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Junior Exploration Sector

BULLETIN: The Ontario Divisional Court Weighs in on Funding Consultation – by Tracy A. Pratt and Paul Hildebrandt (Fasken.com – March 14, 2022)

https://www.fasken.com/en/

The Ontario Divisional Court recently released its decision in Attawapiskat First Nation v Ontario. [1] Among other things, the Court addresses the issue of funding consultation in the early exploration context.

Background

In January 2020, Juno Corp. (“Juno”) applied to the Ministry of Northern Development, Mines, Natural Resources, and Forestry (the “Ministry”) for two early mineral exploration permits on lands covered by Treaty 9 (the “Project Lands”). The Project Lands are located within the area known as the “Ring of Fire”. They also fall within the Attawapiskat First Nation (“Attawapiskat”) traditional territory, approximately 250 kilometers west of the community. [2]

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Nipigon-area lithium hunter inks exploration agreement with First Nations – by Staff (Northern Ontario Business – March 22, 2022)

https://www.northernontariobusiness.com/

Imagine Lithium defining and expanding deposit first discovered in the 1950s

A Vancouver lithium outfit has signed an exploration agreement with three northwestern Ontario First Nation communities – Bingwi Neyaashi Anishinaabek, Biinjitiwaabik Zaaging Anishinaabek. and Red Rock Indian Band – in the Lake Nipigon area.

A March 21 news release from Imagine Lithium said the document sets up a framework with the communities for ongoing consultation and accommodation around the company’s exploration work at its Jackpot Lithium Project, 140 kilometres northeast of Thunder Bay.

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In reconciliation, government falls short in upholding the ‘Honour of the Crown’ – by Star Editorial Board (Toronto Star – March 14, 2022)

https://www.thestar.com/

‘A government that needs a lecture on decency and honour from the courts, even as it wins a case, fails to meet the bar.’

Honour is something of a quaint concept. The “Honour of the Crown” sounds like a BBC television series.

But a panel of three judges from Ontario’s Divisional Court, in the form of a recent decision on a Northern Ontario land dispute, delivered an interesting treatise on the notion.

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Exploration roundup: High gold prices continue to spur exploration activity around Kirkland Lake – by Staff (Northern Ontario Business – February 22, 2022)

https://www.northernontariobusiness.com/

A slew of junior miners are taking the plunge in the Abitibi Greenstone Belt

The Kirkland Lake mining scene has been reshaped with Agnico Eagle acquiring Kirkland Lake Gold and the Macassa Mine.

But a number of ambitious junior miners continue to search for high-grade gold at depth on the path to bring the next generation of mines online in this historic northeastern Ontario gold camp. The gold price in late February was hovering just below US$1,900 an ounce.

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Osisko to develop Windfall without Northern Star – by Staff (Canadian Mining Journal – February 17, 2022)

https://www.canadianminingjournal.com/

Osisko Mining (TSX: OSK) has decided to develop the Windfall gold project 200 km north of Val d’Or, Quebec by itself. Joint venture talks with Northern Star (ASX: NST) were announced last November, but they have now been broken off.

Osisko says that its independent development of the project would be the most beneficial option for its shareholders.

While Northern Star will not be a partner in Windfall, Osisko maintains it will continue a cordial and beneficial relationship with the Australian company, which is an important debt holder having advanced a $154-million convertible senior unsecured debenture due Dec. 1, 2025, with an interest rate of 4.75% per annum.

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Gates, Bezos-backed firm gets cash injection to find battery metals – by Cecilia Jamasmie (Mining.com – February 10, 2022)

https://www.mining.com/

KoBold Metals, a start-up backed by a coalition of billionaires including Bill Gates and Jeff Bezos, has raised $192.5 million in its latest financing round, which will allow it to speed up efforts to find new deposits of critical metals needed for batteries and clean energy.

Investors in the Series B funding round for the company included Sam Altman’s Apollo Projects and Mary Meeker’s Bond Capital as well as BHP (ASX: BHP) and the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board, Canada’s largest pension fund, two people familiar with the matter told The Wall Street Journal.

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Investment in B.C. mineral exploration is booming – by Nelson Bennett (Business In Vancouver – February 7, 2022)

https://biv.com/

When John Horgan’s BC NDP formed government with the help of the BC Green Party in 2017, investors in B.C.’s mining and exploration sectors may have crossed themselves and prayed they weren’t in for another “lost decade.”

That’s what some in the industry called the 1990s, when an NDP government presided over a decade-long flight of capital from B.C.’s mining and exploration sectors.

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The Drift: Sudbury’s outskirts remain mineral-rich ground for exploration outfits – by Staff (Northern Ontario Business – Janaury 17, 2022)

https://www.northernontariobusiness.com/

Palladium company to release pre-feasibility study on open-pit River Valley mine project

Areas outside the Sudbury Basin are proving to be fertile ground for junior mining exploration companies probing for precious, base and so-called ‘green’ metals. Two projects are showing definite mining potential.

