No. 23
April 24, 2026
Quebec
• New Cabinet Signifies Stepped-Up Usurpation of the
State by Narrow
Supranational Private Interests
• All Out for Montreal International Workers' Day Demonstration!
• Bill to Criminalize Protests – Desperate Appeal for Police
Powers
to Eliminate Resistance
• Fraudulent Primary Care Policy
• Disaster Awaits Quebec's "Digital Health Record"
• Frenzied Pace Set to Plunder Quebec's Natural and Human Resources for U.S. War Machine
Quebec
New Cabinet Signifies Stepped-Up
Usurpation of the State by Narrow
Supranational Private Interests
Quebec's new Premier, Christine Fréchette, presented her new cabinet on
April 21. This new cabinet signifies that the usurpation of the state
by narrow supranational private interests is being stepped up to the
detriment of the Quebec people's rights on every front.
First, Christine Fréchette echoed the sentiments of Premier Mark Carney for the restructuring of the state: Quebec's international market must be diversified, we must be less dependent on the U.S., we must further encourage our local businesses, and we must strengthen security against foreign interference. The conception of security is one which demands total subservience to the decisions taken at a ministerial level which brook no opposition on the part of the working class and people.
Foreign interference refers to what are called threatening economies such as China and Russia, but never the U.S. The dominance of the U.S. in Canadian and Quebec life is never questioned or considered foreign interference. Negotiations under the dictate of the U.S. are not considered foreign interference, nor are comments on which candidate the U.S. thinks should be elected to office, nor the fact that the military is dominated and commanded by the U.S., to name just a few examples.
Significant Appointments
In her cabinet, Fréchette, herself a representative of narrow private interests, reappointed Ian Lafrenière who was promoted to Deputy Premier, responsible for Relations with First Nations and Inuit, and Minister of Homeland Security (formerly Minister of Public Safety).
The name change – from Public Safety to Homeland Security – is not insignificant and aligns with the anti-people restructuring in the U.S. The term "homeland security" is directly inspired by the U.S. model, particularly its Department of Homeland Security created after the attacks of September 11, 2001. The focus shifted from a service-oriented ministry to a threat-oriented one. Under its auspices Islamophobia was spread to justify the persecution of those falsely accused of being terrorists. Sending remittances which did not go through City Bank was prohibited and terrorist financing laws were passed and many other measures were taken by encompassing expanded functions: terrorism, cybersecurity, borders, and critical infrastructure. Among other things, it emphasizes the protection of the territory against systemic threats rather than simply policing.
The adoption of Bill 13, An Act to promote peace, order and public safety in Quebec, tabled by Ian Lafrenière on April 2, shortly before the prorogation of the National Assembly, addresses internal security. Among other things, the bill introduces the undefined concept of criminal entities. The police powers included in the bill allow the Minister to declare arbitrarily that an entity is a criminal entity and thus criminalize those associated with it.
François Bonnardel was appointed Minister of Immigration, Francization and Integration and Government House Leader. He promised to quickly implement the "more humane approach" to immigration advocated by the Premier. The premier, without acknowledging it, was forced to back down and reopen the Quebec Experience Program (PEQ) for two years due to the uprising in Quebec against its abolition. Bonnardel's first task: to reopen the PEQ to "take care of those who have been forgotten." The reopening of the PEQ is a victory for the movement against its abolition. Everyone is aware that this is an election ploy, while keeping in mind that, given the impunity enjoyed by elected officials, the premier can reverse her decision whenever she sees fit.
Protest against cutting of Quebec Experience Program, Montreal, February 7, 2026
As for his credentials, François Bonnardel, former Quebec Minister of Transport, was at the heart of the controversy surrounding the Société de l'assurance automobile du Québec's (SAAQ) digital transformation, "SAAQclic." In 2024-2025, he was severely denounced by Quebeckers for the project's cost overruns, which exceeded $1 billion. Public anger in Quebec over the ensuing problems with driver's license and registration renewals and the squandering of public funds was so great that former Premier François Legault was forced to exclude Bonnardel when he shuffled his cabinet in September 2025. Despite this, Christine Fréchette has reintegrated him.
