On May 14, 2025, Canada Growth Fund Inc. (CGF) announced a strategic $156 million cornerstone investment in a $350 million non-brokered private placement by Foran Mining Corporation, a Vancouver-based developer of the McIlvenna Bay Project in Saskatchewan. This marks CGF’s second mining sector investment in under six months and supports its mandate to build resilient Canadian critical mineral supply chains. The funding will accelerate the development of McIlvenna Bay—Canada’s only copper-zinc deposit currently under construction—expected to boost national copper and zinc output by up to 4 percent and 22 percent, respectively, and create up to 400 permanent jobs in northern Saskatchewan and Manitoba.
The McIlvenna Bay Project, wholly owned by Foran, sits along the prolific Flin Flon Greenstone Belt and is intended to serve as the core of a new polymetallic mining camp. The project aligns with CGF’s goal to enhance domestic production and processing of strategic minerals essential to the energy transition and industrial competitiveness.
Legal, commercial, and technical advisors to CGF and its investment manager CGFIM included Stikeman Elliott LLP, Wood Mackenzie, and SRK Consulting (Canada) Inc.
The Stikeman Elliott legal team includes Maxime Turcotte, Victor Gerchikov, Michael Stewart, Alexander Bonner and Léa Dumais (Corporate). Dennis Langen (Indigenous); Amy Barrington and Patrick Welsh (Environmental); Jennifer Koschinsky, Ashley Mulrooney and Lucia Chiara Limanni (Employment); Maxime Jacquin, Tara Watson and Krista Bauman (Banking and Finance); Rachel Hutton (Real Estate); Michael Kilby (Competition); Julie D'Avignon and Gordon Masson (Tax); Nosheen Hotaki, Grace Hardwicke-Brown, Catriona Campbell and Angelica Goode (Articling Students).
McCarthy Tétrault LLP advised Foran.