On behalf of the Government of Saskatchewan, I am pleased to share updates on Securing the Future: Saskatchewan’s Critical Minerals Strategy, which our government released in March 2023.
Since its release, the four goals of the Strategy helped guide critical mineral development in Saskatchewan. It covers areas that include increasing mineral production in our core sectors, diversifying our mineral resource base, and gaining a greater share of Canadian critical mineral exploration spending by the end of the decade. And I am proud to say that since the Strategy’s rollout, we have made significant progress in all key areas of the plan.
Saskatchewan is Canada’s leader in critical mineral production and potential. With nearly $13 billion in mineral sales last year – which is more than 20 per cent of the national total – we are proud to host a sector that fuels economic growth and underpins our provincial economy.
Mineral resource development spending in Saskatchewan is projected to reach nearly $6 billion for 2024 – the largest share of any province. We are seeing a variety of projects and commodities continuing to advance towards production, such as zinc, copper, and lithium. These projects are a promising step towards diversifying our resource base.
According to the Fraser Institute’s annual survey of mining companies, Saskatchewan has been ranked as the best jurisdiction in Canada, and top three in the world, for mining investment attractiveness for the past nine out of 10 years. The Government of Saskatchewan is committed to ensuring the province remains one of the best places in the world to invest in exploration and resource development.
That sentiment is reflected in the 2024‑25 Provincial Budget, which featured increased investments that strengthen our province’s mining sector and support our world-class natural resource industries. We also introduced two new critical minerals incentives that will accelerate development in 10 emerging commodities to grow and diversify our province’s position as a global leader in critical minerals extraction and processing.
Through a 25 per cent transferable royalty and freehold production tax credit, the Saskatchewan Critical Minerals Innovation Incentive supports companies in advancing innovation commercialization projects for emerging critical minerals in the province. This incentive supports advancements in the extraction and processing of helium, lithium, rare earth elements, copper, zinc, magnesium, nickel, gallium, aluminum, and cobalt. There are known occurrences of these minerals in Saskatchewan, some of them even found within the deposits of the commodities we already produce.
The Critical Minerals Processing Investment Incentive offers a 15 per cent transferrable royalty and freehold production tax credit to support the development of value-added processing facilities for these same 10 emerging critical minerals in Saskatchewan.
Together, these two programs will accelerate progress towards the Saskatchewan Critical Minerals Strategy goals of doubling the number of critical minerals produced and establishing our province as a rare earth element hub.
The budget also included $10 million in funding over 10 years for public geoscience initiatives on critical minerals. This investment will result in new geoscience information that will help explorers identify new critical minerals opportunities in the province. This will support the Strategy’s goals of increasing Saskatchewan’s share of Canadian mineral exploration spending and, eventually, growing our production of established critical minerals.
These new programs and initiatives will be instrumental for continuing to advance Saskatchewan’s critical minerals sector, and builds upon the province’s strong foundation as a global supplier of food and energy security. Saskatchewan is well-positioned to become a key supplier of the critical minerals that are essential to how the planet powers its future.