Bernard Drainville, who ran against Fréchette for the position of party leader and premier, became the new super-minister of Economy, Innovation and Energy, responsible for the Maritime Strategy. Known for being fiercely anti-worker, he repeated the mantra of the elite, saying he wanted to "simplify the lives of entrepreneurs" through financial assistance and the easing of certain regulations.
The prior super-minister, Fitzgibbon, resigned in September 2024, citing a loss of motivation. He left without being held to account for the Northvolt battery project which proved to be a complete fiasco. By the time he resigned, the Legault government had already invested over $710 million in "the largest private investment in recent Quebec history," while Northvolt announced the layoff of 1,600 workers.
After Fitzgibbon, Christine Fréchette became the super-minister and also defended the Northvolt project, saying "It's a controlled risk." In this role, she opened the door wide to the militarization of the economy and war production as a potential market for Quebec, which must claim its share.
The controversial and widely disliked Jean Boulet remains Minister of Labour, demonstrating the government's appreciation for his contempt for Quebec workers. He has been given free rein to intensify the criminalization of workers. It appears that Minister Boulet will reintroduce Bill 27, An Act to amend various provisions concerning collective agreement decrees and the construction industry, when the National Assembly resumes on May 5. Bill 27 was tabled on April 8, just before the prorogation of the National Assembly. It is fiercely opposed by the workers' unions because it grants the Minister broad powers to specifically target existing mechanisms and measures related to occupational health and safety for construction workers in order to eliminate obstacles for corporations.
Pascale Dery, now Minister of the Environment and Climate Change, uses the same language as Bernanrd Drainville. In an interview, she clearly stated that her immediate priority is to eliminate what she called bureaucracy and unnecessary red tape that prevent projects from moving forward. A balance must be found between creating jobs and protecting the environment, she says, which is hot air. In March 2026, Glencore's Horne Smelter in Rouyn-Noranda, Abitibi obtained a two-year reprieve from the Legault government to meet reduced arsenic production targets. Pascale Dery saw no problem with this and said that understanding was necessary, that jobs must be considered, and that Glencore was working well with the government.
For years, people have been fighting for their health and opposing the preferential treatment given to Glencore by the government. On April 20, 118 doctors from the Abitibi-Témiscamingue region wrote an open letter to the premier asking her to remove the concessions promised to Horne Smelter. They reminded her that the municipality of Rouyn-Noranda is now recognized as one of the communities most exposed to industrial pollution in Quebec, and that there is an increased prevalence of low birth weights, respiratory illnesses and lung cancer, as well as, in certain areas, a lower life expectancy than the rest of Quebec. They asked her to withdraw the amendment to a bill tabled just before François Legault left office which would have given the smelter more time to meet the emissions reduction targets for various pollutants, such as arsenic, lead and cadmium.
Deep Crisis of System of Unrepresentative Democracy
The
appointment of the cabinet is already beginning with an intensification
of the crisis within the government of the Coalition Avenir Québec
(CAQ) now led by Fréchette. On April 22,Gilles Bélanger, former
Minister of Cybersecurity and Digital Affairs, who was the first to
support Christine
Fréchette's candidacy for the CAQ leadership, resigned. He spoke out
against the hosting of Quebeckers' health data outside Quebec by the
company Epic Systems because it is not protected. The day before the
cabinet appointments, Alice Abou-Ahalil, Member of the National
Assembly (MNA) for Fabre,
announced she would not be seeking re-election at the end of her term
and Shirley Dorismond, MNA for Marie-Victorin, said she was considering
her political future.
The new cabinet will not save the CAQ from its death throes, nor will it legitimize the unrepresentative democracy, which is in deep crisis because it is seen to lack the consent of the governed as it does egregious damage to the social and natural environment. The resolute struggle of the working people of Quebec to defend their rights, build an economy that serves their well-being and become the decision-makers as concerns all matters of concern will intensify.
Click here for list of members of the new Cabinet.
All Out for Montreal International
Workers' Day Demonstration!
