My thanks this afternoon for being able to rise on behalf of the people of Niagara West and to participate in debate on Bill 71, the Building More Mines Act. I’m very thankful to be able to stand in this chamber today and build on the remarks that have already been added to the debate about this piece of legislation that I believe is critical and very important to the future prosperity of Ontario, the current prosperity of Ontario, and continuing a legacy in this province that we have now had for generations upon generations—far before I came here, and far before my family came here some 70 years ago.

First of all, I want to thank the Minister of Mines, the strong member for Timmins, for coming to this chamber with a piece of legislation that will be a legacy not just for him but for our entire Parliament, I believe, in what it will do for so many communities, not just in northern Ontario but, as was already spoken about extensively through the debate from my colleagues—especially the member for Essex county, who spoke about the important investments that the mining sector makes throughout the supply value-added chain, especially in the auto parts sector. I know that’s a crucial part of the economy in my neck of the woods, as well.

So I’m thankful to be able to speak today about that. I’m thankful to be able to participate.

I wish to welcome all those who are watching this afternoon and wish them the ability to follow us in what can be sometimes a complex file but one that I believe is very important.

I speak for many constituents in communities across Ontario in thanking the Minister of Mines for his leadership and his tireless work to further build up and improve the mining sector.

Thank you, Minister Pirie, for all of your efforts and your labour and for helping to bring economic prosperity to Ontario.

The minister’s advocacy for this bill and his presentation earlier today make it clear that there is an urgent need for the measures in this proposed legislation, and it’s why it’s my privilege to rise for the third reading and to expand on a few of the details from Bill 71, the Building More Mines Act.

Before I begin, I want to reiterate the minister’s point that our government has been actively engaged in the process of consulting with the public, with industry stakeholders and with Indigenous communities, as well as organizations from across Ontario on our proposed amendments to the Mining Act. We have also been consulting on further regulatory changes. As the minister mentioned, which I believe is very important for me to repeat, the measures in Bill 71 are based on the recommendations and the feedback from industry and other stakeholder experts. This is not an ivory tower exercise where we went and had some academics gathered together in a room, perhaps at the Mowat Block or another downtown office and come up with what ideas should be imposed upon the north, what ideas should be brought forward for this sector. This has been the consequence of a lot of listening, a lot of meaningful engagement to get the very best ideas from the sector to support a more modern, more streamlined legislative framework and regulatory regime for mineral exploration and development. We know that all of these industry partners and leaders brought forward their extensive knowledge and expertise together to provide recommendations that we’re using as a road map to help drive the industry forward, to reduce barriers to build more mines more efficiently.

These changes are needed to help seize the economic potential of the province’s minerals, to support the geopolitical need for secure access to these resources as outlined by the minister, and to advance the transition to a more sustainable economy.

Our proposed amendments mean to save companies time and money by reducing administrative burdens and clarifying requirements for rehabilitation and creating regulatory efficiencies.

Perhaps most importantly, these changes will help Ontario attract mining investments to support the unlocking of critical minerals, including those in the Ring of Fire region, while maintaining Ontario’s strong standards for environmental protection and meeting the duty to consult with Indigenous communities.

Before I highlight some of the key proposed changes in this legislation, I do want to speak briefly to the committee hearings on Bill 71. Our government values the importance of the feedback we receive. It’s why separate hearings were held to gather feedback on the bill in two of the province’s northern mining hubs: Timmins and Sudbury.

I also want to thank the government House leader for his work on ensuring that we have these active consultations, as well as the other members of the Standing Committee on the Interior.

Our government has acted. We have listened and then moved forward on the recommendations and questions of the various stakeholders and presenters throughout the committee process. In particular, we introduced an amendment through the committee stage that will support a balanced consideration of public health and safety, as well as the environment, for the permit to recover minerals from mining waste.

I’ll be elaborating more on this in a moment, but I want to ensure that all of us who are watching today know that your government has heard the importance of listening and ensuring that we are responding to the needs of the people in making this proposed legislation even stronger.

We will always support common sense measures that balance the need to build more mines efficiently with the corresponding need to uphold protections for the public, for safety and for the environment.

This balance is exactly what Bill 71 achieves, and it’s what our partners and our global allies expect. Ontario is known globally for its world-class environmental protections, and improving the Mining Act is crucial to support the transition to a greener economy.

As the minister touched on, this proposed legislation is a very important part of our Critical Minerals Strategy. This strategy supports better supply chain connections between industries, resources and workers in northern Ontario and manufacturing in southern Ontario, including Ontario-based electric vehicle and battery manufacturing—good news for so many communities in the south.

Jobs in the north lead to more jobs in the south, including important manufacturing jobs right in my home of Niagara. For example, the GM St. Catharines Propulsion Plant recently announced a transition to EV—electric vehicle—propulsion systems, securing hundreds of well-paying, secure jobs here in Niagara.

