Indigenous Affairs Minister Greg Rickford said mining will bring permanent infrastructure like roads and bridges to underserved communities
Facing legal challenges and protests from First Nations over mining development, Ford government ministers told the industry they’re doubling down — quadrupling, even — on the push to create a closed-loop electric vehicle manufacturing process in Ontario.
“This is really a turning point in all of our lives in the north right now, this very moment,” Economic Development Minister and Nipissing MPP Vic Fedeli said on Monday at the Prospectors & Developers Association of Canada (PDAC) annual conference in Toronto — one of the world’s largest mining conventions, hosting 30,000 people from 130-plus countries, according to the group.
“We have something in our ground that the rest of the world wants. And this is the moment for us to capture this opportunity,” he said, noting nickel and lithium discoveries in Timmins and northwestern Ontario, respectively.
“We need to get those minerals out of the ground and into the EVs” that will be built in Ontario, he said.