Saturday, May 2, 2026, 1:00 pm
4200 Avenue du Parc, Montreal,
(in front of the Georges-Étienne Cartier statue)
Unions and rights organizations have issued a call for an action to express the resistance of the Quebec people to the anti-social and anti-worker attacks of the CAQ government. Excerpts from the call are below:
In recent years, the economic and social rights of the entire population have been trampled. Workers are bearing the brunt of the impact: we are suffering the anti-union attacks of the CAQ, a government of bosses, while witnessing, like all citizens, government's destruction of the social safety net.
The social safety net is the means we collectively create to combat impoverishment and ensure that each of us has access to the public services and social programs we need. Union and community organizations, as well as civil society, form its bulwark and that is precisely why the CAQ is so intent on weakening us.
The CAQ's blatant disregard for our rights, and more broadly for the rule of law, is unparalleled. Respect for rights should never be negotiable subject to the whims of a government.
Today, we must resist and demand a just and equitable society, where the rights and freedoms of all are protected.
We therefore call on everyone to resist!
Workers, retirees, the unemployed, students, community groups, human rights organizations, people of all ages and backgrounds, let us unite this May 2, 2026, in Montreal for International Workers' Day under the theme "Rights Trampled, We Must Resist!"
Bill to Criminalize Protests -- Desperate Appeal for Police Powers to Eliminate Resistance
Demonstration in front of Quebec National Assembly, Quebec City,
April 2, 2026
On April 2, as 10,000 people gathered in front of the Quebec National Assembly in response to the call from community organizations for the Quebec government to end anti-social policies, the members of the Quebec National Assembly passed Bill 13 by a majority vote. Bill 13, An Act to promote the population's safety and sense of security and to amend various provisions, now becomes law. The bill was introduced on December 10 by Ian Lafrenière, a former police and military officer, and Minister of Public Security.
The Coalition Avenir Québec is acting like an old tyrant refusing to face its impending demise. It is frantically scrambling to protect the oligarchs' control over decisions made in the National Assembly against the growing opposition of the working class and people to handing over Quebec's natural and human resources to wealthy private interests.
Bill 13, An Act to promote peace, order, and public security in Quebec, specifically targets protests. It prohibits demonstrators from participating in peaceful gatherings within 50 metres of an elected official's residence. It authorizes a member of a police force, based on so-called reasonable grounds, without defining what these grounds are, to search a person and their surroundings. It prohibits the possession, during a demonstration and "without a valid reason," of "an object or substance that may be used to interfere with the physical integrity of a person or to threaten or intimidate a person or that may cause damage to property."
Further, Section 6 of Chapter 2 stipulates: "No one may expose to public view, in particular by wearing, disseminating, posting or displaying it, any object identifying an entity entered on the list of entities with a criminal purpose drawn up by the Minister [of Public Security] that exhibits one of the following symbols or names:
"1. a symbol, such as an emblem, an insignia or a representation, used by the entity or associated with it or a symbol that could be mistaken for such a symbol; or
"2. the name of the entity or another name, such as an abbreviation or acronym, used by the entity or associated with it or a name that could be mistaken for any of those names."
The police powers allow the minister to decree with impunity what constitutes an entity with criminal intent -- and thereby criminalize those associated with it. This will not halt the momentum and movements of the people marching forward in a project of nation building that serves them and affirms and defends the rights of all.
The people's ongoing actions to put an end to imperialist war and to the militarization of the economy, to economic insecurity, to the plundering of natural resources and to the destruction of public services are what "promote the population's safety and sense of security."
Shame on the Coalition Avenir Québec government and those who supported the law. The people of Quebec will not forget this.
Quebec City, April 2, 2026
Fraudulent Primary Care Policy
Action
by health care workers in Lévis, April 14, 2026, against
Quebec government's austerity policies, and for the
right to
health care. Action was part of the third week of regional
actions.
On March 27, the Coalition Avenir Québec (CAQ) government announced a "Government Policy on Primary Care and Services" which is intended to be "a profound transformation of the way we provide care and support." Among other things, "we will ensure that CLSCs [Local Community Service Centres] can once again become a physical gateway to primary care for everyone who needs it," announced Health Minister Sonia Bélanger. She added that "CLSCs are a source of pride for Quebec, a founding principle of our public system."
