It’s always an honour to be able to rise in this House and speak on behalf of the people of Timiskaming–Cochrane and especially on Bill 71, Building More Mines Act. Timiskaming–Cochrane is fairly unique in Ontario because our economy relies on three main pillars: forestry, agriculture and mining. That is very unique. We have a perspective. The first thing I’d like to do is give a shout-out to PDAC and to the people from northern Ontario who hosted the Northern Ontario Night last night at the Steam Whistle brewery. A lot of us were there. I’d like to give a shout-out to our home garage band, the Kings of Nowhere, who played there last night. They’re a great band, it was a great party and I’m finally—kind of—over the hangover, just to let you know.

Everyone knows in this House that I’m a farmer, but a lot of my friends work or worked in mines. My best friend, who has since passed away, offered once to take me to where he worked. I went to 6,600 feet in Macassa mine—it was owned by Lac Minerals then; they don’t allow this anymore—it’s now Agnico Eagle Mines. I will mention them again. I have a lot of respect for that company. We went to 6,600 feet. Then we went to 7,200 feet. And I couldn’t believe the working conditions: the heat, the smell. Miners are a fraternity, because only they know—only they really know what it’s like.

I’ve never had this opportunity, but I’d like to mention Randy Yantha, one of my best friends, who has since passed away, who took me down there. A few years later at that mine they had a bump. Randy wasn’t down that shift, but I thought he was, and I went to his house because two people died in that bump. That’s when I saw in his face what it’s like to be a miner. I’d like to give a shout-out to anyone who has ever—mining is much safer than it used to be. Mining has come a long way, but it is still—miners are well paid, but they’re not paid enough for what they do. We, on this side of the House, know that.

I’d also like to give a bit of a tour of the legislative buildings here. On the first floor, on the west side, there is a big chunk of silver. It comes from the Keeley mine just outside of Cobalt in Timiskaming–Cochrane. I believe 257,000 ounces are in that chunk of silver.

Mining isn’t just a new thing. Mining has always been boom and bust. Hopefully, with legislation, we’re trying to take the busts out of it. The silver boom in Cobalt was the first boom in Ontario—the TSX was built from Cobalt. It was the first boom. Then it busted. Then we went to Kirkland Lake and Timmins for gold. We have to remember that.

There are always winners in the boom and losers in the bust. Throughout history, it’s usually the people who are left there to deal with the environmental degradation. There is environmental degradation from mining. Whenever you do anything—there are environmental degradation problems from agriculture, there is from mining too. As we progress, the mining industry, along with government regulation, has found ways to improve that.

But if you go to Cobalt, you can see the degradation from the first mining boom. It’s still there. There are tailings ponds that have never been reclaimed. There are still—not in Cobalt itself, because of Agnico Eagle, but in parts outside of Cobalt and Silver Centre—open mine shafts that no one has ever bothered to close. Even today, no one has ever bothered. That’s something that we have to remember, and it’s really important to remember that. When we hear, “We’ll worry about the financial part of remediation later,” well, you know what? We’ve gone through this a few times, that the company doesn’t make it until later and we’re left with the degradation. No one’s going to tell me that hasn’t happened, because I can take you to those places.

But getting back, I’d like to focus on a company that I’ve had a lot to do with and a company that I respect: Agnico Eagle Mines. They actually got their start in Cobalt in 1955, the Cobalt Consolidated Mining Co. In Cobalt, second generation, after the bust, they had a bit of a boom. In 1957, Agnico became Agnico Eagle, and in 1989, Agnico Eagle stopped mining silver in Cobalt. Agnico Eagle has continued. It’s a major, major mining company. It’s the biggest mining company in my part of the world. It has lately gone together with Kirkland gold, and they control most of the gold mining assets in my part of the world.

