Amid Prime Minister Mark Carney’s calls that the Canada-U.S. relationship is ruptured, Ottawa has committed $175 million to a mining project in northern Quebec whose major U.S. investor is closely linked to the Trump administration.

Energy and Natural Resources Minister Tim Hodgson says the Carney government’s support for the rare earth mine is necessary to protect Canadian jobs and the economy.

“We’re doing things that are exceptional because we are in exceptional times,” Hodgson told the fifth estate in an interview.

“I’ll go back to what the prime minister said: We are in a hinge moment. We are in a rupture. We need to respond to that.”

What makes the Strange Lake deposit so enticing to governments and private investors is the presence of heavy rare earth elements, most notably dysprosium and terbium, which are key to the magnets used in everything from electric vehicles to fighter jets and missiles.

  • ZombieCyborgFromOuterSpace@piefed.ca
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    1 month ago

    to protect Canadian jobs and the economy

    Yeah fucking right.

    Natural resources should be nationalized. Letting U.S. corporations dig them all up and resell it to us at a bigger price doesn’t help anyone.

    And the fact this is a company that is closely tied with Trump makes this even more unacceptable.

    I swear, Carney is a wolf in sheep’s clothing. He acts and talks all calmly and gives us these nice sounding speeches so he can gain our confidence, then he turns around and does exactly what we tried to vote against by electing him in the first place.

    • SaveTheTuaHawk@lemmy.ca
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      1 month ago

      Doug Ford is “elbows out” but he very quietly let a US company but most of the greenhouses in Ontario.

    • ILikeBoobies@lemmy.ca
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      1 month ago

      turns around and does exactly what we tried to vote against by electing him in the first place.

      That’s exactly what he’s been doing.

      The easy solution is to take the money and their Canadian assets back.

  • mayabuttreeks@lemmy.ca
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    1 month ago

    the large U.S. private equity firm Cerberus Capital Management invested $50 million US

    Fascinated at how many Wall Street bros will just unironically give their companies names that are so blatantly villainous to anyone with an iota of cultural competency. Weyland-Yutani next?

  • NightOwl@lemmy.ca
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    1 month ago

    The New York Times revealed that a Cerberus-owned security company had trained four Saudis who later participated in the 2018 killing of Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi.

    Ever have one of those time-is-a-flat-circle moments?

  • Dave @lemmy.ca
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    1 month ago

    I’m afraid all politicians went to the same school; however, I hope Canada’s Prime Minister is not doing a back-pedal on us. Especially when we were starting to trust someone in Ottawa.