CLSCs were established in the early 1970s to integrate the numerous initiatives of grassroot organizations into the public health care system, especially in working-class neighbourhoods. They were intended to be what the Minister promises -- the gateway to health care -- and they included preventive, educational and social components.
But the CLSCs became the first victims of the crisis of the Quebec welfare state and of the so-called "debt crisis" of the 1970s. This was a self-serving interpretation of the hoarding of financial and other resources by powerful private interests to the detriment of health care and the other needs of Quebec society. The CLSCs had also been doomed from the start because the state instituted corporatism for the medical profession. This gave rise to a boycott of the CLSCs by doctors, with only a very few deciding to bet their future on the community-based organization of services.
Then, with the anti-social offensive of the 1990s, CLSCs were even further starved of resources in favour of a hospital-centric approach and the ever-greater centralization of management. Workers and other health care professionals have continued to be sidelined from decision-making to the point that today, at this "final phase" of the Legault health care reform, the entire Quebec health care system is managed by a single body, Santé Québec. This body makes its decisions without being accountable to anyone except the powerful private interests who control decision-making, the epitome of neo-liberal state restructuring.
Speaking on behalf of a government that has done more to destroy Quebec's health care ecosystem than any government before it, Sonia Bélanger had the nerve to say that "the CLSCs are a source of pride for Quebec." No one in the health care system or among Quebec people is fooled by this sudden 180 degree turn in the CAQ government's health care policy. In fact, Bélanger herself said that the "new" policy on primary care and services is the "definitive step" in the health care "reform" undertaken by the Legault government. In other words, it is meant to cap its eight years of nation-wrecking in health care. It means vigilance is required.
The "new" policy may be an electoral ploy, announced as the elections approach with the aim of appeasing the anger of health care workers and the people. Or it may be simply yet another scheme to subjugate the health care system to the demands of privatization. Or it may be both. There are several reasons for believing this.
In its press release responding to the Health Minister's announcement, the Confederation of National Trade Unions (CSN) notes that "these are good ideas" but "completely at odds with the CAQ's past decisions." The union argues that decentralization to the CLSCs is "highly desirable" but "it must be noted that the government has been moving in the opposite direction for years, notably with the creation of Santé Québec."
The Alliance of Professional and Technical Staff in Health and Social Services (APTS) notes, in the announced policy, "the absence of clear governance and funding commensurate with the stated ambitions." Without the necessary resources, "CLSCs could be reduced to playing a mere triage role, redirecting patients to family medicine groups (private), pharmacies or self-care, without providing any real care themselves." And this is in a context where private services continue to comprise an ever-greater share of health care services.
The Interprofessional Health Federation of Quebec [FIQ] press release states that "The desire to establish population-based responsibility and to better anchor care in local realities, especially by restoring the CLSC's prestige, aligns with principles that the FIQ has long defended." However, "for this vision to become a reality, Santé Québec must actually implement the announced decentralization and grant CLSCs the necessary tools to exercise genuine local governance," the FIQ states. "CLSCs must not simply become a new point of access," said FIQ President Julie Bouchard, who fears that the essence will be lost "if we merely refer patients to Family Medicine Groups (GMFs -- private doctor-centric clinics) or redirect them to self-care."
Many say that the "idea is appealing" and creating that impression is undoubtedly the intended aim of the government's announcement in this election year. But it is important to look back at what happened to the concept of CLSCs in the 1970s. First they were co-opted and then they were the first to be sacrificed when the "Quiet Revolution" did not make us "masters in our own home." The people were not given the power to decide, and they have even less power today. For eight years this government has busied itself passing one bill after another, most often under closure, to silence and exclude any expression of the popular will, to centralize decision-making to an extreme degree, and to suppress workers' organizations so that what serves the interests of the wealthy oligarchs can be imposed without any hindrance.
There will be no remedy from the gods of plague.
