Bill C-271: Protecting Canada's Essential Infrastructure Metals Act

The most directly affected businesses are scrap metal dealers and recyclers — yards that buy, sell, process, and trade in copper, aluminum, brass, bronze, steel, iron, and their alloys. These businesses operate across all provinces and handle day-to-day activities like purchasing metal from walk-in sellers, weighing and sorting scrap, and reselling to mills or exporters. Under the new rules, dealers who are reckless or willfully blind about whether the metal they're buying was stolen face criminal charges and fines up to $10,000 or imprisonment. This effectively requires scrap dealers of all sizes — from small single-location yards to large multi-site operations — to implement more rigorous due diligence when sourcing metal, such as verifying seller identity and the provenance of materials, to avoid criminal liability.