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Ontario’s Ring of Fire Mineral Discovery

Excerpt from Ring of Fire: High-Stakes Mining in a Lowlands Wilderness – by Virginia Heffernan (March 27, 2023)

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A valuable discovery under the world’s second-largest temperate wetland and in the traditional lands of the Cree and Ojibway casts light on the growing conflict among resource development, environmental stewardship, and Indigenous rights

When prospectors discovered a gigantic crescent of metal deposits under the James Bay Lowlands of northern Canada in 2007, the find touched off a mining rush, lured a major American company to spend fortunes in the remote swamp, and forced politicians to confront their legal duty to consult Indigenous Peoples about development on their traditional territories. But the multibillion-dollar Ring of Fire was all but abandoned when stakeholders failed to reach a consensus on how to develop the cache despite years of negotiations and hundreds of millions of dollars in spending. Now plans for an all-weather road to connect the region to the highway network are reigniting the fireworks.

In this colorful tale, Virginia Heffernan draws on her bush and newsroom experiences to illustrate the complexities of resource development at a time when Indigenous rights are becoming enshrined globally. Ultimately, Heffernan strikes a hopeful note: the Ring of Fire presents an opportunity for Canada to leave behind centuries of plunder and set the global standard for responsible development of minerals critical to the green energy revolution.

EXCERPT: Ring of Fire – Geological Richness on a World-Class Supersize Scale – by Virginia Heffernan

Geologists now speculate that the only way Nemis’s ring could contain so much mantle-derived (or ultramafic) magma and metal is if some cataclysmic geological event, such as two continents colliding or separating, had cracked open the basement rocks….

Now cast your mind back 2.7 billion years. The crust is splitting apart just west of the current imprint of Hudson Bay. The crust is thinner and the core hotter than now, creating a lot of melted mantle with nowhere to go. So as soon as a rift opens up, the restless magma lets loose and ascends….

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Ontario calls on Ottawa to match $1-billion for Ring of Fire critical minerals in federal budget – by Laura Stone and Jeff Gray (Globe and Mail – March 25, 2023)

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/

Ontario’s Finance Minister is calling on Ottawa to match $1-billion in investment in the Ring of Fire critical minerals sector in next week’s federal budget, urging Canada to send a message to visiting U.S. President Joe Biden that the province is a welcome place to invest in the mining industry.

Finance Minister Peter Bethlenfalvy, who released his $204.7-billion budget Thursday, said Ontario is looking to further collaborate with the federal government to develop the country’s critical minerals sector and promote it abroad.

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Unlocking Northern Ontario’s Economic Potential (2023 Ontario Budget Papers – March 23, 2023)

2023 Ontario Budget Papers Document

Building the Corridor to Prosperity

Critical minerals are key to the economy of the future. These important resources are critical to products that the people of Ontario rely on, including cell phones, electric vehicles (EVs), and the semiconductors in countless goods. Critical minerals are some of the most sought after commodities in the global economy and Ontario happens to be one of the rare places on earth with many of these natural resources available.

Ontario’s endowment in critical minerals can be leveraged to encourage domestic mining and processing that support the high‐value downstream activities in the electric vehicle supply chain such as automotive and battery manufacturing. This is a competitive advantage that cannot be ignored.

Ontario is helping to build a strong critical minerals sector in the province. Through investments and support, the government is unlocking Northern Ontario’s economic potential in critical minerals and connecting these resources to the world‐class manufacturing capabilities in Southern Ontario. Ontario has tremendous opportunities for critical minerals to support future economic prosperity.

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Will a Road Make the Ring of Fire a Reality? – TV Ontario’s The Agenda host Steve Paikin interviews Kristan Straub, Virginia Heffernan and Stan Sudol (March 21, 2023)

https://www.tvo.org/theagenda

For the better part of 15 years, the Ring of Fire, the biggest mining prize in a generation, or more, has confounded those who would develop it. One of the key issues is how to get to and from the remote area. But the province may have presented a solution with a recently announced agreement on the terms of reference for a First Nations-led plan for a permanent road to the Ring of Fire.

