The West Is Ready to Mine

Seven western provinces sign an MOU to build a shared critical minerals strategy targeting lithium supply chain growth

13 Apr 2026

Canada supplied roughly 2.5% of North American lithium output in 2024. S&P Global expects Canadian lithium consumption to grow at around 74% annually through the decade's end. The arithmetic is awkward, and seven provinces have decided to do something about it.

On January 25th, British Columbia, Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba, Yukon, the Northwest Territories, and Nunavut signed a memorandum of understanding in Vancouver, pledging to develop a unified critical minerals strategy. The agreement, the first of its kind at this scale in Canada, commits the signatories to aligning infrastructure investment, opening export corridors, and positioning Western Canada as a global centre for responsible mineral development. A final strategy is expected to be published at the Energy and Mining Ministers Conference in June 2026.

Each province arrives with something to offer. Alberta holds large underground lithium brine deposits alongside a well-developed network of wells, pipelines, and processing facilities left over from its oil and gas industry, much of it adaptable to lithium extraction. Saskatchewan, better known as the world's largest potash producer, is advancing brine projects that have attracted technology investment from across the country. Manitoba hosts one of only three active lithium mines on the continent. Yukon is pushing for a new power transmission corridor to connect remote mineral regions to the national grid, which would reduce costly diesel dependence for extraction operations.

The memorandum rests on three objectives: building shared infrastructure to support extraction, processing, and export; prioritising regional mineral hubs; and securing meaningful Indigenous partnership and ownership throughout the supply chain. That third pillar reflects a practical as much as a principled concern. Large-scale mineral projects in Canada increasingly require social licence to proceed, and governments have learned that communities left out of ownership structures tend to push back in ways that delay or derail production timelines.

What the agreement cannot resolve is the gap between political alignment and commercial output. Memoranda are not mines. Infrastructure corridors take years to permit and build. Indigenous partnership frameworks, however well intentioned, require genuine negotiation rather than ministerial announcements. The June conference will test whether seven governments can translate a shared ambition into a workable plan, or whether the document joins a long shelf of coordinated intentions that the market quietly outpaces.