CALGARY \u2014 Finance Minister Fran\u00e7ois-Philippe Champagne says his goal is to help make Canada the NATO partner of choice when it comes to supplying critical minerals as defence becomes a focus for many countries.<\/p>\n
Refining is the “name of the game” and Canada can do better than just shipping those high-demand materials south in their raw form, Champagne told a Calgary business audience Monday almost a week after he delivered the latest federal budget.<\/p>\n
“Exploration, extraction is something. But what we need is refining. That’s the key,” he said. Minerals like titanium, used to make submarines, are crucial to defence initiatives, he added.<\/p>\n
The budget released last Tuesday outlines a plan for a $2-billion “critical minerals sovereign fund” over five years for equity investments, loan guarantees and offtake agreements.<\/p>\n
Critical minerals are becoming “decisive” to the competitiveness of countries, Champagne said.<\/p>\n
“If we left it entirely to the market, I’m not sure we would meet the moment.”<\/p>\n
On energy, Champagne said “mentalities are changing” around developing oil and gas resources and ensuring they can get to market.<\/p>\n
“The fact that the prime minister changed the tone to talk about an energy superpower in both clean and conventional energy, I think has really changed how people perceive these things,” Champagne said.<\/p>\n
“They understand today the nexus between economic security, energy security and national security.”<\/p>\n
He said Canada needs to “get its act together” on ensuring regulations don’t hold such projects back and that there’s much more work to be done on boosting its productivity.<\/p>\n
“I think we have done a course correction now,” Champagne said. “I think people have found a new confidence that this is a serious government that wants to do serious things, that is serious about growth and investment.”<\/p>\n
Deborah Yedlin, president and CEO of the Calgary Chamber of Commerce, said there were some welcome elements in the budget, like a signal that a cap on industrial carbon emissions will be scrapped.<\/p>\n
But she said questions remain.<\/p>\n
“It’s one thing to say that we’re looking at ways to increase investment, but we really need to deal with the regulatory challenges,” she said.<\/p>\n
“The energy sector, I think, is encouraged. We have a prime minister, we have a finance minister talking about Canada being an energy superpower. We have not had that rhetoric in Canada for a long time.”<\/p>\n
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 10, 2025.<\/p>\n
Lauren Krugel, The Canadian Press<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"CALGARY \u2014 Finance Minister Fran\u00e7ois-Philippe Champagne says his goal is to help make Canada the NATO partner of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":275949,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[45,49,98228,48,6257,8411,46,126219,52880],"class_list":["post-275948","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-economy","tag-business","tag-ca","tag-calgary-chamber-of-commerce","tag-canada","tag-champagne","tag-critical-minerals","tag-economy","tag-energy-superpower","tag-finance-minister"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/275948","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=275948"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/275948\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/275949"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=275948"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=275948"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=275948"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}