Canada’s effort to build a more secure electric-vehicle supply chain is increasingly becoming an international project, and Norway is moving closer to the centre of that strategy. Prime Minister Mark Carney is preparing to host Norwegian Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Støre in Ottawa on September 20 and 21, with critical minerals, energy and strategic technologies formally on the agenda.
The meeting will not start the relationship from scratch. Canada and Norway signed a critical-minerals cooperation agreement in March 2026 and have already committed to deeper industrial ties. What is changing is the urgency. With mineral processing concentrated in relatively few countries and Canada facing greater uncertainty in its traditionally U.S.-centred trading relationships, Ottawa is looking for trusted partners that can help turn Canadian mineral resources into resilient industrial supply chains.
The September Meeting Builds on a Deal Already in Place
Carney’s upcoming meeting with Støre should be viewed as the next stage of a partnership rather than the unveiling of an entirely new one. The Prime Minister’s Office announced on September 11 that Støre will visit Ottawa from September 20 to 21, with energy, critical minerals, artificial intelligence, aerospace and security among the subjects the two leaders intend to discuss. Both governments have increasingly described each other as trusted northern partners with similar interests in energy, technology and economic security.
The groundwork was laid six months earlier. During Carney’s March visit to Oslo, the countries issued a strategic cooperation statement and their ministers signed a memorandum of understanding on critical minerals. The document calls for stronger commercial partnerships, investment, technical exchanges in mining and processing, cooperation between geological agencies and more resilient mineral supply chains. September therefore provides an opportunity to move from diplomatic architecture toward specific commercial projects, investments or supply arrangements.
The Mineral Agreement Reaches Far Beyond Digging New Mines
The Canada-Norway agreement is important because its scope extends beyond simply extracting more ore. The March memorandum specifically covers exploration, mining and value-added processing. It also encourages Canadian and Norwegian companies to form commercial partnerships and calls for geological agencies in both countries to exchange knowledge about mineral exploration and resource assessment. Those details matter because an EV supply chain contains several stages between a mineral deposit and a finished vehicle.
Lithium, nickel, cobalt and graphite, for example, must be extracted and then converted into materials that can meet exacting battery specifications. Rare-earth minerals also matter for permanent-magnet electric motors used in many vehicles. Canada has substantial mineral resources, but simply exporting concentrates would capture only part of the economic opportunity. Ottawa’s broader critical-minerals strategy has therefore emphasized domestic processing, component manufacturing and recycling. Norwegian expertise in industrial processing and resource management could complement that ambition rather than merely provide Canada with another destination for raw materials.
EV Supply Chains Make Critical Minerals an Industrial-Security Issue
Critical minerals have become inseparable from the future of vehicle manufacturing. Canada’s federal critical-minerals strategy identifies lithium, graphite, nickel, cobalt, copper and rare earth elements as especially important resources because of their role in strategic supply chains. Lithium, nickel and cobalt can be used in battery cathodes, graphite remains a dominant anode material, copper is needed throughout electrical systems, and rare-earth magnets are important in many electric motors.
Demand is also continuing to rise. The International Energy Agency reported that global battery demand grew by more than 35% in 2025 and surpassed 1.5 terawatt-hours. Its 2026 critical-minerals outlook projects lithium demand rising more than threefold by 2040 under stated policies, while demand for nickel, graphite and rare earths also climbs substantially. That means mineral security is no longer a narrow mining-policy question. An interruption at the refining or processing stage can eventually affect battery plants, vehicle factories, employment and the cost of producing an EV.
Norway Brings Mineral Resources and Processing Experience
Norway may be better known internationally for oil, gas and hydropower than for battery minerals, but its government sees critical raw materials as an increasingly strategic industry. Norway’s mineral strategy identifies significant potential in natural graphite, copper, nickel, rare earth elements, cobalt, vanadium, niobium, titanium minerals and high-purity quartz. Norwegian authorities also acknowledge that significant areas of the country have not yet been mapped using modern geophysical methods, leaving room for additional discoveries.
More importantly for Canada, Norway already possesses an established processing and metals industry. A Norwegian government assessment released in June 2026 found that the country has an operational process industry producing intermediate materials for European and allied strategic supply chains. The report also identified processing and refining as one of the major global bottlenecks. That creates a logical overlap with Canada: Canadian mines may provide more raw material, while cooperation with Norwegian companies and technical institutions could help advance the difficult middle stages where mineral concentrates become usable industrial inputs.
Norway’s EV Market Gives the Partnership Another Layer
Norway also offers something unusual among mineral partners: first-hand experience operating an economy in which electric vehicles have effectively taken over the new-car market. Fully electric vehicles represented 95.9% of new Norwegian passenger-car registrations in 2025. By the end of August 2026, the share had climbed to approximately 97.8%, according to Norway’s Road Federation, making internal-combustion vehicles a tiny portion of new passenger-car sales.
