Interview: Minister of Natural Resources and Forests, government of Québec

For its Québec Mining 2023 edition, Global Business Reports sat down with Maïté Blanchette Vézina, Minister of Natural Resources and Forests, government ofQuébec to discuss the mining scene in the Canadian province, which is emerging as a lithium exploration hotspot.

GBR: Can you present the vision of the Québec government to support growth in the mining industry?

Blanchette Vézina: Québec has well-documented potential to provide minerals for the battery sector as part of energy transition.

We want to continue and even improve our excellent social responsibility and enhance it through better dialogue with local communities. My ministry emphasizes the importance of preserving our high operating standards: This is key to be in the vanguard of attracting foreign investment. These high standards and our best practices make us an attractive player and become a competitive asset in a global context.

To succeed, we have a development plan for critical and strategic minerals, as well as a research and development and recycling program to add value to the chain and create a circular economy for extracting and existing minerals. We think that for the next generations and to get better social acceptability, going through recycling and a circular economy is necessary. We’re working hard with our economic arm, Investissement Québec, to keep our business attractive and encourage companies to transform minerals here in Québec. We have strategic levers (Sidex, Ressources Québec, SOQUEM) that are unique to Québec.

GBR: What makes Québec unique for mining investment?

Blanchette Vézina: Our hallmark is socially acceptable practices, which we continue to improve. Our ESG standards are the best and our governance is stable. For many years now, we have had a geospatial database that provides free access to data to help our partners in their research.

This helps save time and secure investments. Our economic levers are independent of government and are not influenced by the application of aid programs. We maintain a free-market economic environment. There is no interference, only a shared vision.

If companies meet our high standards, we welcome foreign investment. This capital is needed to carry out mining projects that will ensure the success of the energy transition, and that translate into a winning value chain for Québec society. We need local spin-offs, integrated into primary and secondary processing, with maximum circularity. National security is also key. We need to secure our resources for Québec society.

The pandemic has prompted us to think about the supply chain; we have everything we need to make batteries, among other things, but now we need to capitalize on our resources and integrate them into Québec’s value chain to secure them.

GBR: What impact will the proposed French language law have on foreign mining companies?

Blanchette Vézina: We are the only French-speaking province in North America, and we need to protect this heritage. We continue to work with foreign companies to help them, but we ask them to work in French. We see our French heritage as a strength and as a comparative advantage, not as a constraint.

GBR: How does the Ministry assist relations between mining companies and First Nations?

Blanchette Vézina: The Société du Plan Nord works a lot with the First Nations, especially the Cree. It encourages dialogue. We have a whole government approval process for relations with Cree. The COMEX exercise is a government analysis done for the First Nations. Companies want to encourage hiring locally and involve the communities, and we facilitate that. We encourage mining companies to enter BSAs (benefit-sharing agreements) and finance the negotiation of these agreements.

GBR: In terms of infrastructure and permitting processes, what actions have you taken recently to support the industry?

Blanchette Vézina: We invested hundreds of millions of dollars on the southern portion of the Billy Diamond Highway – which runs north to Radisson – to secure this strategic route. This access is one of the keys to our success.

We are working on an office that will reduce permitting times by 40% for critical mineral development projects that meet our ESG criteria. Accelerating the authorization process is a priority for the government of Québec but accelerating does not mean lowering the criteria. This means more collaboration with other departments to achieve more efficiency in processing analyses for permitting.

GBR: Do you have a final message for GBR’s audience?

Blanchette Vézina: I am fortunate to be in a ministry at the heart of the world’s major decarbonization issues. Québec is in the right place at the right time. Our action plans are clear, and we are a key player on the international scene. People want ethical mining, and that is what Québec offers.

(This article first appeared in Global Business Reports)