https://www.northernminer.com/
Without a doubt, one of the most important challenges facing the next generation is global warming and the need to decarbonize the transportation sector. This can only happen with the sustainable development of new mines that produce the copper, nickel, cobalt, lithium and other critical minerals that can be found throughout northern Ontario’s rich geology.
However, it is the junior exploration sector that has traditionally found economic mineral deposits that are sold to majors who have the financial capacity to build new mines. This important and vital part of the mining ecosystem is largely being ignored by the Ontario government.
I have been in exploration sector for over 40 years — the last 10 years as head of the Kirkland Lake’s Northern Prospectors Association. As anyone who attended this year’s Prospectors and Developers Association of Canada convention in Toronto knows, the junior exploration sector is not in good health. The challenges facing the sector have the potential to derail Ontario’s much vaunted Critical Minerals Strategy.
While both provincial and federal governments have spent tens of billions of dollars to attract electric vehicle (EV) manufacturing plants, Ontario has done almost nothing to support the companies and prospectors that will find the critical minerals needed to build the batteries essential for these operations.
For the rest of this column: https://www.northernminer.com/commentary/why-ontario-cant-afford-to-ignore-juniors-in-the-next-budget/1003865286/