Graphite: How one Quebec company could help boost Canadian self-reliance in a critical mineral used in batteries and defence

Saints-Michel-des-Saints is a small village where snowmobiles roam on the edge of Quebec’s vast forests. Its critical mineral deposits could now put it on the map of a new world order the Canadian government is vying to build, one in which Canada is more self-reliant.

One Quebec-based company, coincidentally called Nouveau Monde Graphite, which translates to New World Graphite in English, is planning to open both a mine and plant to produce the mineral used in sectors like battery manufacturing for electric vehicles (EVs), as well as and defence.

“The benefits of our project to Canada, and all the G7 countries, is to have a stable source of this critical mineral, but also at the right price point,” said CEO and founder Eric Desaulniers. “Here in Canada – in Quebec specifically – we can be very competitive in that market.”

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For now, Asia dominates the market. To go full steam ahead, the mine must finalize its financing, and that is taking up a lot of Desaulniers’ time now.

Antoine Cloutier is a project geologist with Nouveau Monde Graphite. He says the eureka moment for this project came more than a decade ago during exploration.

“That was pretty much the moment when our metal detectors and all the equipment started beeping through a fairly large area,” he said. “That was the moment when we saw there was truly potential for this to be big.”

Cloutier say graphite is a versatile mineral which has a “thousand and one uses.”

“It is used in lithium-ion batteries, as well as in defence, in aerospace and in manufacturing,” he said.

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