In a world where trade and tariffs are rewriting the playbook, Saskatchewan is looking to take a bigger market share in the world of critical minerals. Canada has designated more than 30 individual elements as critical minerals. Included among them are the so-called Rare Earth Minerals but the primary list includes some of our stalwarts like potash and uranium.
Because Saskatchewan is a world-scale suppliers of potash and uranium, the province also is Canada’s largest supplier of critical minerals, producing 27 of the 34 elements on the list.
Now the province has tweaked an incentive program for players in the very early stages of the mining life cycle: exploration. The expanded program will include more of the steps that take place at the beginning of the process – activities such as geophysical surveys and core logging.
The idea here is to attract the small players, the ones who trudge through remote areas and are responsible for making mineral discoveries, attract capital to fund the work that will identify a deposit and, ultimately, lure a major player capable of turning a discovery into a mine.
