A senior source said Canada is ready to supply vital minerals to its allies, including Japan since the Group of Seven (G7) countries consider them crucial for climate objectives and energy security.
Canada and the US have agreed to improve crucial mineral supply lines.
Japan and the EU have comparable critical minerals cooperation agreements.
“We view this resource has been very strategic, not only from an economic point of view, but also a security point of view,” Canada’s minister of environment and climate change, Steven Guilbeault, told Reuters in Japan, where he will attend a G7 ministerial meeting on climate, energy, and environment.
According to Reuters’ latest draft communique, the April 15-16 meeting in Sapporo, part of Japan’s G7 presidency, will discuss the growing importance of critical minerals for the clean energy transition and the need to prevent economic and security risks from vulnerable supply chains and monopolization.
China controls the market for essential minerals required to produce electric vehicle batteries, which are crucial to industrialized nations’ decarbonization aspirations. Russia, which invaded Ukraine last year, is also a big participant.
After a national security assessment, Canada required three Chinese corporations to surrender their Toronto-listed lithium exploration shares last year.
Guilbeault cited “strategic security.”
With a few exceptions, Canada has most of those important minerals. “We can become a reliable provider of these resources or products for our international allies like Japan,” he added.
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