To the member from Kiiwetinoong: You noted that there was no funding for consultation with all the communities affected by the Ring of Fire. I wonder if you could talk a little about how many times members from northern First Nations communities have come to Queen’s Park and not received meetings, not had meetings with the Premier.

Speaker, I’ve said many times, we are open for consultation. We have an open-door policy. Actually, all of the members in the mining community have the same philosophy. We passed that new Mining Act without changing a word in Ontario’s world-class environmental standards or the duty to consult. We believe in it, and we carry it out.

Speaker, in the last 15 or 20 years, the population in northern Ontario was declining. Why is it declining? Because they didn’t have any focus on mining. One of the last Premiers said, in fact, that the economy of Ontario will not be defined by people digging holes in the ground. But let me tell you, we dig world-class holes in the ground that produce critical minerals, and we have to get the infrastructure into the towns to make sure that people that live in those communities—I’m one of them who lives in that community.

Forty per cent of the workforce, of course, is women. There’s only 14% of women that are employed in the mining sector. When you talk, as we have, with the young women that are employed in that sector and they find how rewarding the communities are, it’s truly uplifting. It’s an incredible experience.

Not that long ago, we were in northern Ontario but on that particular trip we were also in Sudbury, and I told you about the young woman who was from Moosonee, who got her education and was working at 9,600 feet at the Creighton Mine. What did she want to do? She wanted to be a mining engineer. What was she working on? Electric vehicles at 9,600 feet at the Creighton Mine and absolutely loving it—from Moosonee.

That’s the opportunity that exists for women in mining, and ensuring that we maximize the opportunity and exposure of women working in mining.

Report continues in volume B.