Canadian diamonds: where they come from and how they are tracked

The three mines in the table are all in the Northwest Territories, on a stretch of tundra north-east of Yellowknife. Ekati and Diavik are both in the Lac de Gras region, and Gahcho Kué is farther east. Each row gives the mine's location, owner, first year of production and current status.

The status column is date-sensitive. It reflects October 2026, and mine plans can change quickly when diamond prices fall, so treat it as a snapshot rather than a forecast.

Diavik is the clearest case. Rio Tinto says the mine began in 2003 and produced more than 152 million carats of rough diamonds over 23 years. Its last ore milestone came in March 2026, and the site is now being decommissioned and reclaimed.

Ekati is described by its owner as Canada's first surface and underground diamond mine, with mining beginning officially in October 1998. On May 1, 2026 its subsidiary Arctic Canadian Diamond Company filed for protection under Canada's Companies' Creditors Arrangement Act. Burgundy cited US tariffs on natural diamonds, weak demand for natural rough diamonds and rising costs, including higher fuel prices, and said the subsidiary intended to continue mining during the process. Burgundy has said its reserves support operations through 2028; the creditor-protection filing may change that.

At Gahcho Kué, Mountain Province says mining began in 2016 and that the mine life has been extended to 2031. On October 1, 2026 it announced a restructuring agreement under which De Beers would become the sole owner of the mine once the transaction is completed, with Mountain Province holding an option to buy back the interest before December 31, 2029. Earlier mines in Ontario (Victor), Québec (Renard) and Nunavut (Jericho) have closed or stopped production, so a Canadian stone sold today may come from one of them. Victor ceased operations in 2019, Renard went on care and maintenance in October 2023, and Jericho has been deemed closed or abandoned. Mine news changes often, so check each company's own site for the latest.

The Kimberley Process, the international body that tracks rough diamond trade, publishes statistics for each country. In 2025 Canada produced 14.1 million carats and exported 11.6 million carats, with 152 export certificates issued and 125 import certificates received. Imports are much smaller: 281,419 carats.

Canada's output peaked at 23.2 million carats in 2017, the highest of the 2004 to 2025 series, and has run between 13.1 and 17.6 million carats a year from 2020 to 2025. Those figures are rough diamonds counted by weight, not the polished stones in rings, and the carat weight of a polished stone tells you nothing about which mine it came from.

The Kimberley Process is a certification scheme for rough diamonds. Its stated aim, in the preamble to Canada's law, is breaking the link between armed conflict and the trade in rough diamonds. Canada joined in 2003 and chaired the scheme in 2004.

Canada applies the scheme through the Export and Import of Rough Diamonds Act (S.C. 2002, c. 25). Under it:

• Anyone exporting rough diamonds must send them in a container that meets the regulations, with a Canadian Certificate issued by the Minister of Natural Resources (sections 8 and 9).
• Before issuing one, the Minister must be satisfied that the export is going to a participant in the scheme and that the diamonds originated in Canada, were extracted from mineral concentrates in Canada, were imported from a participant, or were already in Canada when the Act came into force.
• Anyone importing rough diamonds must have a valid certificate issued by a participant (section 14).

Every export under the scheme must carry a valid certificate, and the scheme covers rough diamonds only. A certificate is not a statement about a stone's quality or grade.

Mostly by the companies that handle it. The Kimberley Process covers rough diamonds, and its own FAQ says polished diamonds do not require a certificate. Once the rough stone is cut, polished and sold, that government paper trail ends.

What continues is private documentation. The industry has a System of Warranties, which the Kimberley Process describes as separate from the scheme: sellers state on invoices that the diamonds come from legitimate sources not involved in funding conflict. That statement is about conflict financing, not about the mine.

Some miners run their own tracking. Burgundy, which owns Ekati, says its CanadaMark program gives tracked, independently audited handling at each stage from mine to polished stone. Mountain Province sells its share of Gahcho Kué rough through a web-based bidding system and describes the control it keeps over those sales as a "highly visible chain of custody". These are company programs covering their own diamonds, and they differ from one another.

Origin is hard to read from a finished stone. The Kimberley Process FAQ says there is no scientific consensus on the best methods to determine origin, and it relies on administrative controls to track stones from mine to export. GIA says its Diamond Origin service can identify a polished diamond's country of origin only if GIA analyzed the stone in rough form first. It is a separate service, not part of a standard grading report.

No. Origin does not change how a diamond is graded. Colour, clarity, cut and carat weight, the four Cs, describe the stone, and a grading report from a lab such as GIA or IGI records them. Two stones of the same grades look alike whether they were mined in Canada or elsewhere.

What origin can give you is documentation, which some buyers value for personal reasons. If that matters to you, treat it as a separate question from quality: it is worth having only when the seller can show the paperwork.

It also has nothing to do with whether a diamond is natural or lab-grown. Lab-grown stones are not mined, so they have no mine of origin. The guide to lab-grown versus natural diamonds explains the differences.

A claim of Canadian origin should come with documents. Questions worth asking:

1. Which mine did the rough diamond come from, and who can document that?
2. Is the claim covered by a program that follows the stone through cutting, such as a miner's own tracking system? If so, which one, and who audits it?
3. Does the stone have a grading report, and does its number match the laser inscription on the stone?
4. Do the seller's suppliers take part in the System of Warranties? The Kimberley Process FAQ suggests asking this, and asking to see the company's policy on conflict diamonds.

If the seller cannot answer, that tells you what the claim rests on. Keep in mind that the Kimberley Process defines conflict diamonds as rough diamonds used by rebel movements to finance conflict against legitimate governments, and the System of Warranties statement is about conflict financing too. If you care about other questions, such as labour or environmental practices, ask for the seller's or miner's own documentation. If you are designing a ring around a particular stone, you can raise these questions at a custom engagement ring appointment or at a showroom.