The Association for Mineral Exploration today commented on Bill C-39, the Building Canada Strong Act, calling it a welcomed next step toward forging the supply chains Canada’s mineral exploration sector needs to get projects built.

“The Building Canada Strong Act does what the resource sector has long been asking for: streamlined regulatory processes and expedited timelines, without sacrificing Canadian values,” said Todd Stone, President and CEO of AME. “This is what turning ambition into action looks like.”

The Act supports faster project decisions by improving cross-departmental coordination and compressing historically long timelines. For a sector working to move discoveries through to production, that kind of focus will have a significant impact.

Greater regulatory predictability strengthens Canada’s position as a reliable trading partner, building investor confidence and supporting secure mineral supply chains. Bill C-39 can help attract long-term investment, reinforce economic resilience and meet growing global demand for critical minerals.

The goals supported by AME include:

1. Better coordination across federal permitting processes
2. Clearer decision timelines
3. Designated regions of national interest for priority projects

The Act challenges Canada to think big, particularly in how it frames transportation infrastructure. Rather than simply speeding up permitting, it updates national transportation policy to explicitly promote efficient supply chains, a change AME sees as directly relevant to moving Canadian minerals to market.

By pairing regulatory reform with key tax measures like the Productivity Mega Deduction, the federal government is taking steps to catalyze investment in Canada. AME continues to call for expanding the Canadian Exploration Expense (CEE) to include engineering and feasibility costs.

The pipeline of projects is not full, and if we want to meet the moment and support our allies with minerals, more needs to be done to move projects into development. The Building Canada Strong Act, paired with a modernized and expanded CEE, can help fill that pipeline and move more projects toward production. The goal: helping promising mineral discoveries overcome the financing challenges that frequently prevent them from becoming operating mines and cause them to stall in the valley of death.