Welcome to Drumbeats, the must -listen -to podcast
which explains why Indigenous partnerships are
the key to securing successful outcomes in natural
resource and infrastructure investment in Canada.
I'm Mark McNacca, and my co -host Robert Brandt
and I are joined today by Honourable Greg Rickford.
Greg is the Minister of Indigenous Affairs and
First Nations Economic Reconciliation. Greg is
also the Minister responsible for Ring of Fire
Economic and Community Partnerships. Ontario
has long been one of the major manufacturing
centres in Canada. However, with the increasing
electrification of everything, attention is now
shifting towards the province's potential in
the critical minerals sector. Many have heard
about the Ring of Fire, but where and what is
it exactly? The Honourable Greg Rickford, Ontario's
Minister of Indigenous Affairs, First Nations
Economic Reconciliation. and the Ring of Fire.
And the minister responsible for economic and
community partnerships in the Ring of Fire. Shared
responsibility with my good friend and colleague,
the Minister of Mines and Energy, Stephen Lecce.
So quite a few hats, and we appreciate you taking
time out to talk to us on Drumbeats. Why don't
you explain to our audience a bit about your
personal background, history, how you got to
be in the position you are today? Well, you know,
I started out as a nurse, actually, way back
in the day. Had an opportunity fairly quickly
to pursue my passion, which was to live in northern
Canada proper. And got some really good experience
in hospitals in southern Canada and the United
States and then went north. It just sort of evolved
from there. I'm a lifelong learner and back in
and out of school and eventually finished law
school at McGill. And within three or four years
of living in Kenora, northwestern Ontario, Kuwait
actually, in a legal practice, an opportunity
to pursue my, you know, one of my superordinate
goals was to get into politics. And, you know,
as a nurse and as a lawyer, you'd know, Rob,
politicians, the central feature of all of those
professions is advocacy. So I kind of felt like
I came by it honestly. And it's just been an
extraordinary journey. I did seven years as the
federal member of parliament for Canora, had
a chance to serve as Canada's Minister of Science
and Technology, then the Minister of Natural
Resources. For the last almost three years of
Prime Minister Harper's tenure as Prime Minister.
And then, you know, the electorate, the way that
it is, lost a tight race in 2015 and returned
to my law practice. And a couple of years later,
the bug was still there. And I'm a big fan of
Premier Ford. It was an extraordinary opportunity
from the outset. One of the few people in...
in the new government that had cabinet experience.
So I had a lot of portfolios and kind of brings
us to where we are today. As time has marched
on the past six years and a bit with Premier
Ford, he's really come to understand, but more
importantly, appreciate, you know, what an extraordinary
opportunity we have in Ontario and particularly
in Northern Ontario. writ large with First Nations
communities and First Nations businesses. And
so with that appreciation came a sharpened focus
on building the Ministry of Indigenous Affairs
out. As I said at the conference, the addition
of First Nations economic reconciliation just
about a year ago was really his sense and mine
a long time that... economic reconciliation was
the next chapter in the journey if you will that
canada and for our purposes ontario ought to
prioritize it wasn't our opinion it was an assessment
of what we were seeing uh and hearing from first
nations leadership not confined just to the political
arena but but more importantly, a much higher
profile of Indigenous business leaders across
the country. And what brings us to, you know,
the Ring of Fire responsibilities. Can I just
stop you for a second? Because you mentioned
the conference. Yeah. And you were in London
for the second annual Canadian Indigenous Investment
Summit. You very kindly spent the entire day
with us and more than one person remarked, more
than one person remarked, and it was noticed
by me too, that in many cases you have a minister
attending, speaking at a conference as you did.
They will come in with their team for the designated
slot, leave immediately after. You spent the
entire day with us and were around and reflected
at the end of the day. The gathering about reflection
rattled off my list of words and phrases that
I'd picked up. So maybe for our audience, just
some of those reflections, if you can recall.
I mentioned that I'm a lifelong learner and it's
my own style, but I really enjoy these conferences.
And there is a tendency for cabinet ministers,
government folks to pop in and out of conferences.
It's understandable in some respects. There's
a lot of demands on their time. But London's
a long way away from home. And frankly, I made
this my absolute priority because I just thought,
wow, look at the lineup of people, yourselves
included, and the panels. Just at times riveting.
And just a positive environment to be around.
I don't know how you walk away from that. So
I certainly couldn't. Really just humbled that
I got a chance to participate in it, frankly.
