NRCan delivers pan-Canadian geoscience strategy

Last week, Hon. Johnathan Wilkinson, Minister of Natural Resources, endorsed the Pan-Canadian Geoscience Strategy. It outlines this country’s intention to produce world-leading geoscience to meet growing global demand for responsibly sourced minerals and metals.

Access to geoscience data and knowledge can help lower exploration costs, allow evidence-based land use decision, and support geo-hazard risk management, and mitigate climate change.

“Canada has the resources and the expertise to lead the world in producing, processing and growing value chains for critical minerals. The Pan-Canadian Geoscience Strategy, co-developed by federal, provincial and territorial geological survey organizations, will help propel the sector forward,” Wilkinson said in a release.

The geoscience strategy is intended to be a renewed commitment to improving the availability and accessibility of public geoscience data and to improving collaboration.

Five priority areas have been identified – advancing framework geoscience, advancing information on mineral and energy potential, facilitating access to online geoscience data, supporting the training of geoscientists, and enhancing public literacy in geoscience.

The priority areas seek to increase the impact of geoscience by supporting robust science and data, developing skilled scientists, and growing exploration and collaboration, all of which will support Canada’s critical minerals strategy.

(This article first appeared in the Canadian Mining Journal)