Disaster Awaits Quebec's "Digital Health Record"
The "Digital Health Record" (Dossier santé numérique -- DSN), launched by the Coalition Avenir Québec government in 2023, will finally be rolled out as a pilot project on May 9, after a delay of more than two years. Initially, it will be used in two "showcase" institutions, the Integrated University Health and Social Services (CIUSSS) of Nord-de-l'Ile-de-Montréal and Mauricie-et-du-Centre-du-Québec. If the trial proves successful, the DSN will become the gateway to the health care network across Quebec. Once fully rolled out, the DSN is supposed to provide every user and resident in Quebec, as well as their health care professionals, with online access to their medical and clinical history and handle appointment bookings and follow-ups, electronic prescriptions, etc.
The system is designed, installed and operated by the U.S. health
care digitalization monopoly Epic Systems. It is not yet
operational but already it has run up cost overruns of nearly $135
million, on an initial total estimated cost of $1.5
billion over 15 years. Some estimate that the cost could in fact
double before the program's full deployment. The former minister
responsible for access to information, Éric Caire, admitted as
much during public hearings on the SAAQclic fiasco, which
involved the digitalization of driver licences and vehicle
registration across Quebec. Radio-Canada reports that an
internal memo by Santé Québec forbids anyone involved in the
project to speak to the media.
Despite the Legault government's mea culpa regarding the
massive cost overruns of the SAAQclic project, and corroborating
the Gallant Commission's conclusions that "there is no obvious
solution" to this corruption, it is clear that the practice of
handing over decision-making and the management of
government services to private interests remains the agenda. These
private interests then use their monopoly position to impose their
dictate and get what they want through blackmail, including
cost overruns, but also control over government decision-making
on matters of health care policies.
Delays and postponements in implementing the DSN are, among other things, linked to a lack of interoperability between the system designed for the "paying user" model in the U.S. and the historical realities of Quebec's public health care system. As a private entity contracted by the U.S. government, Epic Systems manages the medical records of the 340 million residents across all 50 U.S. states and is the largest provider of software for managing critical care, patient monitoring and more in intensive care units in the country's hospitals. It also manages Alberta's health care records system called "Connect Care" and part of Ontario's, and it controls the health records of some fifteen other countries to a greater or lesser extent, including Finland and Denmark where its implementation was viewed as "severely problematic."
To justify the decision to select the U.S. monopoly Epic Systems, Christian Dubé, then Minister of Health, said that "this company is one of the world leaders in the market for digital solutions in the health care sector." However, many observers in Quebec, notably the Union of Quebec Government Professionals (SPGQ), criticized Dubé for failing to draw on Quebec expertise that is already deeply rooted in the historical development of the Quebec health care system. The SPGQ wonders what has become of the CAQ government's "economic nationalism" (as in the "Blue Basket" appeal to Quebeckers to buy local products and the "modern nationalism" promoted by leadership candidate, now Premier, Christine Fréchette) when it comes to choosing partners for "crucial government projects." The SPGQ points out that "protecting and strengthening Quebec expertise should be at the heart of the government's concerns."
It is not merely a matter of cost overruns and delays, which are by no means insignificant. It is above all a matter of what goal and what needs are being served. When he announced the project, Dubé said that the DSN "will improve the patient experience by making it smoother and more transparent" and that "the new technological solution will undoubtedly make the work of health care workers easier by reducing paperwork and the bureaucratic burden." And "by lightening the workload," it "will also help make our health care network an employer of choice" (this is a reference to the exodus of health care professionals and workers due to the untenable working conditions in Quebec's health care system.)
In reality, the party benefiting most from this project is Epic Systems, to the detriment of Quebec's health care needs. In the IT sector, and especially for artificial intelligence companies, public data has become the "new black gold." AI monopolies and oligopolies are scrambling for the massive amounts of data held by public authorities to make their algorithms more efficient and thus more competitive. It is well known that public health systems offer some of the largest databases in the world today.
This data is part of the nation's collective wealth, yet it is appropriated by private interests that not only pay nothing, but are in fact paid to take it over. These private interests are paid from public funds to integrate public data into their for-profit databanks, thus establishing monopoly control and then arrogantly declaring a cost overrun. The resulting expertise belongs not to the government, but to the private company. Such is the logic of the "economic nationalism" of the CAQ government.
