collateral and duty-payment strain created by US tariff and countervailing/antidumping exposure, effective immediately from announcement. The program was later topped up by a further CAD 500 million on 26 November 2025 (filed separately), bringing total guarantee capacity to roughly CAD 1.2 billion.

On 4 July 2024 the Minister of Innovation, Science and Industry (François-Philippe Champagne) issued a ministerial statement on Investment Canada Act net-benefit reviews of Canadian critical-minerals companies. Acquisitions of control of important Canadian mining companies engaged in significant critical-minerals operations, including large Canadian-headquartered firms, will be found of net benefit only "in the most exceptional of circumstances." The statement extends the October 2022 state-owned-enterprise policy to foreign capital generally for this class of target. It states no size threshold and no effective date beyond the announcement.