That does not mean Canada can simply reproduce Norway’s transition. Norway’s tax structure, energy system, population and vehicle market are different. But the scale of its EV adoption gives Norwegian policymakers and businesses practical exposure to charging infrastructure, electricity demand, battery performance, vehicle taxation and the changing economics of automotive transport. For Canadian policymakers trying to connect mineral extraction with batteries, vehicles and eventual recycling, Norway represents more than a mining counterpart. It is also a market where many downstream consequences of electrification are already visible in everyday transportation.
Canada Is Trying to Capture More of the Value Chain at Home
Canada’s ambition is not simply to become a larger exporter of rocks and concentrates. The federal Critical Minerals Strategy is designed around the concept of building a connected system stretching from exploration and mines through processing, advanced manufacturing and recycling. Federal planning documents put total allocated funding for the strategy at roughly $3.87 billion through 2029-30, illustrating how industrial policy has become intertwined with natural-resource policy.
Ottawa has also expanded the strategy internationally. In March 2026, the government said partnerships under its Critical Minerals Production Alliance were helping mobilize $18.5 billion in Canadian projects after two rounds of announcements. The strategic goal is straightforward: a lithium or graphite deposit creates more domestic economic value if processing, battery materials and other manufacturing stages are also developed nearby. Cooperation with countries such as Norway could provide technology, investment, customers and expertise while giving allied economies additional sources of minerals and processed materials outside highly concentrated supply chains.
Diversifying Beyond the U.S. Does Not Mean Abandoning It
Canada’s push toward Norway and other European partners needs to be kept in perspective. The United States remains vastly more important to Canada’s mineral economy. Natural Resources Canada data show Canadian critical-mineral exports to the U.S. reached approximately $28.8 billion in 2025, compared with about $1.38 billion exported to Norway. In other words, Norway is a promising additional relationship, not a realistic substitute for the enormous integrated Canada-U.S. market.
What has changed is Ottawa’s willingness to build alternatives. Recent trade tensions have highlighted the risks associated with concentrating too much Canadian commerce in one destination, even when that destination is a longstanding ally. Canada and Norway already recorded $3.8 billion in total merchandise trade in 2025, and both governments have committed to making supply chains more diversified. For the auto industry, additional European mineral and technology relationships could provide options when tariffs, export restrictions, political disputes or shortages disrupt established North American routes.
The Bigger Vulnerability Is Processing Concentration
Mining more minerals is only part of the solution because the most acute supply-chain concentration often occurs after extraction. The International Energy Agency says the leading refining countries accounted for more than three-quarters of growth in refined supplies of major energy minerals between 2023 and 2025. Excluding rare earths, the average market share held by the leading refining country reached roughly 72% in 2025.
The numbers become even more striking for certain materials. China accounts for more than 90% of refining supply in minerals including graphite, manganese and several rare-earth categories, according to the IEA. Export controls have demonstrated how quickly that concentration can become an industrial problem. Automakers can have adequate assembly capacity and still face production difficulties if they cannot obtain magnets, battery-grade graphite or other specialized inputs. That is why Canada-Norway cooperation on value-added processing may ultimately matter as much as cooperation on discovering new deposits. Resilience requires multiple functioning links throughout the chain.
Environmental and Indigenous Standards Are Written Into the Partnership
Canada and Norway are also presenting their mineral cooperation as an attempt to build supply security without pushing environmental and community considerations aside. Their March memorandum specifically calls for sharing practices covering environmental impact assessments, sustainable mining, mine closure, reclamation and community participation. Indigenous involvement is also explicitly identified in the cooperation framework.
That element will be particularly important in Canada, where many prospective mineral deposits and the infrastructure required to develop them are located in or near Indigenous territories and northern communities. Canada’s Critical Minerals Strategy describes early and ongoing Indigenous engagement, benefits-sharing and environmental stewardship as central parts of project development. Those commitments can make projects more complex in the early stages, but the alternative—attempting to accelerate mines without durable community relationships—can produce legal, political and financial risks later. The Canada-Norway model is therefore being framed around both supply security and the standards under which new supply is developed.
The Test Will Be Whether Diplomacy Produces Actual Projects
The September talks will ultimately be judged less by another joint statement than by what businesses and governments do afterward. The existing framework already contains the ingredients for deeper cooperation: company matchmaking, investment, geoscience research, mineral processing, energy collaboration and technical exchanges. Canada and Norway are also exploring modernization of the Canada-EFTA free-trade agreement, which has provided tariff-free treatment for industrial goods since 2009 but predates many of today’s digital, services and economic-security concerns.
Concrete progress could take several forms. Canadian mineral developers could secure Norwegian investment or customers. Processing companies could establish joint ventures. Geological agencies could accelerate resource mapping. Manufacturers might negotiate long-term purchasing arrangements that make new Canadian mines easier to finance. The September 20–21 visit will not, by itself, redraw the EV supply chain. But if it turns an existing political partnership into bankable mineral and processing projects, Norway could become an important piece of Canada’s effort to build an automotive economy with more than one route to the materials it needs.