And what were your takeaways when you were reported
back to your colleagues in Cabinet and the Premier?
I just think it's a really good day and a really
good thing when we spend time talking about opportunities,
specifically for Indigenous business and their
leaders. For us in Ontario, as I said, This is
the way of the future, how we do business. People
will judge and form their opinions, I think,
based on how important we play the emphasis that
we place on the participation and partnerships
with First Nations communities. And the businesses
that are fast becoming very sophisticated, very
prominent in large -scale legacy infrastructure
and resource projects. To see those folks, many
of them I bump into, you know, at home and across
the country. Sean Willey, guys like him I've
known for a very long time. And it's cool. It's
not partisan, you know. First Nations. politics
in general is not overly partisan. So you feel
very comfortable in the environment on a political
level. But for business, it goes without saying,
we've got some great people. And I think the
summit reflected that. That's great. And certainly
it was a good time because with what's going
on with America and Premier Ford has been out
there speaking on behalf of Canada and fighting
the battle. And the way forward includes Indigenous
people. If Canada's going to succeed and diversify,
it has to do it with the Indigenous people and
reinforce our role as a global energy superpower.
We're top 10 in a number of areas and that just
needs to be strengthened. Ontario's going to
be. Very important in that. And come to the ring
of fire and critical minerals because everybody
talks about that. And that's something that people
know over here. Oh, what is this ring of fire
all about? Right. What's going on with that?
So just a couple comments before we jump into
the ring of fire. Ontario has a massive profile
in base metals and critical minerals. The ring
of fire in particular is an exquisite. quantitatively
and qualitatively deposit, plural, of the lion's
share of what we categorically refer to as critical
minerals. But you also have to have some baseline
capacity when you talk about the ring of fire.
And Ontario has that in spades. We have obviously
the Sudbury Basin, which is a world -class caliber
nickel deposits, amongst other things. We have
other critical mineral deposits in other parts
of northern Ontario, particularly in northwestern
Ontario, with lithium coming on board. But the
Ring of Fire is located some 400 to 500 kilometers
north of the last highway, if you will. Think
of it as a corridor from Toronto to Montreal,
but through one of the James Bay lowlands. a
world -renowned carbon sink and frankly as somebody
who has lived there for extended periods of time
obviously not my life but but uh working up north
in many of the communities proximal to the ring
of fire as a nurse i have a deep appreciation
for the land and the relationship that indigenous
peoples have with it and so we want to be very
careful in its development but We've taken a
decidedly different approach than previous governments
and really invested in First Nations leadership,
especially when it comes to the environmental
assessments. They're nearly completed. And the
Corridor to Prosperity, as I had named it a number
of years ago, I think we're hopeful that we can
start that fairly soon. In some respects, we
already have because we're developing. what we
call the Greenstone area. It's a large municipality
that sits at the base of just off the Trans -Canada,
ultimately form a major corridor that has to
be a couple of kilometers wide. We're going to
talk about major machinery to build something
like that. It's interesting because the mine
sites themselves will be relatively small in
scale. to the infrastructure itself but i would
just close on that preliminary question mark
by saying that this particular region where the
ring of fire is located is very remote and the
five or six communities that are closest to it
are the last five or six communities in the province
that are still on diesel generation for electricity
hard to believe yes but We want to ensure that
the communities are key partners, obviously,
but also benefit from development in the region.
Yes. And road access, I think, is for a number
of reasons. If you think about it, it's not just
about reaching prospective, no pun intended,
mining sites, but also to connect communities
to those resource development projects and for
the benefit of better health, social, economic.
capacity and infrastructure moving forward. Yes.
Thank you for that. There's a question about
where's the added value, the processing. And
China has that capacity. And even though a lot
of people around the world talk, oh, critical
minerals, there's deposits here. Will it be the
objective in Ontario and Canada to be processing
the critical minerals there? Or will it just...
Absolutely, Mark. We already do it with base
metals. Gold is obviously processed on site and
Ontario yields about 50 % of Canada's annual
production of gold. We have some very high yield
gold mines. But in the critical mineral space,
obviously with the global focus on it, including
the United States, just to not bash them for
a moment. They're always focused on us. Yeah,
they are. But it's kind of crazy. But, you know,
we think that I've used the metaphor earth to
electric vehicles, mines to motors is entirely
possible in northern Ontario. We send currently
things like minerals like palladium to Norway.
