Critical Minerals as the Wiring Diagram of Geopolitical Power

Critical minerals are no longer a niche subset of the periodic table; they are the wiring diagram of geopolitical power, and Canada is sitting on a toolkit it still hasn’t decided how to use.As Co-Chair of the Critical Minerals Institute (CMI), Jack Lifton has spent decades mapping that wiring diagram, from obscure byproduct metals to the politics that decide where refineries get built. CMI, which I help lead, has created as a “brain trust” for this emerging economy: a global hub that connects companies, capital markets and policymakers, backed by masterclasses, a weekly Critical Minerals Report, and an annual summit that now draws ministers, institutional investors and C-suite executives to Toronto.When I asked Lifton what he plans to discuss at PDAC 2026 in Toronto, he did not start with lithium or copper, but with the quiet metals hidden in their shadow. “They’ve asked me to give an introductory talk and then chair a panel on the sourcing of critical minerals for the electronics industry in Canada,” he said. But his real focus is on the companion metals that fall out of existing operations: “The metals for electronics, the critical metals, come as companion metals in copper mining, aluminum mining, zinc mining, silver mining. So what they are is, for example, gallium, germanium, tellurium, selenium, cadmium, metals like that, and of course silicon.”This is not a theoretical list. Lifton’s point is that the raw material base for an advanced electronics industry already exists inside Canada’s established mining complex. “All of these metals or metalloids can be produced in Canada as byproducts of major mining,” he told me. He ticks through the map: Rio Tinto Group (LSE: RIO) (NYSE: RIO) in Quebec processing bauxite into aluminum and, as a result, being able to produce gallium and scandium; Teck Resources Limited (TSX: TECK.A / TECK.B) (NYSE: TECK) mining zinc in Western Canada, with germanium as a companion; high-quality silicon deposits in Manitoba now attracting junior developers; tellurium and selenium emerging as byproducts of copper. “You have the entire suite of critical electronic minerals, which are byproducts,” he said. “All could be produced in Canada, and as far as the measures, they will be produced in Canada.”If that sounds like a blueprint for an industrial policy, that is exactly how Lifton frames it. In his view, the missing step is not geology but intent. “Canada should take a hard look at enticing the electronics industry—manufacturing of chips and basic electronic devices like chips—because everything is there,” he argued. The PDAC panel he will chair is expected to include representatives from Rio Tinto, Anglo American and Teck alongside him. “This is interesting to me because normally I don’t talk to the majors,” he admitted. “These critical minerals for electronics are things that the majors can produce but really don’t know a lot about.”That gap—between what can be produced and what is strategically understood—is precisely where CMI has tried to position itself. Recent membership additions such as Quantum Critical Metals Corp. (TSX.V: LEAP | OTCQB: ATOXF | FSE: 86A1) show how the ecosystem is evolving around metals that, until recently, would barely have merited a line item in an annual report. Quantum, a junior explorer with projects focused on gallium, rubidium, cesium, antimony and germanium in Québec and British Columbia, joined CMI this fall, citing the Institute’s role in “support[ing] the clean energy transition, address[ing] supply chain vulnerabilities and strengthen[ing] national security.”