Addressing Anti-development Conversations: Responsible Development Will Create a Bright Economic Future for Canadians  

Written by Cody Battershill, Founder, Canada Action 

Editor’s note: This article was originally reprinted in the Winter 2025 issue of Canadian Mining Magazine. You can read the full issue for free at https://canadianminingmagazine.com/current-issue/. 

A question I’m often asked is what motivated me, a Calgary-based realtor, to start an organization to explain to Canadians the importance of the country’s natural resource sectors. The answer, in its simplest form, is this: sometimes a convergence of timing, location, and current events reveals a truth you can’t ignore. 

And the truth is, Canada’s rich endowment of natural resources should make us a global economic powerhouse, as well as a world leader in resource innovation and social progress. I’d argue that Canada’s record on innovation and social progress – two legs of the famous sustainability stool – are both among the strongest on the planet.  

A walk on Robson Street sparks an idea 

Certainly, environmental innovation is a continuing process. And there’s work to do on the reconciliation agenda with Canada’s Indigenous People. But Canada’s ranking on several social and environmental indices shows that we’re listed at or very near the top of most every social metric among countries in the same resource product supplier group as Canada. 

What struck me one day in 2010 as I walked along Robson Street in Vancouver’s city centre was that a store window I’d spotted, displaying anti-industry posters, made no reference to the incredible work being done in our energy, mining, forestry, agriculture, and related sectors to safeguard people and the planet.  

The message the store in Vancouver pushed was simple: Canadian industry cares nothing for humans or the environment and therefore this store supports a boycott of Canadian resources. Of course, I knew the message was completely false. And it bothered me. 

That’s when I started thinking about a volunteer-initiated organization that would educate people and therefore help balance what I felt was an unbalanced, anti-development conversation. Since that time, a small one-person (me) volunteer effort has grown progressively into a very active organization with ambassadors, volunteers, supporters, and partners across Canada. Our Canada Action stickers, banners, T-shirts, and advertising have become fairly ubiquitous and many Canadians across the country are familiar with our “I (heart) Canadian Mining” and similar messages. 

In fact, this year Canada Action reached more than 125 million people throughout our hybrid marketing strategy, while we distributed more than 110,000 pieces of merchandise and participated in a constant stream of trade shows, speaking events, and media opportunities. 

We think it’s working. Through regular, nation-wide polling we see our positive messages on the rise. Canadians appear to have a relatively good understanding of Canada’s ranking on social and innovation metrics, and our polling shows Canadians more and more favour international trade with nations that maintain a good reputation on security and social issues.  

Creating a prosperous Canada 

When you combine that with the fact 81 per cent of Canadians surveyed think countries ought to source from responsible, democratically aligned jurisdictions for the food, energy, and minerals they need, then Canada’s future would seem to be bright.  

But we still have work to do. 

Our work goes well beyond disseminating hundreds of thousands of shirts, stickers, and other merch to help spread the word and attract millions of users to our social media presence and website. A group of us work hard with a whole network of volunteers in different provinces to keep up to speed on trends in various resource sectors, and to inform our networks and the public. 

We think it’s important we clearly and repeatedly communicate with Canadians about a crippling economic trend that resulted in $670 billion in cancelled or suspended natural resource projects since 2015. After all, every Canadian has a huge stake in how well the resource economy performs. 

Citizens – particularly those on fixed incomes who rely on pensions, annuities, and the like – can’t afford to lose new job-creating natural resource investment. But fixed income or not, a cancelled natural resource project equals lost jobs, lost government revenues, lost business investments, and lost economic opportunities for families. These lost investments are part of the reason Canadian living standards have been on the decline relative to peer countries like the United States. 

As the Canadian Chamber of Commerce confirmed toward the end of 2024, supporting the development of our job-creating, prosperity-generating natural resource sectors could play a massive role in helping Canada reverse its current economic woes. The Chamber’s report, Canada’s Natural Wealth, provides recommendations on how to fix our current economic challenges, including low productivity, declining living standards, regulatory uncertainty, and weak business investment. 

The report details how Canada’s economy continues to rely on the natural resource sector, accounting for three million jobs, half our exports, and a fifth of the economy. It also explores the urgent need for Canada to create a new strategy to develop and export its natural resources, supporting Indigenous reconciliation while maximizing the economic benefits for all Canadians. 

The world needs more Canadian mining 

In my opinion, that’s just another way of saying that Canada – and the world – needs more Canadian mining. 

The good news is Canadian mining is so much a part of each Canadian’s life – as well as the lives of millions of others – that expanding beyond the current case is less challenging. But the more important general point is that mining really matters. 

The mining industry plays a vital part in Canada’s economy, adding some 5 per cent – or $125 billion – to Canada’s GDP in 2021. Mining, together with quarrying, and oil and gas extraction, made up 7.9 per cent of our country’s $2 trillion GDP, and mining is responsible for 665,000 jobs in communities from coast to coast to coast, as well as billions in tax revenues.  

Mining is also Canada’s largest private sector employer of Indigenous Peoples, especially in northern and remote communities where it’s both a key employer and a partner with Indigenous Peoples. Further, it’s a major ingredient in everything from nanotechnology to your electronic device to the technology behind healthcare, transportation, communications, feedstocks for fertilizer, to the grid for power… in fact, to virtually everything.  

Where would the clean energy technology be without minerals and metals? Where would the clean energy transition be without metallurgical and thermal coal, an important mined resource and a vital bridge fuel to a clean future? 

To paraphrase one provincial premier quoted in the National Post recently, it might be useful, among other things, to look toward the markets to identify a need. “We have an abundant supply of critical minerals and as a global leader in the future of nuclear energy, Ontario is uniquely positioned to support America’s economic growth and its national security objectives,” observed Doug Ford in the piece. 

I’d love to see more elected leaders join in Ford’s specific chorus.  

Getting the natural resource economy back on track 

Canadians are getting these points, just as they’re learning to appreciate the way a highly regulated Canadian mining industry plans its activities in the broadest, most multi-disciplined way that goes far beyond the economic life of that mine. 

As a top five producer of 14 mined substances used for a huge swath of common daily purposes, there’s no doubt that Canada is a major player in mining and metals. In fact, because it’s such an important economic sector and a major job creator, Canada’s position as a wealthy country is largely thanks to major discoveries and changes in the mining industry over decades. 

Now the question is how do we bring those more prosperous, job-creating, tax-generating jobs back to a country beaten up by project cancellations in an era of anti-industry activism? 

The polling our organization and others have commissioned regularly shows more and more Canadians are getting behind Canada’s resource sector. Now it’s time our resource sector had the public policy support it needs to play a role in getting the Canadian economy back on track. 

A strong resource sector means more job opportunities, economic growth, and prosperity for every Canadian. It’s obvious we should support the industry with the strongest track record and the greatest prospects for expansion.  

The experience of the natural resource sector can provide the sharpest insights in order to help Canada address the nation’s current economic challenges. Along with a willingness in government to implement the required policy, our citizens will be the winners. 

But we all have to work together. We just can’t afford not to.