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TORONTO/CALGARY – Greg Rickford knows mining, and he knows how to work with First Nations communities. Now he has to prove he can manoeuvre Canada through the rough-and-tumble world of pipeline politics.
Mr. Rickford, 46, was named the new federal natural resources minister on Wednesday as Joe Oliver moved on to finance. He inherits a grand plan to transform Canada into an “energy superpower” with $650-billion in resource development over the next decade.
The appointment was praised across Ontario’s mining sector, where Mr. Rickford is widely respected and is already at the centre of the province’s biggest new resource development. But it elicited shrugs in the West, where the Kenora native is a virtual unknown.
“Now is a critical time for Canada’s natural resource sector, and [Mr. Rickford] will need to get up to speed quickly on a number of files,” said David Collyer, president of the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers.
Among the plans championed by Ottawa are accelerated extraction of Alberta’s oil sands and liquefied natural gas exports on the West Coast. Then there are the contentious pipeline issues: A decision from the federal cabinet on Enbridge Inc.’s Northern Gateway is expected by July, TransCanada Corp.’s Keystone XL remains in limbo and a plan to nearly triple oil exports through Vancouver is gathering momentum.
From a mining perspective, the government is focused on streamlining the permitting process and pushing forward with development of the mineral-rich “Ring of Fire” in Northern Ontario, which is hobbled by a lack of both infrastructure and agreements with key stakeholders. Mr. Rickford has been the federal minister responsible for that file since last summer.
Managing all of this development requires a deft hand in dealing with First Nations groups, an area in which Mr. Oliver occasionally struggled. First Nations from New Brunswick to British Columbia are asserting their rights, complicating Canada’s resource boom.
Mr. Rickford is viewed as someone who understands the importance of resource development and what it can bring to remote areas. Before becoming a lawyer and politician, he was a nurse in Northern Ontario and spent much of his time working in aboriginal communities.
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