Ontario is becoming the first jurisdiction in Canada to have a dedicated regulatory pathway for projects aimed at recovering residual metals and minerals from mine waste. Experts said the move is a promising step, but technical and economic hurdles still stand in the way of wide-scale waste re-mining efforts.
The province announced a regulatory change to the Mining Act in late November 2024 to create a permit process specifically for recovering metals and minerals from tailings and mine waste at open, closed or abandoned mine sites in the province.
The change will go into effect in July and will require permit applicants to submit recovery and remediation plans that detail how they propose to recover minerals and how they would remediate the land to a state that is “comparable to or better than” it was before. The government may require financial assurance as a condition of granting the permit, and noted projects will not be exempt from other provincial or federal requirements.
For the rest of this article: https://magazine.cim.org/en/news/2025/buried-treasure-en/