As an aside, it’s worth noting that we are attracting over $16 billion in transformational investments by global automakers; in fact, if I heard the numbers correctly, that number will soon be $22 billion. We are becoming a world leader in the supplying of EV batteries and battery materials to position Ontario as a leader in the EV supply chain.

Speaker, our Critical Minerals Strategy is helping to secure the province’s position as a reliable global supplier and processor of responsibly sourced critical minerals. The five-year road map that’s contained in the Critical Minerals Strategy focuses on six pillars, which I’d like to speak about and mention as they do set the stage and provide some context for our government’s investments and work thus far to advance that sector, including the initiatives in this legislation. The six pillars of the Critical Minerals Strategy are (1) to enhance geoscience information to support critical minerals exploration; (2) to grow domestic processing and create resilient local supply chains; (3) to improve Ontario’s regulatory framework; (4) to invest in critical minerals innovation, research and development; (5) to build economic development opportunities with Indigenous partners; (6) to grow the labour supply and develop a skilled labour force.

We heard the Minister of Mines speak about the importance of a major objective in Bill 71. That objective is to improve the Mining Act so that we can attract more investments and help secure the critical minerals that support this made-in-Ontario supply chain I know we all want. It’s why we’re bringing forward a suite of changes which will address current challenges and support a modern, robust and effective mining sector.

Ontarians have seen and witnessed project delays, increased costs and lost opportunities due to a lack of flexibility in closure planning and a lack of clarity within the Mining Act. We know that some processes and requirements can create uncertainty, which leads to a burdensome delay.

I want to reiterate the purpose of the Mining Act because it underscores and informs all of the changes that we’re proposing in this legislation. The purpose of the Mining Act is to encourage mineral exploration and development in a manner consistent with the recognition and affirmation of existing Aboriginal and treaty rights, including the crown’s duty to consult, and to minimize the impact of these activities on public health and safety and the environment.

With this overarching purpose in mind, I would like to go into a little bit more detail about some of the particulars of the amendments that we are proposing. If passed, the amendments made through this legislation would save time and money for companies and, ultimately, for workers, providing more jobs and more money for our communities.

Currently, one of the requirements to obtain a permit for mining is that the applicant must demonstrate that the condition of the lands on which the recovery would take place would be “improved” with respect to public health, safety, and the environment after the recovery and remediation activities. The proposed amendments in this bill would replace the requirement to “improve the land” subject to the recovery permit with a requirement that the condition of the land be “comparable to or better than it was before the recovery activity.” This would provide greater flexibility for recovery permit applicants. The term “improvement” is ambiguous and creates uncertainty about the degree of improvement needed. What does that even mean? How much improvement is requisite under the act? This clarification will act as an incentive to ensure that companies who are participating in this worthwhile activity can make use of previously existing materials and have greater clarity.

I would also like to note that our government did bring forward a motion to amend section 18 of the bill to further strengthen the language around the requirements for the condition of land following recovery activities. During public hearings of the Standing Committee on the Interior, a number of stakeholders and presenters shared concerns regarding the consistency of the language in this subsection of the bill as it relates to the intended purpose and the conditions of the mineral recovery permit.

Speaker, as always, our government listened. We’ve heard these concerns, and we’ve acted. Throughout the legislative process, we’ve been open to feedback from stakeholders and partners, and we remain committed to strengthening the language in this bill to ensure the legislation reflects the goals we all share: improving the Mining Act, supporting the sector and, fundamentally, supporting local communities. Our proposed amendments to the current language in the legislation address the concerns that were raised and support a balanced consideration of public health and safety, as well as the environment, for the recovery of minerals permitted. Our proposed language ensures that remediation of the land with respect to public health and safety, as well as the environment, would be carried out to a comparable standard or better than it was before the recovery of minerals took place. This amendment would still maintain our commitment to flexibility and our objective in this section of the act to ensure that there is greater flexibility for recovery permit applicants, but also ensure that all of—not any of—public health and safety and the environment would be remediated to a comparable standard or better.

We know that these proposed improvements to the Mining Act are crucial to supporting the sector and the transition to a cleaner, greener economy. This motion to amend demonstrates that we are always going to uphold Ontario’s world-class standards for environmental protection and public health and safety in the mineral development sector.

Before I continue, I’d like to point out that companies in Ontario are already making use of this tactic to retrieve critical minerals from mine waste, which contributes to advancing the circular economy within the mining industry.

