Canada wants to be a global leader in critical minerals. Why is Australia eating our lunch?

[BeaverFever]

Canada wants to be a global leader in critical minerals. Why is Australia eating our lunch? 

While domestic companies flounder, foreign behemoths have built a dominant position in the Canadian critical minerals sector – and few have benefited more than Australia

NIALL MCGEEPHOTOGRAPHY BY FELIPE FITTIPALDITHE GLOBE AND MAILPUBLISHED OCTOBER 13, 2023
 

At the world’s biggest mining conference in Toronto earlier this year, two federal cabinet ministers engaged in a public discussion about Canada’s critical minerals industry. Conspicuously absent from the conversation was any Canadian mining company.

Instead, Industry Minister François-Philippe Champagne and Natural Resources Minister Jonathan Wilkinson chatted amiably with Jakob Stausholm, chief executive officer of Rio Tinto PLC, a giant British-Australian multinational. Mr. Stausholm played up Rio’s Canadian credentials and trumpeted that it is the biggest mining company in Canada.

Mr. Champagne, in turn, plugged Rio’s efforts to make green aluminum. Ottawa has been a big supporter of Rio, providing hundreds of millions in funding to decarbonize its aluminum, steel and titanium operations. The subtext from the conversation was clear: A giant foreign company is the modern-day poster child for the Canadian mining industry.

Canada’s politicians talk a big game in critical minerals, but the list of domestic companies benefiting from the mining or refining of energy transition metals such as nickel, cobalt, lithium and aluminum is short.

While Canada has made strides in building out its electric battery manufacturing infrastructure, there are few Canadian companies who mine or refine the materials needed for these factories.

Canada’s politicians talk a big game in critical minerals, but the list of domestic companies benefiting from the mining or refining of energy transition metals such as nickel, cobalt, lithium and aluminum is short.

While Canada has made strides in building out its electric battery manufacturing infrastructure, there are few Canadian companies who mine or refine the materials needed for these factories.

Two decades ago, the power players in these metals were Canadian champions: Alcan Inc., Falconbridge Ltd., Noranda Inc. and Inco Ltd. All have long since been swallowed up by foreign behemoths.…..

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/business/article-canada-critical-minerals-mining-australia/#:~:text=Australia has the power to,exploring for minerals in Australia.

 

 

[BeaverFever]

19 minutes ago, BeaverFever said:

Canada wants to be a global leader in critical minerals. Why is Australia eating our lunch? 

While domestic companies flounder, foreign behemoths have built a dominant position in the Canadian critical minerals sector – and few have benefited more than Australia

NIALL MCGEEPHOTOGRAPHY BY FELIPE FITTIPALDITHE GLOBE AND MAILPUBLISHED OCTOBER 13, 2023
 

At the world’s biggest mining conference in Toronto earlier this year, two federal cabinet ministers engaged in a public discussion about Canada’s critical minerals industry. Conspicuously absent from the conversation was any Canadian mining company.

Instead, Industry Minister François-Philippe Champagne and Natural Resources Minister Jonathan Wilkinson chatted amiably with Jakob Stausholm, chief executive officer of Rio Tinto PLC, a giant British-Australian multinational. Mr. Stausholm played up Rio’s Canadian credentials and trumpeted that it is the biggest mining company in Canada.

Mr. Champagne, in turn, plugged Rio’s efforts to make green aluminum. Ottawa has been a big supporter of Rio, providing hundreds of millions in funding to decarbonize its aluminum, steel and titanium operations. The subtext from the conversation was clear: A giant foreign company is the modern-day poster child for the Canadian mining industry.

Canada’s politicians talk a big game in critical minerals, but the list of domestic companies benefiting from the mining or refining of energy transition metals such as nickel, cobalt, lithium and aluminum is short.

While Canada has made strides in building out its electric battery manufacturing infrastructure, there are few Canadian companies who mine or refine the materials needed for these factories.

Canada’s politicians talk a big game in critical minerals, but the list of domestic companies benefiting from the mining or refining of energy transition metals such as nickel, cobalt, lithium and aluminum is short.