New Age Metals expects to release a pre-feasibility study this summer for a proposed open-pit mine at its River Valley project.

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Harvey Yesno to advise Far North gold exploration outfit – by Staff (Northern Ontario Business – January 11, 2022)

https://www.northernontariobusiness.com/

Lithoquest Resources hires former NAN Grand Chief to help with community engagement

A new gold exploration player in the Far North has brought respected regional leader and former Eabametoong Chief Harvey Yesno aboard as an advisor. And he’ll be basically working in the backyard of his home community.

Lithoquest Resources, a Vancouver junior miner, holds more than 41,000 hectares of prospective ground situated on an untapped greenstone gold belt near Eabametoong, 300 kilometres northeast of Thunder Bay. The company’s three exploration projects all fall within Eabametoong’s traditional territory.

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Two top executives of Canada’s Black Tusk gold mining fined for insider trading – by Tessa Vikander (CTV News Vancouver – January 9, 2022)

https://bc.ctvnews.ca/

VANCOUVER – Two top executives of a Canadian gold mining company have been fined for undisclosed insider trading spanning a three-year period.

In a settlement with the B.C. Securities Commission, Black Tusk Resources CEO Richard Ryan Penn and former CFO and secretary Roman Reuven Rubin, admitted to failing to report the vast majority of their trades relating to the company.

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Gold, diamonds and psychic guidance. How an Ontario man took millions from investors and left them with nothing – by Grant LaFleche (Toronto Star (December 5, 2021)

https://www.thestar.com/

“I do have psychokinesis abilities,” Shelley Ackrill told Torstar.
“OK, so I put my hands over the map and there was an area where
my hand was getting a lot of tingling.” That was the spot he was
to drill for diamonds.

Under the calming, low light of Bonnie Mori’s clinic, surrounded by shelves packed with vials of homeopathic remedies and crystals, a visitor could catch a breath and unload his troubles.

Behind a large desk, a wall adorned with certificates announced Bonnie’s credentials as a healer. Alex Christoff sat and told her his story of how a hunting mishap decades ago left a phantom knife in his spine that he could never remove. Surgery didn’t work. “Nothing could repair it,” recalled his nephew Rick Christoff. It was 2001 and Alex, then 72, was looking for hope.

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Stop the injury and insult. Ontario should back off on mining at Grassy Narrows – by Star Editorial Board (Toronto Star – November 20, 2021)

https://www.thestar.com/

If there’s a shorthand expression in Ontario for the betrayal of Indigenous citizens, their rights, health and well-being, it is probably two words: Grassy Narrows.

The Northern Ontario community bedevilled by mercury pollution in the English River system for a half-century has heard enough empty promises over the decades to last an eternity. In Grassy Narrows, mercury contamination in fish — the result of dumping by a pulp and paper company, dating back to 1962 — continues to poison people.

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Grassy Narrows First Nation seeks repeal of mining permits – by Staff (Northern Ontario Business – November 18, 2021)

https://www.northernontariobusiness.com/

Permits issued by province without community’s consent, First Nation claims

Grassy Narrows First Nation is asserting the province should have first consulted with the community before issuing nine permits to mining companies giving them the right to drill on the First Nation’s traditional territory.

The community, located in northwestern Ontario in the area of northern Kenora, issued a news release on Nov. 16 indicating it had begun legal action through the Ontario Divisional Court against the province, in an effort to get the permits cancelled.

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Timmins junior miner harbours high hopes of high-grade nickel – by Staff (Northern Ontario Business – November 3, 2021)

https://www.northernontariobusiness.com/

Canada Nickel pulling higher-grade core from drilling program around future open-pit mine

The deeper Canada Nickel Company drills at its Crawford Project outside Timmins, the richer the results get.

The Toronto nickel explorer recently released a handful of very promising drill results from an infill exploration program of its East Zone, one of the two areas the company is sizing up for a pair of open-pit mines.

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Orford Mining partners with Wyloo Metals to explore West Raglan in Quebec – by Daniel Sekulich (Northern Miner – November 2021)

https://www.northernminer.com/

Well before Wyloo Metals began its fight with BHP (NYSE: BHP; LSE: BHP; ASX: BHP) for Noront Resources (TSXV: NOT), the Australian company signed a definitive agreement with Toronto-based junior Orford Mining (TSXV: ORM) for its West Raglan nickel project in Quebec’s Nunavik region.

The deal, signed in January, sees Wyloo earning up to 80% of the West Raglan project by spending $25 million on exploration over the next seven years. Wyloo was expected to spend $1 million of the $25 million this year, but has already spent $1.7 million.

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