While a decision is pending, fund the work that keeps its value whatever the outcome.
Federal money for resource projects is arriving through more channels than it was two years ago. Budget 2025, tabled on November 4, 2025, created a $2-billion Critical Minerals Sovereign Fund starting in 2026-27, a $371.8-million First and Last Mile Fund over four years and a $1-billion Arctic Infrastructure Fund, and added 12 minerals to the Critical Mineral Exploration Tax Credit. Each of those streams has its own decision calendar, and none of them is aligned with a field season or an election.
The result is that most resource projects now spend part of every year waiting on a decision they do not control. The method below sorts the work so that waiting costs as little as possible.
• List every task in the next 12 months and ask one question of each: does its value depend on the pending decision? Baseline environmental surveys, geotechnical investigation, hydrology, a design basis and engagement records almost always survive any outcome. Camp construction, long-lead equipment and construction contracts usually do not.
• Fund the no-regret tasks first, and schedule them to the season they need: open water for fish and hydrology work, frozen ground for winter access, snow-free ground for terrain mapping.
• Prepare, but do not commit, the decision-dependent tasks. Draft the procurement packages, price the mobilization and line up the crews, so the decision triggers a start rather than a planning cycle.
• Stage mobilization to avoid paying for it twice. Combine field programs that need the same access window, and avoid demobilizing a crew that will be needed again within the season.
• Check the funding stack before each decision gate. Exploration tax credits, federal infrastructure funds and provincial programs often cover different parts of the same program, and their eligibility windows rarely line up.
• Report spend against decision gates, not only against budget. An owner should be able to see at a glance how much of the money spent so far would be lost if the decision went the other way. On a well-sorted program, that number is small.
The usual objection is that this is ordinary project management. It is, and it is still rare, because most programs are scheduled against a budget year rather than against the decisions that govern them. A schedule built around the decisions makes a pause visible months before it arrives.
A program sorted this way can absorb a six-week pause in a season. A program that stops when the decision stalls will lose the season it was waiting for.
Want help sorting a program around a pending decision? Talk to the PRI Team.
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Arash Yazdani, CED, FEC, QP, P.Eng.
Chief Technical Officer
arash.yazdani@priengineering.com