Funding aims to unlock critical minerals in northern British Columbia and Yukon

Up to $60 million in funding is being allocated for two critical minerals infrastructure developments in B.C.’s Golden Triangle and the Yukon. Pending final due diligence from the Natural Resources Canada, this funding would be provided through the Critical Minerals Infrastructure Fund (CMIF).

Galore Creek Mining Corporation (Galore Creek) is planning to construct a 43-kilometre access road to support the development of its copper mine located in Tahltan Territory in northwest B.C. The Galore Creek deposits contain over 12 billion pounds of copper and, once in production, will increase Canada’s annual copper supply. The construction of the Galore Creek Access Road would link the mine project to existing road infrastructure, provide ground access to proposed mill and processing facilities and provide the electricity transmission corridor allowing the Galore Creek mine to operate using BC Hydro’s low-emission electricity grid. Natural Resources Canada has conditionally approved an investment of up to $20 million under the CMIF for this project.

The Government of Yukon is seeking to undertake pre-feasibility activities to advance a 765-kilometre, high-voltage transmission line network that would connect the Yukon electrical grid to the North American grid in B.C. This regional project has proposed energy infrastructure located in two priority regions for critical minerals development — Yukon’s Cassiar and Tanana regions and B.C.’s Golden Triangle. The transmission line could support projects producing critical minerals such as cobalt, copper, molybdenum, nickel, platinum group metals, tungsten and zinc in the Yukon and northern B.C. Natural Resources Canada has conditionally approved an investment of up to $40 million under the CMIF for this project.

The Critical Minerals Infrastructure Fund is a program under the Canadian Critical Minerals Strategy to address infrastructure gaps and enable sustainable critical minerals production and connect resources to markets through various clean energy, electrification and transportation infrastructure projects.

Critical minerals are components in products used for clean energy technologies such as electric vehicles, electrical transmission lines and batteries.