To their credit, Agnico Eagle is responsible for the environmental protection of their claims in Cobalt, and they do a good job of it. They do their job. They respect what they took out of the ground and they know they’re responsible. They’re still there, and they take their job seriously. I respect them for that. I’m actually having a meeting with them tomorrow, and hopefully they’re not going to yell at me for what I say.

The last time I met with Agnico Eagle, we talked about the approval process—what can we do better in Ontario for mining? Because Agnico Eagle has also got a big project they’re just developing in my riding—a really big project—so they know how this process works. I’m not going to quote exactly what they said, but regulation isn’t the problem. Regulation protects not only the people, but also protects mining companies. Because now, when someone talks about a mining development, people in my part of the world don’t get frightened because we know we’ve got really strong regs, and that the mining companies live up to those regs because they also have to be responsible to raise money to—we understand that. They understand that.

Talking about getting rid of red tape actually doesn’t help mining companies. Talking about putting bulldozers to the Ring of Fire doesn’t help mining companies. What helps mining companies—and this is what I got from Agnico Eagle, and again, when I meet with them tomorrow, they could correct me, and I hope they do if I’m wrong. What helps mining companies, and what we want to provide in this legislation, is certainty—certainty. That’s what they need. So, “Here are the regs, and if we meet these regs, there is a process that we can understand, that we can go to our investors and say, ‘Okay, we’ve done this and this.’ Now, when we do this, then we’ll have this long and we’ll be able to do that and that and that.” But there’s a difference between talking about making less regulation or providing more certainty. There’s a big difference there.

So in this legislation, we’re talking about—so now we have a director of rehabilitation that goes to the minister. Well, ministers come and go. Governments come and go Government attitude towards industry changes. So I’m not 100% convinced—and that’s why we’re supportive of mining, supportive of what I hope the government is trying to do with this bill. But I’m not sure that putting all the onus on the minister actually adds to certainty.

Does the minister—whoever is the minister of the day—and I have a lot of respect for the current minister. I don’t agree with all his political views, but I know he’s deeply steeped in the mining industry. I know that. I respect that; I do. But does this legislation ensure that future ministers, future governments, will treat all mining projects the same? I don’t see that. I don’t see that. That’s something that the government is going to have to flesh out on how that is going to work for it to add certainty.

I personally—and we in northern Ontario very much so—and the NDP totally support mining for the jobs, for the economic development, for the cornerstone it provides to our province and our country, but we need certainty. When it talks about we’re going to, through regulation, have a qualified person do the remediation plan—okay, but that again provides a window of uncertainty. Who makes the rules for the qualified person in regulation later?

Again, we’re not trying to throw a wrench in this bill, we’re not trying to throw a wrench in the mining industry at all—at all. We want the mining industry to be able to go and get financing and build projects that are environmentally sustainable, that support this country, support this province and that everyone benefits. When I’ve heard several members say, “Oh, yeah, and this is going to help Indigenous communities,” I will challenge how many past mining developments have fully helped Indigenous communities because if that is the case, then they wouldn’t be living in areas with some of the conditions we have now.

Again, we’re not trying to throw a wrench in this, but if you say you’re going to make things better, let’s make them better. Let’s add certainty not just for one minister, for one government—because you’ve created it. And I’m not trying to be partisan. It’s a partisan job, but the current Conservative government has created some misgivings in the public about how you deal with the environment. Now you’re saying the qualified person shall do the remediation plans. Very well, you might have this all figured out, but it sure isn’t figured out in this bill. No one in the mining industry has ever asked that the one thing we need to get this going is to have the minister be responsible for the remediation plan.

I don’t know. What they ask me is for clarity. When I talk to Agnico Eagle, they have mines in several constituencies in this country, and in some areas, they can build a mine faster than in Ontario. And in some of those, the environmental regulations are actually higher than ours. So that tells me we do have a problem in Ontario.

I’m not saying that we can’t do things better in Ontario, but I don’t see that this bill is the answer, because the problems you’re trying to solve or you’re saying you’re trying to solve—I don’t see the answers to those problems.