While Canada has made strides in building out its electric battery manufacturing infrastructure, there are few Canadian companies who mine or refine the materials needed for these factories.

Two decades ago, the power players in these metals were Canadian champions: Alcan Inc., Falconbridge Ltd., Noranda Inc. and Inco Ltd. All have long since been swallowed up by foreign behemoths.…..

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/business/article-canada-critical-minerals-mining-australia/#:~:text=Australia has the power to,exploring for minerals in Australia.

 

 

The article goes on at some length but the takeaway is yet another example of how we Canadians are an unambitious,  parochial and small-minded folk who just want to be colonized and rule by others, including our supposedly sister-country Australia.  We have an embarrassment of riches in natural resources and whereas other nations would see this as an opportunity to dominate world markets and generate trillions of economic growth for Canada, Canadians say “gee I hope a foreign company comes here someday to control these resources and give me a job”.
 

Canadians are forever servants in  search of a master and what passes for a “business leader” in Canada is a joke; as I’ve said before, they are glorified McDonalds managers and aspire to be nothing more. 
 

Now even Australia is colonizing us, buying up our companies and resources while Canadian banks and investors look on with disinterest.   While Australian investors are fiercely patriotic and keep domestic ownership high and a lid on foreign investment, the risk-averse big Canadian investors say “sorry we can’t invest much of our massive fortunes in a small country like Canada” and the Canadian companies therefore get bought up by foreigners with Australia being one of the new dominant players in Canadian mining.
 

Canadas critical minerals industry is  going to become just like the Alberta oil-patch: foreign owned and operated with Canadian interests completely sold out to the interests of foreign governments multinationals

The British and Americans have trained us well over the centuries to be unambitious and unconfident colonial servants so they can plunder our resources for chicken feed, which countries such as China and now even Australia are taking advantage of. 

[I am Groot]

I wouldn't say anyone has trained us so much as our own elites, who have long played up the need to compromise in all things, go 'go along to get along' with each other, and not do anything that offends or disturbs each other. Everything has to be by agreement - mass agreement - of anyone even remotely concerned and anywhere near whatever is being developed. To ensure this they've surrounded industry with so much regulation and bureaucracy nothing moves at more than a snails pace.

Nothing is a better example than the Trans Mountain pipeline. The original was blasted through rough, raw territory in 1951 in less than a year. Easy peasy.

The twin, which was to simply run alongside it, has taken years and years and YEARS of interminable studies, lobbying, negotiations, then back-and-forth discussions with natives, multiple court cases, more politicking, and condition after condition attached to the building, including huge bribes to every native group remotely near the route. Work on the pipeline has been going on for years, and is years behind schedule and tens of billions over budget

Like every major project in Canada that involves the government. And EVERY major project in Canada now involves the government. Its fingers are into everything. Its rules and regulations control everything. Every year it comes out with new regulations, new administrative procedures, new policies and programs, and expands by hiring thousands of new bureaucrats to oversee it all. 

But then, ultimately, it's our fault for voting in these people. Go along to get along, right?

[ExFlyer]

Why??

Because no one in Canada or from elsewhere wants to invest in a mining operation and have to deal with all the federal, provincial and local rules and regulations and then having to try and get it out of the country to be processed and, having to pay Canadian wages.

It just costs too much to do business in Canada, period. That is why most manufacturing has left Canada.

[betsy]

Forget dreaming of becoming a global "leader" of any kind.

We aren't even invited to an exclusive leaders call on Israel!

 

 

 

 

Edited October 14, 2023 by betsy

[ExFlyer]

22 hours ago, betsy said:

Forget dreaming of becoming a global "leader" of any kind.

We aren't even invited to an exclusive leaders call on Israel!

 

 

 

 

We have been excluded in lots of "leaders" meetings. This is just the latest not the first and certainly not the last.