By first monopolizing the medical records of certain states, and then of all the states in the U.S., Epic Systems has been able to rise to the rank of the sector's dominant monopoly in the entire world. And then Minister Dubé says the reason for choosing it is that "this company is one of the world leaders in the market for digital solutions in the health care sector"!
Myriam Lavoie-Moore, an assistant professor at Saint Paul University in Ottawa, has conducted an in-depth study on the role of very large private interests in diverting the goals of artificial intelligence in health care and other public or national functions. Her study corroborates in the greatest detail that "technologies no longer respond to the needs identified by stakeholders; rather, it is the market that determines and sets the agenda for health and social care technologies," she said in an interview on the I.A. Café podcast.
She has also written specifically about Epic Systems: "Apart from the fact that its implementation in the public health care systems of Finland and Denmark was such a resounding failure that it became a case study in medical informatics, the company is also known for its resistance to interoperability. This means that integrating other software into its own is difficult, if not impossible. Local innovations in AI could therefore be difficult to add to the system." The same can be said about integrating local expertise, which is seen as a competitor rather than the precious contributor it is, with the government of Quebec saying "let's go with the best" and forget small local potatoes.
The sheer scale of the development of productive forces, combined with private appropriation, has the effect, among others, of exposing the destructive impact of this phenomenon. At the same time, it provides a glimpse of the incalculable benefits that could be gained by harnessing the productive forces for the benefit of the people. Take for example the fact that all of this is currently being directed towards what is known as curative care, as opposed to preventive care. Another conclusion reached by researchers in health AI is that all venture capital is directed towards curative care, because selling a pill or a machine to "cure" is more profitable than putting technological developments in the service of prevention. Just imagine the benefits of applying AI to preventive care in these times!
Governments such as those of Quebec and the provinces and federal government are past masters in running schemes to pay the rich while claiming they are "builders" and "champions of responsible development." They are corrupt and too inept to govern. Health care professionals and workers from all sectors need to assert themselves as decision-makers.
Frenzied Pace Set to Plunder Quebec's Natural and Human Resources for U.S. War Machine
Recent articles in the Journal de Montréal highlight Canada and Quebec's heavy dependence on the United States (75 per cent of exports), particularly for strategic resources. They shed light on the scale of the rush for critical minerals in Quebec, the increased investments coming directly or indirectly from the U.S. government and armed forces, and the role of the governments of Canada and Quebec in facilitating and encouraging this plundering of Quebec's natural resources. Here are some excerpts.
[...]
The president of the Order of Geologists of Quebec, Serge
Perreault,
notes that foreign mining companies have freely recruited the
top
experts in Quebec geology in recent years. Investments in
mineral
exploration have also skyrocketed during the same period,
reaching $1.2
billion in
2024, according to data from Revenu Québec. [...]
Wealthy people from the U.S., including billionaires Jeff Bezos and Bill Gates, have heavily financed an exploration company that has acquired hundreds of square kilometres rich in promising critical minerals in northern Quebec. KoBold Metals hopes to find significant deposits of cobalt, nickel, and lithium there. "They have recruited the best specialists from our universities and research centres," notes geologist and UQAM [Université du Québec à Montréal] professor Michel Jébrak.
In the summer of 2022, KoBold chartered six Boeing 737s at great expense to carry out an intensive prospecting campaign in the Arctic tundra near Kangiqsujuaq. KoBold has also acquired exclusive mining rights over hundreds of square kilometres of territory in the James Bay region in order to search for lithium and copper. The presence of thorium and rare earth elements has also been detected in this area. [...] KoBold has already invested $31 million in work in Nunavik alone, according to Quebec's mining titles management registry (GESTIM). [...] This site is located on the edge of Pingualuit National Park, formerly known as the New Quebec Crater. [...]
Hundreds of thousands of hectares of Quebec territory belong to mining companies that are actively courting the U.S. defence sector -- or even the U.S. military itself -- to sell their projects. Our investigative bureau identified at least nine exploration companies active in Quebec that are members of the Defense Industrial Base Consortium (DIBC), a group founded in 2024 that has an agreement with the U.S. government aimed at "accelerating the Department of War's access to technologies." Together, they hold exclusive rights to explore subsurface resources across more than 500,000 hectares of Quebec land, an area almost equivalent to that of Prince Edward Island.
