Thank you for the question from the member from Renfrew–Nipissing–Pembroke. I recently attended with the Premier the opening of Vale’s Copper Cliff south mine. It was a tremendous event. Vale was extremely happy to see the Premier go underground to celebrate the reopening of this complex.

Vale spent over $900 million to redevelop this mine, and they’re going to spend another $900 million with the Creighton mine to do the very same thing. Now they’re going to spend $1.8 billion to produce copper and nickel and cobalt, minerals that are essential to producing the batteries that are required to decarbonize Ontario’s economy.

This is totally supported by this government and this Premier. We’re very supportive of this. We’re very ecstatic that this is happening in Ontario, under the leadership of this Premier.

Mr. Speaker, our message is simple: We cannot go green without mining, and Ontario is the best place in the world to mine. The time is now to eliminate unnecessary regulatory burdens, improve timelines, increase transparency and improve business certainty.

We built the Kidd Creek mine in three years, and perhaps that was a little too fast, but we’ve got to do better than 15 years to build mines now.

Right now, we’re developing regulations that will help exploration companies find the critical mineral mines of the future and promote innovative, new strategies to recover critical minerals from old mine tailings.

There’s much more to do, but we will never stop driving efficiencies into how the mines are developed, because we know how important it is to Ontario and the globe to mine these critical minerals, to support decarbonizing our economy in Ontario, and to secure the supply chain—again, all efforts that are led by the Premier here in Ontario.

Thank you for the question from the member from Sault Ste. Marie.

The mining industry in Ontario is the best in the world, but that hasn’t stopped us from improving.

Last week, the Premier was back in Timmins to join me at Newmont’s announcement of a $160-million investment in a new, state-of-the-art effluent treatment plant. This new, industry-leading plant will return treated clean water to the watershed, benefiting the ecosystem for generations. The treatment plant will secure the future of Newmont’s operations in my hometown of Porcupine. A mining operation like this is part of the fabric of our community and creates prosperity for the people of Timmins and for the entire province.

Ontario will continue to lead the world in environmentally responsible mining.

The mining industry in Ontario is thriving, and we are just getting started.

Last month, the Premier and I were at the official opening of Vale’s $945-million complex at Copper Cliff. This will create 270 jobs in the Sudbury region and lead to 14 years of production. The company is also preparing to invest another billion dollars in phase 2 of the project.

We have mines under construction right now, including Argonaut Gold’s Magino project, the Greenstone Gold mine, and Iamgold’s Côté Gold project.

These new mines are creating thousands of construction jobs, but more importantly, they will build stronger communities throughout the north.

We have more work to do, but we are building the foundation for the future of mining, and that will bring unprecedented prosperity to this province.