Trudeau has made Canada ineffective and untrustworthy and a non player internationally. I mean, he even pi$$ed off Google and Facebook LOL

Edited October 15, 2023 by ExFlyer
spelling correction

[herbie]

Look at the extensive history of mining outfits playing Australia and Canada off against each other.
And on the subject of aluminum, gotta point out to the whiners over the failed Northern Gateway that the town council of Kitimat - a town founded by the biggest environmental disaster in Canada - was against being an oil export terminal. Ironic isn't it?

Might be biased living along a major river they can turn on and off....

[BeaverFever]

9 hours ago, ExFlyer said:

Why??

Because no one in Canada or from elsewhere wants to invest in a mining operation and have to deal with all the federal, provincial and local rules and regulations and then having to try and get it out of the country to be processed and, having to pay Canadian wages.

It just costs too much to do business in Canada, period. That is why most manufacturing has left Canada.

Nobody in Canada does, but foreigners are more than happy to buy it all up. It’s not like Australia, China and Switzerland are low-regulation regimes. 

[suds]

15 hours ago, BeaverFever said:

Canada wants to be a global leader in critical minerals. Why is Australia eating our lunch? 

While domestic companies flounder, foreign behemoths have built a dominant position in the Canadian critical minerals sector – and few have benefited more than Australia

NIALL MCGEEPHOTOGRAPHY BY FELIPE FITTIPALDITHE GLOBE AND MAILPUBLISHED OCTOBER 13, 2023
 

At the world’s biggest mining conference in Toronto earlier this year, two federal cabinet ministers engaged in a public discussion about Canada’s critical minerals industry. Conspicuously absent from the conversation was any Canadian mining company.

Instead, Industry Minister François-Philippe Champagne and Natural Resources Minister Jonathan Wilkinson chatted amiably with Jakob Stausholm, chief executive officer of Rio Tinto PLC, a giant British-Australian multinational. Mr. Stausholm played up Rio’s Canadian credentials and trumpeted that it is the biggest mining company in Canada.

Mr. Champagne, in turn, plugged Rio’s efforts to make green aluminum. Ottawa has been a big supporter of Rio, providing hundreds of millions in funding to decarbonize its aluminum, steel and titanium operations. The subtext from the conversation was clear: A giant foreign company is the modern-day poster child for the Canadian mining industry.

Canada’s politicians talk a big game in critical minerals, but the list of domestic companies benefiting from the mining or refining of energy transition metals such as nickel, cobalt, lithium and aluminum is short.

While Canada has made strides in building out its electric battery manufacturing infrastructure, there are few Canadian companies who mine or refine the materials needed for these factories.

Canada’s politicians talk a big game in critical minerals, but the list of domestic companies benefiting from the mining or refining of energy transition metals such as nickel, cobalt, lithium and aluminum is short.

While Canada has made strides in building out its electric battery manufacturing infrastructure, there are few Canadian companies who mine or refine the materials needed for these factories.

Two decades ago, the power players in these metals were Canadian champions: Alcan Inc., Falconbridge Ltd., Noranda Inc. and Inco Ltd. All have long since been swallowed up by foreign behemoths.…..

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/business/article-canada-critical-minerals-mining-australia/#:~:text=Australia has the power to,exploring for minerals in Australia.

 

 

Why do I get this feeling it MAY well have something to do with Quebec? ? Not that it's a bad idea or anything.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/montreal/lithium-mine-val-dor-1.6648344

[BeaverFever]

9 hours ago, I am Groot said:

 

I wouldn't say anyone has trained us so much as our own elites,

 

Our elites (in both business and government) have also been conditioned to be obedient, “dream small” colonials consumed by small-time parochial concerns. 
 

 

10 hours ago, I am Groot said:

And EVERY major project in Canada now involves the government.

That’s always been the case and probably so in most countries  I’m not upset that foreign owned corporations (or domestic ones for that matter)  can’t just blast through mountain ranges or clear cut forests at suitable with no regulations.  And of course when there’s a major disaster like Exxon Valdes or Deepwater Horizon or even Albertas orphaned well epidemic these same corporations you cry for don’t take any responsibility if they even still exist  

The problem as the article makes clear is Canadian investors don’t invest in Canada while foreign investors do and eagerly buy up Canadian assets  

 

 

 

[ExFlyer]

13 hours ago, BeaverFever said:

Nobody in Canada does, but foreigners are more than happy to buy it all up. It’s not like Australia, China and Switzerland are low-regulation regimes. 

