Can you give us a quick introduction to yourself and your work at the Mining Association of Canada (MAC)?
I’m the President and CEO of the Mining Association of Canada. I’ve been in this role for almost 15 years now, but I’ve worked in the mining industry for more than 25 years.
What are some of MAC’s key areas of focus and how does this relate to the overall importance of the association for the Canadian mining industry and for the broader Canadian society?
There are so many public policy areas that we focus on. But really, at the top, is the regulatory approvals process. As we all know, we need to get more mines built to provide the materials we need, especially the critical minerals.
We’re also focused on tax policy. Canada is a pretty expensive jurisdiction, and we need to remain competitive. We have obvious strengths compared to other parts of the world, such as a very highly skilled, educated workforce. We have political stability, we have a very good legal framework in place, and we have very strong geoscience, but we are high cost. And so, we need to focus on how to incentivize investments into this country as opposed to investments in other countries.
It’s interesting you bring up the push for more domestic critical minerals supply. There’s been a lot of talk about US-Canada relations and how geopolitics are impacting the industry. Have you seen some trickle down effects happening since the initial tariffs have been announced? Any big impacts in the industry in Canada?
It’s interesting you should say that, because one of the key features of the big Trump tariff announcement at the beginning of April was essentially that critical minerals were exempt. This is not just from Canada, but from around the world. If you’re able to define yourself as an exporter of critical minerals within the context of the Canada-US-Mexico free trade agreement, then you’re tariff free. But the US has also made a point with all of their other tariff announcements that they will keep critical minerals, as defined by the US critical minerals list, tariff-free, which is a strong indication of the importance of critical minerals for the United States, but also, for the world.
We’re obviously really concerned about tariffs more broadly and the impact that will have on the global economy. We’re seeing how the stock markets are responding. We’re seeing talks of a global recession. The impact that can have on commodity prices is unknown at this point, but it is not expected to be great. So overall, we don’t think this move by the Trump administration is a positive one for the sector.
The Mining Association of Canada established TSM in 2004, which is the first mining standard in the world to require site-level reporting. Can you tell us more about how this works and how mining companies can get involved?
It’s actually a condition of membership. If you want to be a member of MAC, you have to implement this programme at all of your operating sites in Canada. Every year, the companies have to undertake a self-assessment of their performance against 34 separate indicators covering a wide range of areas, from biodiversity conservation, to safety of workers, to tailings management, and so on. And every three years, they have to complete an external verification of that performance, so it’s a third party that comes in to confirm the performance of the mine. And all of these results are published on our website every year.
While we established the first set of standards, there are other standards that have emerged since. But in the meantime, TSM has expanded around the world. We now have 12 other mining associations worldwide that have adopted TSM and have either fully implemented it or are in the process of implementing it. And we’re also expecting to sign agreements with new mining associations later this year. So it continues to grow.
Do you see positive impacts coming out of the work you’ve done with TSM?
It’s certainly helped the industry perform better and I think it’s helped companies with their bottom line. If you have fewer things going wrong, if you’re managing your risks better, you’re protecting your company. And in some cases, like tailings management, a tailings failure can destroy a company. So, making sure that you’re managing your operations carefully is good business practice.
Look at Europe, for example. They are very keen to get more materials from Canada because they want to purchase from jurisdictions that can demonstrate high levels of environmental and social performance, and Canada can do that through TSM. So, there are other advantages to being able to demonstrate worldwide that Canada has one of the most responsible mining sectors.
What needs to be done more in Canada to promote the industry and get more buy-in from the broader community?
We have been measuring Canadian attitudes towards mining for the last 15 years, at least since I became CEO of MAC, and that support has been consistently strong, but also, improving. I think Canadians generally recognize that mining has always been an important sector for Canada. But more recently, that awareness has actually been increasing, I think, because of the growing focus on critical minerals.
There’s a growing recognition that the things we use in everyday life ultimately came from mined products, from our cellphones, to our cars, and so on. So, there’s a high appreciation for it. I think we’ve also made huge progress over the last 20, 30 years in our collaborative approach with Indigenous peoples. We now have over 500 agreements across the country between the mining sector and Indigenous communities. That has also helped to grow the industry.
I think on a go-forward basis, that’s just going to continue to intensify. What we’ve really been focusing on, from a policy perspective, is that we need to speed up the approvals process. The Minister of Natural Resources has said that it can’t take 25 years to bring a mine into production. We do have projects that get through the process in five years, but we really should be looking to reduce that even further if we’re to meet the current challenges. One of the key risks we face, for example, is that mineral reserves have declined over the last 25 years. We produce 60% less copper than we used to, 60% less nickel than we used to. We need to turn that around. We’re only going to do that by finding new projects, permitting them, and bringing them into production.
Any key messages that you want to share about the industry in Canada and things that junior miners and investors should know about getting involved?
As you know, we’re in the middle of an election, and both of the leading parties are talking a lot about mining and about getting more projects built. So that’s encouraging. They’re both talking about improving the tax competitiveness of the sector too. In the last few years, the current government has implemented a number of important tax credits that support mining. That job’s not done, there’s still some improvements that the current government has acknowledged they need to make. And both are talking about speeding up the regulatory process.
Of course, there’s only so much the federal government can do, because the provinces also play a major role.
They’re the primary regulator. People often forget that a lot of the delays actually take place at the provincial level, not the federal. But nevertheless, the focus and the attention on project approvals and timelines is welcome. So, I think the trajectory is positive for the sector. I think global investors should look seriously at Canada. We have a long history of mining. We do it well. There’s great Canadian leadership. And I think there’s the potential for Canada to supply a lot more to the world and do it in a responsible way.