I’ve heard a lot more rhetoric on your side regarding, “The Liberals have done this, supported by the NDP.” I hear all that rhetoric. But are you hearing that from me? No. We want this to work. That’s why we’re going to be voting for it on second reading. That’s why we hope there is a good committee process and that when amendments are put forward that aren’t partisan in nature, that actually want to make confidence in the mining sector and confidence in the public—because that’s one thing that’s very important. And this isn’t just for the mining sector; this is for agriculture, for forestry, for mining, anything. You need to have public confidence. If the public doesn’t have confidence in what you’re doing, you’re not going to be able to raise the money to keep doing it—maybe in the short term. Maybe in the short term, but in the long term, you’re not. You’re not.

I’ve got a couple of minutes left, and I’m going to—my son works in the mining industry, indirectly. He’s a commercial diver. When the tailings pond let go in 2019—I’m not even going to say the company, because I’m not trying to hurt anybody’s reputation. When the tailings pond let go in Brazil, my son sent me that video before it ever hit the news, because my son dives for that same company in Canada, and they were looking at the dams in Canada to make sure that wasn’t happening in Canada. He sent me a text. He says, “And that’s why you need strong regulations.” Same company, different regulations, different country.

So when you talk about getting rid of red tape, when you talk about that, “Well, we’ll get a qualified person to look at the remediation plan”—they maybe had a qualified person in Brazil as well. But 267 people died when that tailings pond let go, and I believe the company was charged. But, same company—the same thing was happening. Liquefaction, it’s called. A qualified person. But here, we had regulations—good regulations—and we need to keep good regulations. We need to work together to make sure that we have a solid regulatory platform that promotes profitable mining, but also protects people.

Rick is too little.

I’m very thin, so you don’t necessarily see me.

I just want to ask the member for Haliburton–Kawartha Lakes–Brock, if I got that right: Could you outline a little bit more how you see the benefits of this bill for northern and Indigenous communities, as noted in question 1?

The member for Durham.

Next question, the member for Sudbury.

We’ll have to move to further debate.

It’s an excellent question, Speaker. This is about an overall Critical Minerals Strategy that benefits Ontario north and south, east and west. Our government has put a great deal of thought into the proposed legislation and how, through that legislation, we can address the supply chain issues that the world is experiencing.

That’s why we launched the Critical Minerals Strategy, with targeted investments like the Ontario Junior Exploration Program. That’s all part of our plan, along with the Critical Minerals Innovation Fund, for building this province and securing the supply chain. It is about integrating the province and putting it all together.

Again, government leads, government creates a plan and then we unleash the potential through legislation like this.

What I’m hearing, though, from the members opposite: They say it’s flawed but they won’t point out details. They say they want to make changes but they won’t tell us what they are. We believe that this is a sound, thoughtful piece of proposed legislation and it builds on the original intent of the original act that is being amended. Let’s remember this: What goes unchanged is that, “The purpose of this act is to encourage prospecting, registration of mining claims”—and I hope the members opposite don’t mind if I read from the actual act, which is going to continue—

I hope they support that concept, which is fundamental to this bill—

Thank you, madame la Présidente. I appreciated the submissions made by the member from Timiskaming–Cochrane. I was listening carefully to his comments. He is obviously a very experienced and respected member of this assembly, and I recognize his experience and I respect him.

He made some comments with regard to communications that he had with various mining interests, and it’s good that members of the House communicate with people in their ridings about their concerns. I was hoping that the member from Timiskaming-Cochrane might give us some feedback about what he hears in his riding about the length of the permitting process and how long it takes to get through the permitting process. We use the words “permitting process.” There’s not actually a permit, but we refer to the permitting process. What has he heard? What feedback has he gotten on that?