For example, we heard recently that Vale Canada is moving to accelerate commercial recovery of critical minerals from mine waste in partnership with the Mining Innovation, Rehabilitation, and Applied Research Corp. at Cambrian College. According to the company’s news release, “The industrial research chair program ... will develop, pilot and work towards commercializing bioleaching and bioremediation processes including efforts to recover nickel and cobalt from ... tailings and other wastes.” I appreciated hearing more from the member for Sudbury about the important advancements that are being made in this technology. Our government is supporting this groundbreaking project. We’re contributing through the Critical Minerals Innovation Fund, which Minister Pirie outlined in his remarks, as well as contributing through the Northern Ontario Heritage Fund Corp. To quote the Minister of Northern Development and Indigenous Affairs, the member for Kenora–Rainy River and the chair of the Northern Ontario Heritage Fund Corp.: “The ... Northern Ontario Heritage Fund Corp. is supporting innovative solutions in the resource extraction sector that will change the way we see mining. By partnering with Vale,” MIRARCO and Cambrian College, “we are committing to made-in-Ontario solutions that will reduce mine waste and enhance value for materials already involved in the mining process.”

Our government’s support of this type of innovation to recover critical minerals from mine waste demonstrates our steadfast commitment to helping to move the industry forward in an environmentally sustainable way. This program is just one example.

Our proposed amendments would also simplify and improve closure plans by strengthening qualified professionals’ certification of plans and allowing companies to conditionally file a closure plan while deferring certain elements to a later-approved date. A conditional filing order would be issued by the minister on request from a proponent and may include terms and conditions for those elements as determined by the minister.

We are also proposing to eliminate the need for proponents to file a notice of material change for minor site alterations, which will help to alleviate unnecessary burdens.

There are more changes, changes to allow more flexibility in the techniques used to rehabilitate mines once they’re closed while continuing to uphold Ontario’s world-class environmental protection standards; our proposed changes to remove administrative burdens, to simplify processes with respect to closure plans and address ongoing concerns we’ve heard from this industry for years, including at public hearings before the committee. We know that we have to make these changes, because current processes are creating uncertainty, resulting in long delays, cost overruns and lost opportunities for mining proponents. We know that better is possible, and with this legislation, we are accomplishing that.

I do want to speak very briefly in the minutes I have left about those closure plans, because I think that’s something perhaps not everyone is aware of in what is entailed within the closure plan process. The Mining Act requires that mining companies have a filed closure plan before starting advanced exploration or mine production. A closure plan describes the measures that the proponent will take during the life cycle of the mine to rehabilitate the mine site.

There is currently no flexibility within the Mining Act to allow for a closure plan to be filed without all of the required materials, regardless of what features will be built or brought online during the life of the mine’s operations. Closure plans are supposed to be conceptual, forward-thinking plans for how to close out and rehabilitate a mine. It’s not always practical to provide information for features that, frankly, may never be built and for rehabilitation measures which can’t be predicted, let alone which innovative future technologies could be used. This is why we’re proposing measures to provide mining proponents with more flexibility.

Currently, the term “rehabilitate” in the Mining Act means to take measures so that the use or condition of the site is restored to its former use or condition, or is made suitable for a use that the ministry sees fit. We’re amending the definition of “rehabilitate” as well as the related definitions of “protective measures” to allow an alternate use or condition or feature to remain on the site post-closure. This, again, will provide greater flexibility and certainty to industry by allowing alternate post-closure land uses and rehabilitation measures while simultaneously upholding our environmental standards.

We’ve said it before, and I believe it bears repeating in this chamber: When issuing authorizations under the Mining Act, where those authorizations have the potential to trigger a duty to consult, Ontario will always assess and reassess the potential impacts to Aboriginal and treaty rights and remains committed to meeting its constitutional obligations, including the duty to consult with Indigenous peoples.

These proposed changes would also create more options for companies to pay financial assurance. Instead of paying financial assurance up front, it could be paid in phases tied to the project’s construction schedule. Currently, companies have to provide the government with financial assurance, the estimated cost of the rehabilitation measures described in the closure plan. This allows the province access to the money to carry out rehab work outlined in the plan. But the up-front cost can be sometimes unnecessary as proposed changes or proposed features may never be built, and associated rehab costs never materialize. Amending the Mining Act would update this process to allow proponents to submit financial assurances in a more reasonable timeline.

Speaker, I do see that I’m running close to the conclusion of my comments this afternoon. I just want to wish again, to all members of this Legislature, to remind them of the importance of this legislation and thank the Minister of Mines for taking the leadership that was need-ed to ensure that we have a strong mining sector, as we have had for generations in the past, for generations to come. Thank you so very much for listening to me this afternoon.

I’m pleased to be able to ask the member, who just gave an hour speech about mining—I appreciated that we all probably learned a couple of things about Sudbury, but about mining in a community: the good, the bad and the ugly; the historical and the potential here.

As he mentioned, this bill was tabled without free, prior and informed consent of First Nations. We have heard a lot about the fact that the Premier used the term “bulldozing” and is essentially bulldozing relationships. When we see a government that is playing First Nation off First Nation, I have concerns. Obviously, we on this side have concerns. Even today, we heard the government refer to “our First Nations” or “our Indigenous communities,” and they’re not ours. They don’t belong to us. Why is it so hard for this government to realize that they’re not stakeholders but that they are partners and should be properly consulted?