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The Drift: Sudbury-raised CEO picked to plot the path in the Ring of Fire – by Ian Ross (Northern Ontario Business – March 22, 2023)

https://www.northernontariobusiness.com/

Groomed at Glencore, Kristan Straub now helms Ring of Fire Metals

Talk of a weekend snowstorm about to hit Sudbury rings up pangs of jealousy from Kristan Straub. A weather forecast calling for 30 to 50 centimetres of fresh powder is cause for impending calamity in the ‘burbs of the GTA where the newly appointed CEO of Ring of Fire Metals now resides.

But to Straub, 48, it’s a siren call to the snowmobile trails for the Sudbury-raised outdoor enthusiast. For now, those recreational pursuits will have to be put on hold. On March 1, Straub was introduced as the new boss of the Australian-owned James Bay mine developer, just days prior to the start of the PDAC mining conference in Toronto, one of the industry’s biggest global get-togethers. He was recruited from Glencore where was vice-president of exploration with the nickel team.

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OPINION: To develop Ontario’s Ring of Fire, we must develop trust with First Nations – by Virginia Heffernan (Globe and Mail – March 17, 2023)

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/

Virginia Heffernan is a mining writer and the author of Ring of Fire: High-Stakes Mining in a Lowlands Wilderness.

One of the barriers to development in the Ring of Fire, a mineral-rich area in Ontario’s far north, is lack of trust. The Ring of Fire metal deposits lie within Treaty Nine lands.

Signed by the Crown and the region’s First Nations at the beginning of the 20th century, the treaty allowed the Crown to acquire land from Cree and Ojibway peoples in the James Bay Lowlands for white settlement and resource development. In exchange, Indigenous peoples were promised cash payments, reserves to live on, education for their children and hunting, fishing and trapping rights.

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Ontario mines minister says Ring of Fire could be worth $1 trillion, a figure critics call exaggerated – by Logan Turner (CBC News Thunder Bay – March 17, 2023)

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/thunder-bay/

Wyloo Metals, which owns majority of known claims in area, estimates value of ‘defined ore bodies’ at $90B

From the time the Ring of Fire was discovered in 2007, politicians and industry leaders have emphasized the potential economic value of the remote, mineral-rich area in northern Ontario. That has intensified in recent weeks, with Ontario Mines Minister George Pirie saying recently: “Anecdotally, mining people are saying this is a trillion-dollar project.”

Pirie told Global News in a recent documentary that the $1-trillion amount was “not a formal valuation,” but was “based on the increased value of critical minerals that are already established being in the ground.”

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A Modern Klondike: Northern Ontario’s fiery ring – by David Marks Shribman (Literary Review of Canada – April 2023)

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To purchase Ring of Fire book: https://www.amazon.ca/Ring-Fire-High-Stakes-Lowlands-Wilderness/dp/1770416749

Consider the major collisions of contemporary life in North America: the tensions between financial investments and social ideals; the threat of climate change in conflict with the thirst for energy sources; the rights of Indigenous people versus the prerogatives of elected governments; the rivalries with trading partners in competition with the hunger for goods from abroad; and the impulses of the regulatory state in full combat with the appeal of free markets.

Then consider that all of these clashes — the stuff of debate in Ottawa and provincial capitals, the topics of animated conversation in universities and coffee shops across the country — are playing out, every one of them and all at once, in a remote 5,000-square-kilometre swath of northern Canada. It’s a place that’s home to the second-largest temperate wetland in the world, that’s packed with nickel and copper, and that’s known as the Ring of Fire.

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Northwestern MPP jumps on proposed changes to the Mining Act – by Ian Ross (Northern Ontario Business – March 10, 2023)

https://www.northernontariobusiness.com/

Sol Mamakwa accuses Ford government of not consulting with First Nations

Kiiwetinoong MPP Sol Mamakwa took the Ford government to task in the Ontario Legislature March 9 for proposing changes to the provincial Mining Act, accusing them of not consulting with First Nations.

Mines Minister George Pirie announced the first of an upcoming raft of amendments to the act with more industry-friendly measures designed to put into new mines into commercial production faster.

