Pierre Poilievre promises to fast-track Ring of Fire project

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Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre says he would approve all permits to unlock mining in the mineral-rich Ring of Fire area in northern Ontario within six months of his party being elected and commit $1 billion over three years to building roads.

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Decades of exploration have turned up nickel, copper, chromite, platinum and other metals in the area around the James Bay Lowlands that miners call the Ring of Fire, but the area lacks an all-season road connecting it to the southern portion of Ontario.

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“Unlocking the Ring of Fire will be life-changing for northern Ontario towns and First Nation communities, galvanized by thousands of paycheques and modern infrastructure,” Poilievre said in a release.

He cast the Ring of Fire as a way to boost the economy and lessen Canada’s dependence on China for critical minerals.

Currently, Australian billionaire Andrew Forrest’s Wyloo Metals Ltd. controls the most advanced mine projects in the area, after acquiring Toronto-based Noront Resources Ltd. in 2021 for around $617 million in cash.

Ontario Premier Doug Ford has been seeking to advance the project and has pledged to commit up to $1 billion in government funding to build infrastructure in the area.

But federal Natural Resources Minister Jonathan Wilkinson has taken a more circumspect tone, calling it “a particularly challenging area” in reference to the geography and the sentiment of some Indigenous communities in the area.

“There is a lot of that area that is peat,” he said at a press conference in 2022. “And there are also several Indigenous nations that have raised concerns and certainly questions about development in that space. Both of those issues have to be addressed in any agreement.”

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The federal government is in the midst of a larger study of the environmental impacts of the proposed roads and projects in the area. In January, it said it had finalized the terms of reference for a regional study.

The terms of reference “set out how the co-led regional assessment will provide information on the impacts of any potential future development” and regional assessments “are studies conducted in areas of existing projects or anticipated development,” it said.

The regional assessment is being led by representatives from 15 local Indigenous communities, while the federal impact assessment will look at potential environmental, health, social and economic effects of any future development.

Ford, at the Prospectors & Developers Association of Canada mining convention earlier this month in Toronto, called on the federal government to stop slowing progress on the project.

Poilievre said he would repeal Bill C-69, the federal bill that overhauled the environmental review process in 2019, which at the time was supported by the Mining Association of Canada.

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“This gatekeeping and red tape was devastating for Canada before Donald Trump threatened tariffs on our economy. Now, it is an act of economic suicide,” he said. “By partnering with First Nations to develop our world-class resources, we will bring home powerful paycheques for all Canadians.”

• Email: gfriedman@postmedia.com

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