You know, lithium is still something that Germany
is. you know in the best position the world over
outside of china and i would just say mark that
processing in china comes at a cost right yes
um a huge cost from an environmental perspective
uh not just at the locations that they extract
around the world labor practices their expectations
of of of how and that that uh critical mineral
uh comes to market is significantly different
than what the rest of the world and in particular
Canada and for our purposes, Ontario would be.
And, you know, I think I said at the summit,
I recall saying that this is probably one of
the rare opportunities for a sub -sovereign government,
the province of Ontario, to give the world one
of its greatest environmental gifts. And that
is to develop the critical minerals, to enhance
our position in the electrification, battery
storage, all those technologies that are now
a central feature of automotive technology and
other areas, storage of electricity, all very
exciting things. And we intend to do it better.
processing scaling up for that is not just an
exercise of building a processing facility obviously
there's i don't want to get too granular but
uh you know lithium has two or three different
and there may be more um processing types if
you will or or processes and uh other critical
minerals do as well the electrification uh very
intense So, you know, pre -positioning Northern
Ontario to capture that, I think is, you know,
ambitious, but very possible. And Thunder Bay,
obviously Sudbury, that corridor, I think holds
great promise for our ability to ensure that
we process those critical minerals so they're
extracted. processed fairly close to where the
mine sites are located and moved to markets in
southern Ontario prospectively for a fully integrated
supply chain. Yes, which would be great. And
that's what Canada needs to do in terms of moving
up the value chain and capturing more of that,
the value that's created. What sort of timeline
are we looking at for first access roads in the
best case? So there's a difference between starting
it and completing it, obviously, given its length
or distance. But as I said earlier, in some respects,
we've already started. We made an announcement
just before the last election we had this winter
that brought on board a partnership with Arrowland
First Nation. Martin Falls and Webequay had been
and remain key proponents and partners in the
development of the corridor and ultimately the
Ring of Fire. But I think the corridor proper,
Rob, which I would refer to as sort of the end
of the existing roads. be they primary or secondary
routes from the Trans -Canada due north, talking
about 70 kilometers, need to be upgraded to spec,
right, to handle a transportation corridor for
people, programs, services, and obviously industry.
And I think, just having some discussions after
hours, so to speak, um, here, uh, in, or in London,
um, rather, uh, we think that within the next
year or so we can actually start, um, you know,
baseline construction activity of the corridor.
That's very encouraging. It is. Um, you know,
some of this has to be driven by markets and
I think we have, we have to keep that in perspective.
But this is, as I said, one of the central part
of the very northern Ontario that would benefit
from a corridor in addition to any mining activity.
Is there any opportunity that you will be using
Hudson's Bay to ship out material, minerals to
Europe as opposed to going down south? There's
lots of discussion about that. I know that we're
in the midst of a federal election and people
are looking at alternative routes. It's a long
way from the Ring of Fire. And that transportation
corridor would actually have to come south and
then head west to Manitoba and then up, I think.
Probably the most direct route would likely be
James Bay. But we're talking about some, first
of all, very pristine and mostly frozen waters
there. So you have those challenges in front
of you. And obviously First Nations communities
rightly hold that part of the region as an area
that deserves some protection. The Manitoba corridor
is through to Hudson's Bay is exciting because
it's mostly already there. Right. As a Tobin,
you can appreciate that it's not very wide, but
very narrow and far north province that already
has access routes and passage through Churchill.
So that would be another opportunity that I think
are related to things likely more around. Western
Canada as opposed to what you know the projects
we're talking about in Northern Ontario Recently
statistics showed that last year in 2024 Canada
foreign direct investment FDI hit record levels
and what was encouraging for somebody like me
who spent 27 years in London and Mark is still
in London, but there's less reliance than ever
on American capital coming from the U .S. So
I think there was a record low representation
from the U .S., maybe only 33 % coming from the
U .S. Are you seeing signs of that, that there's
more international capital coming to Canada?
Well, it starts with, I think, the ever -intensifying
political lens coming from other parts of the
world than just the United States. start going
off and talking about tariffs, a very, very popular
subject right now. Stay tuned by the minute.
But I think Ontario, you know, obviously going
to be impacted the most by the tariffs is the
lesson there. And the opportunity, in my view,
is to encourage investment from countries outside
of the United States. I think the lesson we're
learning is that we had become, as the United
States had, one might think of it, quite indulgent
for obvious reasons in a trade relationship.