Yes, to buy up existing resource operations but I think very few, if any, are willing to start up a mining operation.

[BeaverFever]

20 minutes ago, ExFlyer said:

Yes, to buy up existing resource operations but I think very few, if any, are willing to start up a mining operation.

There’s actually a goldrush going on in Canadian mining lots s of new projects especially in Ontario’s “ring of fire”.  But again it’s foreign companies because Canadians lack vision. 

[Michael Hardner]

12 minutes ago, BeaverFever said:

There’s actually a goldrush going on in Canadian mining lots s of new projects especially in Ontario’s “ring of fire”.  But again it’s foreign companies because Canadians lack vision. 

Are you sure in that?  Canada is a global leader in mining ⛏️

Edited October 15, 2023 by Michael Hardner

[BeaverFever]

34 minutes ago, Michael Hardner said:

Are you sure in that?  Canada is a global leader in mining ⛏️

Was. The big Canadian companies are foreign owned now. 

[ExFlyer]

58 minutes ago, BeaverFever said:

There’s actually a goldrush going on in Canadian mining lots s of new projects especially in Ontario’s “ring of fire”.  But again it’s foreign companies because Canadians lack vision. 

Gold? In the "ring of fire"? Maybe chromite, cobalt, nickel, copper and platinum but no gold. And then you have to contend with the aboriginals if you want any of it LOL

https://www.ontario.ca/page/ontarios-ring-fire

[Michael Hardner]

16 minutes ago, BeaverFever said:

Was. The big Canadian companies are foreign owned now. 

I'm not intending to quibble here but I did hear on Canada land that Canada is still a leader and there's this..

 

" Exploration and mining companies that have their headquarters in Canada accounted for the largest portion of worldwide non-ferrous exploration budgets, reaching 38% in 2021... "

 

https://natural-resources.canada.ca/our-natural-resources/minerals-mining/mining-data-statistics-and-analysis/minerals-and-the-economy/20529

[blackbird]

47 minutes ago, BeaverFever said:

Was. The big Canadian companies are foreign owned now. 

So what?  Foreign owned is better than doing nothing.  Canada is still in the driver's seat and charges royalties and makes all the laws and regulations.  Foreign investment makes our natural resource industry possible in Canada and creates thousands or millions of good-paying jobs and spin-off jobs for Canadians and brings in lots of royalties and tax revenue that pay for our health care system, and everything else.

Forest industries in B.C. for example are likely multinational corporations.  Many towns exist in B.C. because of the existence of the forest industry.  Logging, sawmills, and pulp mills because of multinational corporations that bring the money to do the job.  I know for a fact many people own homes, have two vehicles in the family, cars, pickup trucks.  There are motorhomes in yards, large RV trailers, and cabin cruiser boats worth 100 or 150 thousand dollars parked in front of houses.  That is what multinationals brought Canadians.  Of course their shareholder investors get a percentage on their investment but that is how Capitalism works.  It creates wealth and millions of jobs.

Where else in the world do people own all these homes, motor vehicles, RVs, and large cabin cruiser pleasure craft?  You won't find them in Russia, Africa, Asia, South America, or Europe.  Canada has lots of valuable natural resources and we are developing them.  The only problem is the federal government that often gets in the way and takes years to approve a project.  Plus all the taxes, regulations and red tape that is causing massive housing shortages and high costs of food.

