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Canadian Regional Media and Web Publications

No harm from tailings, says McEwen Mining about First Nation allegations – by Ian Ross (Northern Ontario Business – February 26, 2025)

https://www.northernontariobusiness.com/

Matheson miner argues no share compensation arrangement exists with First Nation

Matheson gold producer McEwen Mining contends there’s no cause for concern regarding its mine waste tailings storage facility that a nearby First Nation claims is causing environment harm and is a human health risk.

In a news release, McEwen responded to a lawsuit that was launched this month by Apitipi Anicinapek Nation (AAN) against the Toronto gold company for allegedly violating an impact benefit agreement (IBA) between the two parties.

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Detour Lake mine still shines as one of Agnico Eagle’s stars – by Ian Ross (Northern Ontario Business – February 24, 2025)

https://www.northernontariobusiness.com/

Underground mine construction activity planned for 2025, pending arrival of government permit

Agnico Eagle wants to grow its northeastern Ontario assets by more than 50 per cent as early as 2030. The leading Toronto gold company has a slew of development projects underway in Ontario, western Quebec and Nunavut, including the Detour Lake mine, northeast of Cochrane, where plans are afoot to drive production there to one million ounces a year.

Both the Detour expansion and the Upper Beaver mine project in the Larder Lake area are looked upon as two of Agnico’s catalysts for growth.

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Mining the Northwest: Indigenous business group calls for greater consent in mine planning – by Ian Ross (Northern Ontario Business – February 19, 2025)

https://www.northernontariobusiness.com/

Anishnawbe Business Professional Association proposes new framework that follows the path of reconciliation

Jason Rasevych would like to see corporate Canada do more to put into practice what they put on paper. The president of the Anishnawbe Business Professional Association (ABPA) notices that mining companies often make statements in their annual sustainability reports about how they’re working progressively with First Nation communities.

Most of it is centred around promises of jobs and business opportunities. What’s missed is how mining activity will impact a community’s culture. While companies often say they are committed to reconciliation, Rasevych asks, “How are they reporting on that each and every year?”

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Doug Ford wants to ‘protect Ontario’ by digging up the Ring of Fire – by Jon Thompson (Ricochet Media – February 2025)

Front

But consultation isn’t a nice-to-have, it’s international law. And local First Nations want an equitable role in the process

In response to a serious question about municipal revenues during the Northern Leaders Debate last Friday, Progressive Conservative leader Doug Ford touted the value of, “unleashing northern Ontario’s economic potential, and I’ll tell you where the potential is: their potential in the north is called the Ring of Fire.”

Ford had planned a northern victory lap to meet with industrial unions in Sault Ste. Marie and Thunder Bay this week, following leaders debates on Friday and Monday. That trip was cancelled after a plane crashed in Toronto, but it was designed to cement Ford’s vision that developing the so-called “Ring of Fire” is somehow a patriotic duty of blue-collar workers.

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New book chronicles woman at centre of notorious Timmins mining scandal – by Nicole Stoffman (Timmins Daily Press – February 18, 2025)

https://www.timminspress.com/

‘I see her as the flawed hero,’ author Tim Falconer says of Viola MacMillan

A new book about a Timmins mining stock scandal launched Tuesday, Feb. 18. “Windfall, Viola MacMillan and her notorious mining scandal,” by Tim Falconer (ECW Press, 2025), tells the story of the trailblazing woman prospector and mine developer who, in July 1964, stayed quiet for three weeks while shares in her company, Windfall Oil and Mines, took off amid rumours about what the company had found on its claims near Timmins.

The claims were tantalizingly close to what would become the Kidd Creek Mine, one of the world’s largest base metal mines. When she admitted she had nothing, the stock crashed and many small investors lost money. “She out-and-out-lied to us,” investor Murray Pezim said.

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‘Serious lack of details’ in [Canada Nickel] nickel mine proposal concerns group – by Andrew Autio (Timmins Daily Press – February 17, 2025)

https://www.timminspress.com/

Carbon capture process ‘encourages dangerous emissions,’ says Ontario Rivers Alliance

The Ontario Rivers Alliance has submitted its concerns regarding Canada Nickel Company’s Crawford Project to the Impact Assessment Agency of Canada (IAAC).

The proposed Crawford Project, located 43 kilometres north of Timmins, would see an open-pit nickel cobalt mine, as well as an on-site processing mill. The mine would be capable of producing up to 275,000 tonnes of ore per day, and the project is expected to last approximately 43 years.

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STLLR Gold wants to shake its money maker at a Timmins tailings site – by Ian Ross (Northern Ontario Business – February 13, 2025)

https://www.northernontariobusiness.com/

Toronto company sifting through Hollinger mine waste looking for leftover gold

A Matheson-area gold mine developer wants to sift through the tailings of the historic Hollinger Mine in Timmins to look for leftover gold.

STLLR Gold is heralding its Hollinger tailings project as a “gamechanging” and “strategic” opportunity that the Toronto company believes can yield significant amounts of untouched gold that can be reprocessed very cheaply and deliver some cash.

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B.C.’s $50M lithium refinery aims to break China’s grip – by Nelson Bennett (Business In Vancouver – February 13, 2025)

https://www.biv.com/

Construction on Mangrove Lithium facility in Delta to begin soon

In 2023, global demand for lithium-ion batteries was forecasted to grow sixfold—from 0.7 terawatt hours to 4.7 terawatt hours—by 2030, driven largely by demand from electric vehicles.