But I think it's a testament to the exercise
in London at the summit and the activities of
other cabinet colleagues that global markets
are moving their interest and the money is coming
with it to Canada. to Ontario. And I think that's
a good thing. It's a medium term thing that will
manifest itself in, you know, passing. It's going
to be different forever. I'm looking at the screen
now. It will go beyond President Trump. And I
think that provinces in Canada as a whole revisit
that over -reliance on the United States at their
own risk. I've only been back in Canada after
the 27 years in London for a short amount of
time. I have never seen the level of patriotism
at the moment from the Buy Canada campaigns to...
booing national anthems, which is... Not a big
fan of that. Glad we spilled for those songs.
Absolutely. But I hope that this patriotism lasts
and that the desire to look outside of North
America continues beyond current troubles and
that we don't go back to status quo. No question
it's a patriotic exercise and a very meaningful
unifying. exercise as well, including provinces
like Quebec. But in the context of the summit,
one of my key reflections there, and I think
I commented on it in the panel that I participated
in, has been how quickly First Nations communities,
political leaders and business leaders have Come
to the side and unified around a you know Very
patriotic, but but very important not just symbolic
Exercise if you will to assure that we're all
in this together and I think as the summit manifestly
different panels that that I attended Suggested
this is an opportunity for Indigenous businesses
to elevate their profile as we look towards a
more pan -Canadian trade relationship as between
provinces, as between communities spanning the
country and in Ontario. And from there, you know,
you talk about global investment, form new partnerships,
which I think was a central kind of theme at
the summit. to cue investors here in in the heartbeat
of the world of finance london that indigenous
businesses were going to be a key part of that
we agree and uh that's a good thing but it was
great you know to think of it i mean i think
a couple of sean i mentioned him earlier you
know said it as did other first nation leaders
they have always been at the side of uh of canada
if you will when some would suggest they sure
have enough reasons not to be but from the war
of 1812 through confederation and and to the
modern day and the crisis that we're we're in
they've been steadfast and communicated to us
at a political level and i think we heard it
at the summit that they're very much uh with
the canadian you know, very patriotic, but very,
you know, on the economic side of it, willingness
to be all in for. Well, coming back to the Revolutionary
War, I think you saw, reflecting back on the
summit, we had very few politicians. Yeah. In
fact, you were the only one, but we're very pleased
with what you brought to the table because the
audience didn't want to hear. Here's the messaging.
They want to hear what's actually going on and
what will happen. So we really appreciate that
you brought that because it's difficult to step
out and say, okay, we're going to participate
because it is a commercially driven summit. How
do we connect the capital? So that was very important.
We appreciate your contribution to that. Well,
Mark, let me just say that politics, as we're
learning with the tariffs, plays a big role in
economics. You know, no question about it. But
I felt the same way. Like I said, it's actually
a good thing that there aren't that many, if
any, you know, politicians. I was unplugged to
the extent that I felt really comfortable with
the folks that were holding court, hosting panels.
And, you know, Rob, a pretty big fan of yours
and the career that you've had. And it's just
a testament to, I think, a promising future.
And that voice is is is indigenous. And it was
on full display generationally, I might add.
Right. You had Chief Terry Paul there, but you
had, you know, the Tabitha Bulls and the Sean
Willies. And there's another Derek. I mean, holy
smokes. Does he just blow your doors off or what?
Right. These are exciting and dynamic political
leaders, but also, you know, fantastic, as they've
proved. uh business leaders we need to hear them
and and it's okay for politicians to not be the
you know the front row center uh piece of it
my my decision to come here was was an assessment
of who was there that i could go listen to uh
more than just uh participate in and And I think
we carved out a spot that folks appreciated,
had context, but it didn't elevate Canadian politicians
to a place that it, in my view, took over the
spotlight on one of the most exciting things
taking place in Canada and in Ontario right now.
We really appreciated your time and your contributions
and appreciate your time again today. Thanks
for having me. The Honourable Greg Rickford.
Thank you. Appreciate it. Thank you very much.
Miigwech. Thank you to Honorable Greg Rickford,
member of the Provincial Parliament of Ontario,
representing the riding of Kenora Rainy River,
for sharing his insights with us. And thank you
for viewing and listening. Be sure to share,
subscribe, and leave a review on your favorite
podcast channel. Thanks for listening to Drumbeats.
Until next time.