Does the member opposite know—and I listened carefully to his remarks—that there are no proposed changes to our world-class environmental protections by virtue of this proposed bill? Does he know that this bill is in fact about improving how the Ministry of Mines operates and increasing efficiencies? Does he know that updating the Mining Act is crucial to support our transition to a green economy? Does he know that that is what this is about?

We’re going to move to the questions portion of the debate, and I recognize the member for Essex.

Thank you to the member from Essex. That’s a very good question. I think I touched on it in my remarks. There are parts of our country—and I don’t know about internationally—where the permitting process is quicker. I’m not saying it shouldn’t be quicker, but it shouldn’t be quicker by lowering the standards. And I’m not saying that’s in this bill, but it’s not saying that it’s not, because it says we’re going to change who does the plans.

Can we make the process quicker? We’re not opposed. We need to make sure that we don’t do that by lowering the standards or lowering the financial package in case something goes wrong.

With First Nations as well, this government has said several times that this Critical Minerals Strategy—which we’re not opposed to, actually—will benefit First Nations. Well, the proof is going to be in how you deal with First Nations before you start, because if it’s going to continue to be divide and conquer, First Nations know exactly what’s going to happen: The project is going to be built and some of them won’t benefit at all, because that’s been proven through history over and over again.

We’ve seen this government appoint folks to tribunals, even, that have not had the experience or the qualifications for said position. So with this particular bill, when it permits the minister to exercise any power and perform any duty of a director of exploration under the act in place of the director, it does make me question whether or not we know if the minister—I mean, the minister right now might be wonderful. I don’t know. But what about future ministers?

At the end of the day, isn’t it important that the director—the person who is doing many of these processes—have the qualification, have the skills, and that they are connected mostly to community as well, too?

I thank the member for his comments—I really do—about the minister’s experience, which we share—extensive experience in the industry. I appreciate his story about his long-time friend who passed away who took him down the mine and his son who works in the industry and meeting with Agnico Eagle. As a matter of fact, I’m meeting with them tomorrow too, so I look forward to hearing about their experience.

At the root of it, I think we share objectives here for the mining industry. I must confess, I’ve been an MPP for eight months now, and I think I heard the opposition will be supporting the bill. I think that may be the first time in the House I’ve seen that, but I think it’s—

Interjections.

But as I understand the member’s comments, I think your concerns are more about the process with the bill than the outcomes. Is that fair, and could you elaborate on what you’re looking for to see it pass into law?

It’s a pleasure to rise today to speak to Bill 71. My riding of Kingston and the Islands has a mine. But, more importantly, it also has the Queen’s University mining engineering department, which is the largest in the world, and I just want to acknowledge the work that they do to support the mining industry.

We, the Liberal caucus, support the long-term success of the mining industry in Ontario and the well-paying jobs it brings—the economic development.

This bill, Bill 71, tries to allow mines to open faster, but, to me, the bill seems rushed. It falls short in several areas and may put at risk the reputation of Ontario’s mining industry. We believe the areas where the bill falls short can be fixed at committee, so we’ll be voting in favour of the bill at second reading, but to have the Liberal caucus’s support at third reading, several things need to be done at the committee stage, which I’d like to address now.

First of all, we need support from Indigenous communities if mining is to be successful. The Conservative government did not consult Indigenous communities before the bill was tabled. I believe that we must pause and do that at the committee stage. Let me elaborate a bit on that.

This came out during a ministerial briefing yesterday, and it is really important to make sure that Indigenous communities have buy-in. If we’re sloppy about Indigenous consultation, we’re really just hurting the mining industry. It really seems to me that there’s some indication here that the bill was rushed. This bill was tabled on the very last day that it could be tabled before the Prospectors and Developers Association of Canada meeting that’s going on right now, and so the question arises in my mind: Is it a coincidence that they tabled it on the very last day and somehow they didn’t have time to do the Indigenous consultation? I think it’d be really important for the committee to pause and to hear testimony. What I understand is that the ministry is explaining the bill to Indigenous groups right now, and it would be very important, I think, to hear what they have to say about this bill and to take any appropriate action at committee stage.