The largest owner, Li-FT Power, has acquired 230,000 hectares of mining claims rich in lithium in the James Bay region. In December, Li-FT Power announced a merger with the Australian mining company Winsome. At the end of February, the company also announced an agreement with the Quebec Mining Exploration Company (SOQUEM), a branch of Investissement Québec, and the company Exploration Azimut to purchase 75 per cent of the rights to 335 square kilometres of claims located in the same region.
Focus Graphite owns around 200 mining claims on the Côte-Nord, including a particularly pure graphite deposit located at Lac Knife near Fermont, where it has already invested $26 million in a mining project.
"Demand from the defence sector is becoming an increasingly explicit and formalized component of North American policies regarding critical minerals. In this context, the Lac Knife project is well positioned to contribute significantly," believes Focus Graphite vice-president Jason Latkowcer, who had just returned from New York to promote the project.
His company is sparing no effort south of the border. It is notably a member of the Military Power Sources Consortium, which connects companies with the U.S. military. Focus Graphite has also succeeded in establishing "targeted contacts" with the U.S. Department of Energy and the U.S. Department of War. [...]
Most companies that are members of the Defense Industrial Base Consortium are still at the exploration stage. For the past 10 years, Commerce Resources Corp has been drilling the ground in Nunavik in search of niobium and rare earth elements. [...]
The ambitious Strange Lake rare earth project in northern Quebec was launched thanks to an investment from a controversial U.S. fund run by supporters of Donald Trump. Cerberus, which manages more than $70 billion in assets, was co-founded by Steve Feinberg, a pro-Trump billionaire who became Deputy Secretary of the U.S. Department of War last March. In 2023, one of its subsidiaries invested U.S.$50 million in Métaux Torngat, which is leading the Strange Lake project. The project includes an open-pit rare earth mine and a plant in Nunavik, a seasonal road in Labrador, and another plant in Sept-Îles. [...]
Under
its direction, Cerberus lobbyists met with senior officials in
the
Canadian government at least three times to discuss mining and
environmental issues. A few months later, Métaux Torngat
received a $10 million grant from the Critical Minerals
Infrastructure
Fund, in addition to $165 million
in financing from Export Development Canada and the Canada
Infrastructure Bank. The rare earth elements targeted by Métaux
Torngat are used in the manufacture of permanent magnets,
essential for
the ecological transition but also for the military-industrial
complex.
It should be noted that Cerberus has a long track record in the defence sector, holding interests in firms specializing in military aircraft maintenance, hypersonic defence systems, and the manufacturing of next-generation tanks. [...] Torngat is also a member of the Defense Industrial Base Consortium, which aims to facilitate exchanges between companies and the Department of War. [...]
To reduce their dependence on Chinese metals, the United States is also turning to Lanaudière. Last year, the U.S. government committed to providing U.S.$172 million to Nouveau Monde Graphite (NMG), which plans to open a mine in Saint-Michel-des-Saints in 2029. These funds, from the U.S. Export-Import Bank (EXIM), are intended to help the company make its mine fully operational and establish a plant in Bécancour to transform graphite into battery materials. [...]
The Nouveau Monde Graphite project, identified by the Carney government as being of "national interest," is benefiting from enormous funding promises. Alongside the U.S. federal agency EXIM, the Canadian government has committed to nearly $600 million, while other unidentified private investors will provide another $660 million. [...]
The Canadian government has also signed an agreement to purchase nearly 25 per cent of the production capacity of the Lanaudière mine -- about 30,000 tons of concentrated graphite per year. Half of this graphite will remain in Canada, while the other half is destined for "Canada's allies," meaning the countries of the G7 and NATO, including the United States. [...]
Montreal environmental day of action, September 27, 2024
opposes critical minerals' mining projects
(Excerpts translated from original French by TML.)
(To access articles individually click on the black headline.)
Website: www.cpcml.ca Email: editor@cpcml.ca