Tory leader Pierre Poilievre on Wednesday morning in Sudbury pledged to green-light all federal Ring of Fire permits within six months, a move that will “unlock billions in resources.”
The Conservatives if elected have also committed $1 billion to build a new road connecting First Nations communities and the critical mineral deposits, in the Ring of Fire to the Ontario highway network.
The goal is to harvest chromite, cobalt, nickel, copper and platinum in northern Ontario’s “Ring of Fire,” a region rich in mineral resources about 1,000 km north of Toronto, and to “take back control of our economy from the Americans.”
The “long-overdue road” will be built over three years and will allow companies investing in the Ring of Fire “to pay a share of their federal corporate taxes to local First Nations.”
Poilievre told reporters the Ring of Fire to be one of the world’s largest untapped areas for rare earth metals, hosting “tens of billions of dollars of resource wealth … yet the Carney-Trudeau Liberals have known about [its] massive economic potential for a decade, but didn’t approve a single road, or allow a single mine to get constructed.”
“Unlocking the Ring of Fire will be life-changing for Northern Ontario towns and First Nation communities, galvanized by thousands of paychecks and modern infrastructure,” said Poilievre.
“We could boost our economy with billions of dollars, allowing us to become less dependent on the Americans, while our allies overseas would no longer have to rely on Beijing for these metals, turning dollars for dictators into paychecks for our people.”
Poilievre referred to remarks President Donald Trump made Tuesday evening in interview, where the US president said he’d actually prefer to work with the Liberals because it would be “easier.”
“After 10 years of Liberals, President Trump, speaking yesterday, said that having a Liberal prime minister would be easier for him to deal with, just as he threatened once again,” said Poilievre.
“And you know what? On that point, it's true. I'm a strong leader. I'm a tough guy to deal with.”
The Conservative leader said the Liberals during their last decade in government “did everything in their power to keep these minerals in the ground by sitting on permits for five whole years and passing Bill C-69, which makes resource projects like these very difficult, if not impossible, to get approved at all.”
“This gatekeeping and red tape was devastating for Canada before Donald Trump threatened tariffs on our economy. Now, it is an act of economic suicide,” said Poilievre.
“By partnering with First Nations to develop our world-class resources, we will bring home powerful paychecks for all Canadians.”
The Conservatives in a press release elaborated the benefit mining these critical minerals will mean for Canada on the world stage — specifically the 2% NATO targets.
“As NATO has identified these critical minerals as being essential towards our collective defence, Conservative government investments in the road and this project will count towards the calculation of Canada hitting its 2% of GDP commitment on defence,” reads the release.
“Only a Canada First Conservative government will rapidly approve Ring of Fire permits and quickly repeal C-69, the anti-resource law the Liberals still have in place. Only a Conservative government will support mines, pipelines, mills, LNG plants, more ports and better export opportunities to diversify our economies and make us less dependent on the Americans. That’s what it means to Put Canada First.”