Edited October 15, 2023 by blackbird

[BeaverFever]

1 hour ago, ExFlyer said:

Gold? In the "ring of fire"? Maybe chromite, cobalt, nickel, copper and platinum but no gold. And then you have to contend with the aboriginals if you want any of it LOL

https://www.ontario.ca/page/ontarios-ring-fire

I was using the term “goldrush” figuratively not literally 

[BeaverFever]

1 hour ago, blackbird said:

So what?  Foreign owned is better than doing nothing.  Canada is still in the driver's seat and charges royalties and makes all the laws and regulations.  Foreign investment makes our natural resource industry possible in Canada and creates thousands or millions of good-paying jobs and spin-off jobs for Canadians and brings in lots of royalties and tax revenue that pay for our health care system, and everything else.

Forest industries in B.C. for example are likely multinational corporations.  Many towns exist in B.C. because of the existence of the forest industry.  Logging, sawmills, and pulp mills because of multinational corporations that bring the money to do the job.  I know for a fact many people own homes, have two vehicles in the family, cars, pickup trucks.  There are motorhomes in yards, large RV trailers, and cabin cruiser boats worth 100 or 150 thousand dollars parked in front of houses.  That is what multinationals brought Canadians.  Of course their shareholder investors get a percentage on their investment but that is how Capitalism works.  It creates wealth and millions of jobs.

Where else in the world do people own all these homes, motor vehicles, RVs, and large cabin cruiser pleasure craft?  You won't find them in Russia, Africa, Asia, South America, or Europe.  Canada has lots of valuable natural resources and we are developing them.  The only problem is the federal government that often gets in the way and takes years to approve a project.  Plus all the taxes, regulations and red tape that is causing massive housing shortages and high costs of food.

It makes a big difference if a company is foreign owned. Canada is not “calling the shots”. The royalties and jobs are a small percentage of the wealth that gets transferred overseas What happens instead is that foreign entities are calling the shots in.Canada, many of which are controlled the Chinese government. In modern capitalism businesses dictate to government almost as much as occurs the other way around and foreign ownership of our resources mentality foreign control of our government. 
 

I don’t know why you think it’s impossible for Canadians to own and operate their own businesses like they do in other countries or that it’s better for us to be a nation workers controlled by a foreign owner instead of being the businesses owners ourselves but even compared to peer counties Canada is uniquely subservient   
 

People especially conservatives love to complain about Canada’s “productivity gap”,  lack of innovation and how we don’t have all the same cool gizmos and services that the US has and it’s because we’re a colonial branch-plant economy. Branch plants don’t invent things and they don’t foster or encourage innovative people. Innovative Canadians leave Canada due to lack of opportunity and frustration with Canadians’ conventional, unadventurous and unimaginative business culture which is a product of the colonial branch plant mentality:  people who in the 21st century are still whining about having to do workplace tasks online and asking “can’t you just mail me a paper form and then I can take up an hour of your time for a meeting if I have any questions about the form?”

An example provided in the OP article is “Canadian” Vancouver/based mining company Teck, which is currently fighting off a hostile takeover from a Swiss mining company by attempting to restructure. The restructuring was supported by its Canadian minority shareholders but defeated by its Chinese state-owned majority shareholder. 
 

More from the article in the OP:

 

In Australia, the situation is very different. There, pension funds are fervently patriotic, and sometimes criticized for having too much money tied up in their own country. While Australian pension funds have started broadening their exposure to international investments, most are still heavily invested at home and wear their nationalism on their sleeves.

“They just habitually did not venture offshore. They have built up a very large stake in Australian companies, including specifically miners,” said, David Friedlander, chairman, Australia with law firm King & Wood Mallesons. “There is no doubt that they’re both nationalistic and protective of Australian jobs. It’s in their psyche.”

When it comes to policing foreign investments into its mining sector, and rejecting many of them, Australia has a tougher reputation than Canada.

“The Foreign Investment Review Board has been more intrusive than Investment Canada over the years,” Mr. Friedlander said. “It has said ‘no’ more frequently.”

Australia has the power to review all foreign investments for up to 10 years, a power that Canada does not have. This applies even to tiny investments made by prospectors who are exploring for minerals in Australia. While Ottawa has some leeway to review such investments, the prospecting system is administered by the provinces, so there’s no practical way to police the sector.

