Critical Minerals Infrastructure Fund: Indigenous Grants New!

The Critical Minerals Infrastructure Fund (CMIF) supports the development and deployment of clean energy and transportation infrastructure that is necessary to enable the development and expansion of critical minerals projects in Canada.

The CMIF Indigenous Grants stream was established to provide Indigenous groups impacted by these critical minerals infrastructure projects with the resources necessary to actively engage on, participate in and benefit from critical minerals development.

Initiatives that are eligible under the CMIF Indigenous Grants must include engagement, capacity building, and knowledge gathering and sharing activities related to a clean energy and/or transportation infrastructure project that enables the development and expansion of critical minerals production in Canada (i.e., enabling mining activities, not including processing or manufacturing):

• engagement activities may include meetings and consultations about one or more eligible infrastructure projects linked to critical minerals development. For example, applicants may receive funding to enable their engagement (in person or virtual) with government and industry, as well as other rights holders, stakeholders and partners regarding the clean energy and/or transportation infrastructure projects
• capacity building activities may include securing or improving the organization’s skills, knowledge and tools to enable their participation in discussions about one or more clean energy and/or transportation infrastructure projects linked to critical minerals developmentknowledge gathering and sharing activities may include the collection and distribution of Indigenous and/or Western knowledge for purposes of
• supporting Indigenous participation in one or more eligible infrastructure projects linked to critical minerals development. The activities may be targeted (e.g., gathering traditional knowledge to inform a mine access road feasibility study), or they may be broad (e.g., publishing a community-led report about the potential impacts and benefits of a wind infrastructure that is proposed to power a nearby mine)

Clean energy or transportation infrastructure that enables the development and expansion of Canada’s critical minerals could either be in the planning stages (for example, in the process of obtaining permits or conducting impact or environmental assessments) or could already be underway. Eligible infrastructure projects may or may not proceed to completion.

For this call for proposals, CMIF Indigenous Grants will fund initiatives that will occur between April 1, 2026, and March 31, 2028.

See the website for more details.

Applicants who are eligible under the CMIF Indigenous Grants must be either:

• an Indigenous organization (for example, Indigenous community, Indigenous government, tribal council, national or regional Indigenous organization, or an Indigenous for-profit or not-for-profit organization)
• a non-Indigenous organization that is working with or on behalf of an Indigenous partner (for example, academic or research institutions, not-for-profit groups, and provincial, territorial or municipal governments and their departments and agencies)

Non-Indigenous organizations will be asked to include a letter of endorsement signed by the leadership of the Indigenous partner organization, confirming they are working with or on behalf of that Indigenous partner.

The 2025 call for proposals will provide up to $3 million in grant funding for eligible initiatives. The maximum funding available per organization ranges from $150,000 to $200,000, depending on the location of the applicant or Indigenous partner organization, as outlined below:

• Northern or remote areas* $200,000

   

• Non-northern or non-remote areas $150,000

*Northern or remote areas include:

• all Northern communities located in the Yukon, Northwest Territories, Inuvialuit, Nunavut, Nunavik and Nunatsiavut
• remote communities that:
  • are not connected to the broader critical infrastructure networks such as the electrical grid, highway system or piped natural gas network
  • lack year-round surface transportation and have a year-round population according to the national census
  • are either a long distance from larger settlements or lack transportation links that are typical in more populated areas; and/or
  • receive infrequent postal services as shown on the postal codes of remote areas table