The first Canadian-owned manufacturing facility making high-tech rare earths-based magnets for use in electric vehicles, wind turbines and other energy transition technologies opened last month. But in Estonia, not Canada.

The US$75 million ($105 million) factory being operated by Toronto-based Neo Performance Materials ( Neo ) in Narva, about 210 kms east of the capital Tallinn, is the kind of plant Canada needs to develop to industrialize its critical minerals resources — and target new markets amid a US-led trade war, says the company's former boss.

“I would have loved to build my magnet plant in Canada, powered with hydro or nuclear,” Constantine Karyannopolous, Neo's founder and until recently its CEO, told Canada’s National Observer .

“But do you know how ha

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