We need young people to consider mining as where their career might lie. There’s a labour shortage in mining. One of the things we can do to help that along is to continue to improve the reputation in the mining industry in the eyes of young people entering the workforce. We should be able to say, and we often can say, that mining leaves things better than they were before.

There’s a part of this bill, Bill 71, that deals with the recovery of minerals from tailings and other mine waste. In that part of the bill, we should be very careful not to allow loopholes. In fact, I believe there is a legal loophole where either public health and safety or the environment could be worse after recovery operations from tailings or waste, and there’s a very simple change that can be made in section 18 of the bill. There’s a phrase in section 18 of the bill which should be changed. Let me read what it says right now. It says “the condition of the land with respect to one or both of public health and safety or the environment following the remediation is comparable to or better than it was before the recovery....” What I believe it should say is—we should strike the words “one or,” and if the condition of the land is going to be comparable to what it was before, then the condition of the land with respect to both public health and safety and the environment following the remediation should be comparable or better, because if you use “one or,” it means the other one could be worse, and I believe that’s a legal loophole that should be corrected in committee.

Furthermore, this bill uses the language “comparable to or better.” In the current legislation, there’s a different word that’s used. It’s the word “improved.” Clearly, we’re backing off. Instead of requiring these recovery operations to improve the condition of the land or the water, we’re settling for comparable. So there’s a problem here, which is that mining companies and the mining industry want to say that we leave the land in a better condition than it was before, and if we’re settling for comparable—well, it’s not worse, but you’re not encouraging young people to feel good about considering a career in mining.

Let me also say that I believe that the word “comparable,” which is not defined in the legislation—we were told in the ministerial briefing that this word, “comparable,” would be articulated in the regulations, and I believe that that word should be defined in the regulations before third reading.

We need the public to be confident that after a mine closes, the land and water will be in an overall better state than before. In the long run, this confidence supports the mining industry and the prosperity it can bring. Currently, ministry officials conduct the technical review, the technical certification of mine closure plans. This bill moves that role from the ministry to so-called “qualified persons.” The problem is that currently the term “qualified persons” refers to geologists and mining engineers who assess ore deposits in order to protect investors.

Now, for mine closures, we need completely different skills. We need completely different knowledge to certify mine closure plans. Maybe we’ll need biologists, maybe we’ll need environmental scientists or geochemists, and I believe that the regulations should specify this before third reading. One simple thing to do is just call them something else. Instead of the people who are used to writing reports to protect investors, call them something else. Call them “mine-closure-qualified persons,” and then specify in the regulations exactly what qualifications they need to have. I know that this is not a hard thing to do, because there’s a mining rehabilitation code, and you can just look in that to see what sort of things need to be considered when you close a mine and use that to explain what qualifications the qualified persons who certify mine closure plans need to have.

A final point is that the qualified persons who can certify mine closure plans—I would hope that they are in different firms. They’re often in private firms; I would hope that they’re in different firms from the qualified persons who write reports for mining companies to protect investors who write reports on how much ore there is, how much could be extracted. The reason is that there’s a moral hazard if you are, on the one hand, somebody who’s paid by a mining company to write a report for investors on how much ore there might be in a deposit and how much could be recovered. If you are in the same firm, in the same company, and you are a qualified person to certify mine closure plans, there’s a conflict of interest that we have to avoid, so I would hope that the firms that are employed are separate.

I think there’s no evidence that the government’s plan is going to improve the quality of the technical review that is currently done by the ministry, but if they are going to move it over to qualified persons, I would want to make sure that these qualified persons don’t have a conflict of interest. Let me just say that these qualified persons for mine closure, if they’re in a private firm, probably don’t have the financial resources to stand behind all of the economic consequences of their certification should something go wrong, and that could be bad for the mining company itself.