Additionally, Australia has a “last resort” power that allows the treasurer to turn back the clock and order divestment in cases in which prior approval for an acquisition had been given. Malcolm Brennan, partner with King & Wood Mallesons, likens this extraordinary power to “a sword of Damocles hanging over your head: If you don’t comply, then this is going to come crashing down on you.”

Australian investors not only support their biggest mining companies, but also exploration-stage companies, the beating heart of the industry. And those investors are providing a lifeline to Canadian companies that can’t raise money at home.

Toronto-based critical minerals and gold exploration company Resouro Gold Inc. RAU-X went public last year on the TSX Venture Exchange, but the company’s shares barely traded because of little or no demand from Canadian investors.

“I went to this year’s PDAC [Prospectors & Developers Association of Canada annual convention] and spent two weeks trying to get people interested in a financing to keep the company alive, but didn’t get any interest,” said Christopher Eager, chief executive of Resouro. “I went to Sydney and closed an oversubscribed capital raising in two days, and then went on to do a second and third capital raising at higher prices.”

Among the investors was Australian institution Regal Funds Management, which has about US$6-billion under management. Owing to the sudden interest from investors, Resouro’s share price shot up 300 per cent.

The company is hoping to develop a titanium and rare earths project in Brazil, and it is now pursuing a listing on the Australia Securities Exchange to cater to its new investor base. If liquidity doesn’t pick up in Canada, Mr. Eager says he’ll likely delist the company entirely in this country…..

Canada is not known for its innovation, it’s not a technology hub, it has perennially low productivity and it’s considered a high-tax jurisdiction globally. But what the country has had historically, and still has to this day, is outstanding geology, a skilled mining workforce and an abundance of natural resources. By turning our backs on mining, Mr. MacDonald says, Canadians are squandering one of the few real economic advantages we have as a country.

“We’ve been kind of lulled to sleep as Canadians,” he said. “This whole country has a natural resource bounty that we’re just not managing very well. The more I travel, the more I realize countries that don’t have the bounty that we have cannot understand why we’re doing this, and I don’t either.”

[ExFlyer]

1 hour ago, BeaverFever said:

I was using the term “goldrush” figuratively not literally 

Can't read your intent.

Say what you mean and then you would not have to explain what you meant to say.

[blackbird]

39 minutes ago, BeaverFever said:

I don’t know why you think it’s impossible for Canadians to own and operate their own businesses like they do in other countries or that it’s better for us to be a nation workers controlled by a foreign owner instead of being the businesses owners ourselves

It's simple really.  Canada doesn't have the investors with the money to start multinational corporations, mining companies, oil companies or McDonalds.  There are a few Canadian companies, but when it takes hundreds of millions of dollars to build a company, we don't have it.  So without that investment by multinational companies, we would have next to nothing.

[BeaverFever]

14 minutes ago, blackbird said:

It's simple really.  Canada doesn't have the investors with the money to start multinational corporations, mining companies, oil companies or McDonalds.  There are a few Canadian companies, but when it takes hundreds of millions of dollars to build a company, we don't have it.  So without that investment by multinational companies, we would have next to nothing.

Not true at all. Canada’s population and economy are both larger than Australia yet Australia is colonizing  Canada. . Canadian banks and pension funds are also gigantic heavyweights on the global investment stage, even by US standards yet as noted in the OP article they consider themselves to be worldwide global players and unlike their Australian counterparts they are uninterested in focusing in on specific countries, especially “pipsqueak”countries like Canada. So the problem is actually our investors are TOO BIG rather than too small. Again from the OP:

 

But keeping the mining industry in Canadian hands won’t be easy without support from investors. At the top of the investor food chain, Canadian pension funds don’t offer much support. For starters, 86 per cent of the assets the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board has under management are outside Canada. According to its most recent disclosure, CPPIB had $823-million invested in Canadian mining stocks, a rounding error in a $575-billion fund.
 

“Every time you talk to them, what they will say to you is very simple, is that our mandate is to maximize shareholder value, and we’re agnostic,” said Mr. Lassonde. “Well, you know what? That’s a soulless statement where nothing about Canada is said, nothing about the fact that, you know, every single pensioner they represent is Canadian. And where are the jobs that they’re creating? They’re not in Canada, they’re somewhere else in the world.”

