Premier Doug Ford is mining for votes in Northern Ontario. With the June 2 election just 11 weeks away, Ford was at a massive mine outside Thunder Bay on Thursday to unveil a five-year, 53-page “critical minerals strategy” for the province.
The premier said it would serve as his Progressive Conservative government’s “blueprint” for bringing raw material resources from the north to manufacturers in southern Ontario.
“Doing so has never been more important as we secure game-changing investments in our auto sector to build the electric vehicles and batteries of the future using Ontario minerals,” he said at the Lac des Iles mine, 85 kilometres from Thunder Bay, which is a source of palladium, nickel and copper.
Ford, who has been working closely with Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s Liberal government to encourage more manufacturing of electric vehicles in Ontario, said the new strategy would help find and bring to market the materials needed to make batteries.
For the rest of this article: https://www.thestar.com/politics/provincial/2022/03/17/doug-ford-unveils-mining-strategy-in-northern-ontario.html