A final point: Let me say that the minister taking over the responsibilities of the Director of Mine Rehabilitation has the risk that political pressure will come into play when the minister is deciding, instead of the Director of Mine Rehabilitation, whether or not to accept a mine closure plan or to accept a deferral of a mine closure plan, which is something else that this bill allows.

To summarize, let me say this: Le caucus libéral appuie la réussite à long terme de l’industrie minière en Ontario ainsi que les emplois bien rémunérés qu’elle offre. Ce projet de loi tente de permettre aux mines d’ouvrir plus rapidement, mais il semble précipité, il laisse beaucoup à désirer et il peut mettre en péril la réputation de l’industrie minière de l’Ontario.

I think it’s okay to take the time to get this bill right so that mines can be built in a first-class way and without delay. There’s no need to rush this bill. It’s like taking your time and getting your stance right and taking your time on the backswing when you play golf so that your shot goes straight and stays out of trouble.

Next question.

That’s a very good question as well. I hope that the good players in the mining sector won’t let that happen, because they have worked very hard. The company I mentioned and other companies have worked very hard to gain that reputation. They’ve got a much better reputation environmentally than the Ford government. And I hope that they won’t allow that to happen, because not all players in the mining sector have that reputation.

And so it’s incumbent on us all, but it’s also incumbent on the government, to make sure that they have qualified people and that the political process doesn’t get involved in the actual scientific permitting process. That is very cloudy in this bill, when you’re moving it to the minister. It’s very cloudy, and I don’t think the mining sector needs cloudiness. They need certainty. That’s what they all need.

We can now move to the period of questions.

Thank you for the question. In fact, yes, I did actually visit this laboratory called MIRARCO at Laurentian University. One of the areas of research they look into is how to efficiently extract the mineral value from mine tailings. I think it’s a good thing that we’re moving forward on this legislation. I know that there’s a section of the mining bill that deals specifically with recovering minerals from tailings and waste. It has passed, but it hasn’t been proclaimed. It calls on improvements in the state of the land or the site on which the tailings sit after the recovery operations compared to before.

This legislation tries to change it to “comparable,” and it lets you choose which one is comparable. Either the public health and safety or the environment, only one of them has to be comparable. As I read the bill, one of them could be worse. As long as one of those two, environment or public health and safety, is comparable, then it’s okay, and I—

I appreciate interacting with my colleague from the independent Liberals. It did put a smile on my face when he said that we seem to be moving very quickly on this legislation with mines, because we’ve been only working on it for four years. Of course, the Ring of Fire was announced in 2007, and the previous Liberal government sat on it for 11 years. I can understand that he thinks we’re moving a little bit too fast for this.

I did hear that he’s ready for it to move forward into second reading, but I was wondering if he is supportive and specifically on—what I found so intriguing is that, having met with stakeholders, the waste of previous mining operations was almost impossible to mine out for critical minerals that are in there.

Is he very supportive personally of being able to mine out what was waste in a mine from before and to clean up that area?

Thank you to the member from Kingston and the Islands for his contributions to the bill analysis. The member earlier spoke about—or one of the questions was that the government has been working on mines for four years. But what I found kind of interesting was that, according to the briefing that the ministry gave, they hadn’t yet consulted with Indigenous communities.

Just wondering how the member feels or his thoughts on if they’ve been working on the mining file for four years, why not consult with Indigenous communities prior to bringing the bill forward and knowing where they stand?

My question for the member who spoke just now is about roads. Roads have come up during the discussion and the debate on this bill. Just recently, the First Nation of Webequie and First Nation of Marten Falls, who are leading the environmental assessment for the roads that are being built or will be built eventually, received approval of the terms of reference for their environmental assessment. They are leading that environmental assessment.

My question to the member is as follows: Does he support Marten Falls First Nation and Webequie First Nation leading that environmental assessment regarding roads, or does he not?