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Change in federal assessment won’t slow pace in the Ring of Fire, says mines minister – by Ian Ross (Northern Ontario Business – March 10, 2023)

https://www.northernontariobusiness.com/

Federal environment minister wants more Indigenous involvement in Far North industry impact assessment

Ottawa’s decision to scrap plans for a Ring of Fire regional assessment process won’t interfere with the province’s intentions to get new mines into production faster.

Provincial Mines Minister George Pirie said they have guarantees from the federal government that assessments for the proposed roads into the James Bay region to connect two remote communities to the Ontario highway system will not impact any timelines to put new mines into production.

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Incoming chief demands meeting with Ford on Ring of Fire – by Aidan Chamandy (Timmins Today – March 9, 2023)

https://www.timminstoday.com/

‘I’m only going to talk to the individual that wants to drive that bulldozer and run over my homelands,’ says Chris Moonias

Incoming Neskantaga Chief Chris Moonias was at Queen’s Park on Thursday demanding a meeting with Premier Doug Ford — and only Ford — over what he considers a lack of adequate consultations on the government’s latest mining bill and the push to develop the Ring of Fire.

“I’m only going to talk to the individual that wants to drive that bulldozer and run over my homelands,” said Moonias, who is set to take over as the first nation’s chief on April 1. “I ain’t talking to anybody else, except him.”

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PDAC 2023: Focus on Ring of Fire overshadows ‘several other’ more advanced projects, says Wilkinson – by Naimul Karim (Financial Post – March 8, 2023)

https://financialpost.com/

‘Enormously bullish on the mining sector,’ natural resources minister tells conference

The fascination with the Ring of Fire region in northern Ontario is quite evident in the country’s business pages.

Few mining zones receive more press, even though no mine yet exists in the region 500 kilometres north of Thunder Bay. Ontario Premier Doug Ford is anxious to change that, asserting a number of times in the last few years that it was time to “hop on a bulldozer” and start building roads to what have been described as one of the “most promising” critical minerals deposits in Canada.

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Scratch that: feds to rethink Ring of Fire environmental assessment after First Nations criticism – by Emma McIntosh (TheNarwhal – March 7, 2023)

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‘There is no access to critical minerals in Canada without Indigenous Peoples being at the table in a decision-making position,’ Federal Environment Minister Steven Guilbeault said

Federal Environment Minister Steven Guilbeault has agreed to scrap a draft framework for a regional assessment in the Ontario Ring of Fire region and start over, working with First Nations.

For over a decade, governments and companies have sought to mine in the remote and environmentally-sensitive area known as the Ring of Fire. Accessible only by plane, or ice road in the winter, it’s located in the James Bay Lowlands and has deposits of key minerals that some people want to mine to fuel the production of electric vehicles.

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Ontario approves environmental assessment terms of reference for 3rd and final road to Ring of Fire – by Logan Turner (CBC New Thunder Bay – March 6, 2023)

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/thunder-bay/

Plan co-developed and submitted by 2 First Nations in the area, but faces pushback from others in region

The province has approved the terms of reference for an environmental assessment (EA) on the third and final road leading to the mineral-rich Ring of Fire in northern Ontario.

The terms of reference lay out the work plan — including the scope and issues to be considered — for the EA on the Northern Road Link, a proposed two-lane, all-weather road.

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Ring of Fire takes next step over some First Nations’ objections – by Aidan Chamandy (Timmins Today – March 7, 2023)

https://www.timminstoday.com/

The environmental assessment on a portion of the road to the Ring of Fire is being led by two First Nations, but another affected community isn’t pleased with the announcement

A plan by two First Nations to build a road to Ontario’s Ring of Fire has been approved by the provincial government — but another First Nations community affected by the project is not on board.

Last year, Webequie First Nation and Marten Falls First Nation published a 253-page document outlining the terms of reference for an assessment of Ontario’s proposed road to the Ring of Fire. On Monday, Ontario approved the terms at the massive Prospectors and Developers Association of Canada (PDAC) mining conference in downtown Toronto.

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