Canadian opposition leader vows 6-month Ring of Fire OK in Ontario

Canadian opposition leader Pierre Poilievre says he would give federal approval for the contentious Ring of Fire development in northern Ontario within months if he takes power after an imminent election.

“My government will set a deadline of six months to green light permits for the Ring of Fire,” Poilievre told reporters in Sudbury on Wednesday. “We will unleash the production of chromite, cobalt, copper, nickel, platinum and others. We will also commit C$1 billion over three years to help the Ontario government build the highway to get there.”

The Ring of Fire area, about 540 km northeast of Thunder Bay, lies in a remote swampy region where only one venture is considered advanced, the Eagle’s Nest project held by Wyloo Metals. It’s owned by Australian tycoon and former Fortescue Metals Group (ASX: FMG) CEO Andrew Forrest.

Roads that are estimated to cost at least C$2 billion to access the region are winding their way through provincial and federal environmental assessments steered by local Indigenous communities. Some First Nations groups with claims in the area oppose development, which could take a decade to implement judging by other projects. Environmentalists say it will release the same global warming gases from the region’s muskeg that the electric-battery vehicle metals it would produce are supposed to limit.

Ontario Premier Doug Ford has also said he would accelerate the Ring of Fire project, which has become the mining industry’s focus point for transition metals in the province. Ontario has a slew of other projects also geared to eventually funnel supplies to its C$50-billion-a-year cross-border auto industry that includes Ford, GM, Stellantis, Honda and Toyota.

Single process

Ford and Poilievre want a single environmental process, instead of two levels, to speed projects like Ring of Fire to market. The federal Conservative leader criticized the Liberal government’s Impact Assessment Act passed in 2019 from Bill C-69.

“We’ve known about this place for a long time,” Poilievre said. “The Liberals did everything they could to block this project. They have a ‘keep-it-in-the-ground’ ideology.”

The federal Conservatives and Liberals are tied at 38% support, a poll by the 338Canada project showed on Wednesday. The results mark a dramatic increase in Liberal support under new leader Mark Carney while the leftist NDP has declined to 11%. Carney, who was sworn in as prime minister Friday, has said he will call an election within days. It would likely be held by mid-May. 

In one of his first decisions as PM, Carney has scrapped the Liberal consumer carbon tax – a move Poilievre has long said he would make. The Conservative leader went further on Wednesday saying he would also abolish carbon taxes on industry.

“We will repeal liberal law C-69 and instead grant rapid permission to our companies to build more pipelines, more natural gas exports, more data centres, more mines and more projects of all kind across this country,” Poilievre said. “We will stand up for this economy and our people. We will also repeal the entire carbon tax law on consumers, on industry, for everyone, for good that will protect paychecks and bring production home.”

Ontario projects

Several battery metal projects are progressing in Ontario’s north. This month Ottawa announced C$120 million – to be matched by a similar amount from Queen’s Park – for a new road and bridge to access Frontier Lithium’s (TSXV: FL; US-OTC: LITOF) PAK project.

Canada Nickel (TSXV: CNC: US-OTC: CNIKF) is advancing the Crawford nickel-cobalt sulfide project near Timmins. Crawford, believed to hold the world’s second-largest nickel reserves and resources, hosts 1.72 billion tonnes of proven and probable reserves grading 0.22% nickel, plus copper, palladium, and platinum, according to a 2023 feasibility study. In September, Export Development Canada expressed interest in providing a long-term loan of up to C$500 million to support the project’s development.

Electra Battery Materials (Nasdaq: ELBM; TSXV: ELBM) is upgrading and expanding an existing cobalt refinery near Temiskaming Shores which may become North America’s only refinery producing battery-grade cobalt sulphate. Avalon Advanced Materials (TSX: AVL; US-OTC: AVLNF) is developing the Separation Rapids lithium project, 70 km north of Kenora, for chemicals essential for lithium-ion batteries.

Li-Cycle (NYSE: LICY), a lithium battery recycler, began operations in Ontario in 2019 and ramped up to recycling and processing up to 5,000 tonnes of used lithium-ion batteries per year in 2020. The company focuses on recovering valuable materials like lithium, cobalt, and nickel from spent batteries.