TORONTO - Canada believes that the best way to address the issue of concentrated supply of critical minerals is through a production alliance or a buyers' club rather than just a price floor, Energy and Mining Minister Tim Hodgson told Reuters on Tuesday.

"We believe that the critical minerals production alliance, that we suggested in the G7 at Kananaskis and coming out of that, the critical minerals buying group, is the best way to tackle this in a multilateral basis for all the countries interested," said Hodgson, who spoke to Reuters while attending the annual Prospectors and Developers Association of Canada conference in Toronto.

Last month, US Vice President JD Vance said that the US will establish a system creating price floors for critical minerals to boost its access. Though the US signed a separate agreement with Mexico on this, it left out Canada.

Price floors are a system in which a country or a government agrees to buy certain goods for a minimum price. Some common non-metal examples of price floors include certain agricultural crops.

The G7 countries, over the last two years, have proposed several measures to tackle the dominance of China in rare earths - difficult-to-extract metals used in cell phones, EVs and high-tech weapons. China currently controls over 90% of these metals and imposed export controls last year in retaliation for US tariffs.

Canada, which hosted the G7 meetings in Kananaskis, Alberta, last year, has proposed a series of deals with its partners to secure the supply of critical metals. Earlier this week, Canada signed 30 new deals with 12 countries for a proposed C$12.6-billion ($9.22 billion) of investments in mining and mining technology, taking the total investments to around C$18-billion since October.

Hodgson said the initiative of a buyers club has been taken up by France, the host of the 2026 G7 meeting, to ensure the idea continues. "I think incorporating some of the American initiatives into that multilateral approach is the most likely way to get the end goal," he said.