For North America, Japan and Europe, one of the challenges in EV and battery manufacturing will be producing enough battery grade lithium to meet the demand in EV growth, especially now that China has made moves to restrict the export of lithium refining technology.

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B.C.-made critical mineral could be used as a ‘reactive weapon’ in trade war – by Stefan Labbé (Business In Vancouver – February 7, 2025)

https://www.biv.com/

Most Canadians oppose U.S. companies taking greater control over the country’s natural resource projects — a level of defiance found to be strongest in British Columbia, according to a new poll.

Holding back a critical mineral processed in B.C. and critical to high-tech industries could be used as an “reactive weapon” in a trade war with the United States.

That’s according to John Steen, director of the University of British Columbia’s Bradshaw Research Initiative in Minerals and Mining, who pointed to the province’s production of germanium. The critical mineral is increasingly used in electronics and solar technology, fibre optics, and infrared optics used regularly by militaries to see at night.

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Power shortage poses problem for the mining sector says lobby group – by Clint Fleury (TBnews Watch – February 8, 2025)

https://www.tbnewswatch.com/

The Northwest Energy Task Force says the Ontario government needs to start planning for additional power generation to meet the mining boom in the Northwest.

THUNDER BAY — Northwestern Ontario would need 250 megawatts of additional energy to meet the demand for the 41 potential mines that are expected to start by 2033, according to the Northwest Energy Task Force. Iain Angus, co-chair of the lobby group, said Northwestern Ontario could risk losing investments from some of those mining companies if we are “not prepared to provide the power.”

Ontario needs to start building additional transmission lines now, said Angus. The Northwest Energy Task Force is calling on all provincial candidates in the northwest to seriously consider adding the region’s energy needs to their platforms.

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Quebec junior miners pocket more than $43 million in federal critical minerals funding – by Ian Ross (Northern Ontario Business – February 7, 2025)

https://www.northernontariobusiness.com/

James Bay explorers cash in to carry out studies on road, power and innovation projects

Ottawa wants Canada to be the lead dog when it comes to developing and expanding its critical minerals value chain. That’s why the federal government is ponying up $43.5 million to advance road, power and research projects in Quebec.

Mining proponents on the eastern side of the James Bay region and northern Quebec were the recipients this week of a stream of program funding through the federal government’s critical minerals strategy. Federal Energy and Natural Resources Minister Jonathan Wilkinson delivered the news on Feb.6.

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‘We’re still open for business’: Kidd mine manager talks closure plans – by Amanda Rabski-McColl (Timmins Today – February 7, 2025)

https://www.timminstoday.com/

Environmental remediation jobs will be plentiful after base metal mine closes in late 2026

TIMMINS – Glencore is open for business even as the Kidd Mine site closes. That was the message at the Timmins Chamber’s State of Mining lunch, where Kidd Operations general manager Dawid Myburgh laid out the site’s successes in the last 58 years and the early stages of its closure plans.

The Kidd Mine is slated to close at the end of 2026. Myburgh laid out the opportunities and work left to do as the closure takes place. “We haven’t in our studies found an economically viable way to go on,” he said. “It’s not a farm. Every time we take something out, it doesn’t grow out, so it’s a normal part of mining and it’s something that, as a team we’re looking at being proud of how we do it.”

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Australian lithium player selects new site for proposed Thunder Bay refinery – by Ian Ross (Northern Ontario Business – February 5, 2025)

https://www.northernontariobusiness.com/

Green Technology Metals tests lithium sample in South Korea to develop a product for the electric vehicle market

An aspiring Australian lithium producer in northwestern Ontario is eyeing a new site in Thunder Bay to place a refinery. Green Technology Metals is scoping out a brownfield on the city’s waterfront to evaluate its suitability to host a lithium chemical conversion plant.

The Perth-headquartered has shifted focus away from the former Cascades Paper plant property in the city’s north end to the Midcontinent Terminal property on Maureen Street in the centre of the city, near a grouping of grain elevators.

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Tungsten supply crisis threatens defense and tech industries (The Oregon Group – February 04, 2025)

https://theoregongroup.substack.com/

China announces new export controls on tungsten, critical to modern technology

China has announced new export controls on 25 rare metals, including tungsten, in retaliation to a new 10% tariff by Trump on all US imports from China. The problem: China dominates global tungsten supply — accounting for more than 80% of the world’s mining and processing in 2023, as well as 58% of the world’s reserves at 2.3 million metric tons.

However, China’s dominance is increasingly seen as a strategic vulnerability by the US, EU and Japan amid escalating geopolitical tensions.

What is tungsten

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OPINION: Will the political parties stick up for the ailing forest industry? – by Tom Clark, Jeremy Williams, Don Huff and Bud Knauff (Northern Ontario Business – January 30, 2025)

https://www.northernontariobusiness.com/

Voters should demand real action and investment commitment from party leaders to revitalize, ‘re-imagine’ this critical sector

As Ontario braces for a snap provincial election called by Premier Doug Ford, the languishing forest industry in rural and Northern Ontario remains a critical yet overlooked issue. The closure of major pulp mills in Espanola and Terrace Bay have dealt a severe blow to the region’s economy, with far-reaching consequences that demand immediate attention.

The indefinite idling of Domtar’s Espanola pulp mill in November 2023 and Aditya Birla’s Terrace Bay mill in January 2024 has resulted in the loss of over 850 direct jobs and the annual production of 600,000 tonnes of Northern Bleached Kraft pulp.

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