“When you talk to them about that,” Mr. Lassonde said, “ ‘Well, that’s not our problem.’ I find that revolting, to be honest with you.”

Mr. Lassonde believes that CPPIB’s sparse holdings in Teck Resources directly contributed to the company’s restructuring plan failing in a shareholder vote earlier this year. CPPIB voted for the restructuring, but had little influence over the outcome because its $70-million investment in Teck was insignificant.

On the other hand, Teck’s biggest shareholder, state-owned China Investment Corp., voted against the restructuring. Its Teck holdings are worth approximately $2.2-billion.

Michel Leduc, spokesperson with CPPIB, in an e-mail to The Globe, defended the fund’s approach to mining investment and its Canadian holdings. He said that CPPIB is exposed to massive demographic and economic headwinds, and it must apply the “prudent person principle,” a legal principle that prevents it from taking on excessive risk.

Diversifying the fund to address concentration risk is essential to protecting Canadians, he added. Far from being underinvested in Canada, Mr. Leduc argues that for a globally diversified institutional investor, a 14-per-cent weighting in Canada is significant, given that the country represents less than three per cent of global gross domestic product.

In Australia, the situation is very different. There, pension funds are fervently patriotic, and sometimes criticized for having too much money tied up in their own country. While Australian pension funds have started broadening their exposure to international investments, most are still heavily invested at home and wear their nationalism on their sleeves.

“They just habitually did not venture offshore. They have built up a very large stake in Australian companies, including specifically miners,” said, David Friedlander, chairman, Australia with law firm King & Wood Mallesons. “There is no doubt that they’re both nationalistic and protective of Australian jobs. It’s in their psyche.”
 

…

There are myriad reasons for the lack of funding available for Canadian exploration-stage companies, he says. The cannabis sector, which soared before the legalization of recreational marijuana in 2018, then crashed soon afterward, sucked much of the risk capital out of the market.

But the slow-burn decline of Canadian independent broker-dealers over the past decade has also been devastating for small mining companies, which traditionally depended on those dealers for support. The bigger brokerages and bank-owned dealers left standing do not generally service small-cap companies. Most Canadian brokers these days won’t touch financing if it’s below $10-million, leaving many mining development companies with few options.

…

Instead, investors are increasingly being encouraged by brokers to put their money into safe model portfolios that may consist of a suite of mutual funds and bonds run by a big bank.

“Small brokers have been bought by big brokers, and big brokers don’t like to put their clients into more speculative stocks,” said Mr. Eager. “Small brokers have also been bought by banks, which is even worse, because then compliance becomes a big issue.”..,

 

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/business/article-canada-critical-minerals-mining-australia/#:~:text=Australia has the power to,exploring for minerals in Australia.

[blackbird]

48 minutes ago, BeaverFever said:

Not true at all. Canada’s population and economy are both larger than Australia yet Australia is colonizing  Canada

If Canada had the investors and money to do the mining and resource extraction, it would be doing it.  Nothing to stop you or anyone from starting your own company.  The reason we have multinational companies is because they are the ones with the money.  It is not government's job to use taxpayer money to create companies if that's what you're thinking.  It must be left to private enterprise because they know what is best.  That's how a capitalist system works.  We don't want a Socialist or Communist system.

[BeaverFever]

22 minutes ago, blackbird said:

If Canada had the investors and money to do the mining and resource extraction, it would be doing it.  Nothing to stop you or anyone from starting your own company.  The reason we have multinational companies is because they are the ones with the money. 

 That is not at all true. Please re-read my last post as I already debunked that claim. Ate you under the false impression that Australia’s population or economy is larger than Canada’s?

 

25 minutes ago, blackbird said:

It is not government's job to use taxpayer money to create companies if that's what you're thinking. 

Nobody’s suggesting anything like that 

[RedDog]

Does Australia have a carbon tax eliminating incentive?