Canada’s critical economic and strategic interest in exploiting the Ring of Fire

By Conrad Black

Ontario Premier Doug Ford is absolutely right in emphasizing the importance for his province and for Canada of the Ring of Fire mining region approximately 500 kilometres northeast of Thunder Bay. It is now generally recognized throughout the western world that we have been imprudent in allowing ourselves to become excessively dependent on China as a source of strategic minerals. This not only creates a vulnerability of supply in the not unlikely case of substantial strategic disagreements with the government of that country, but also in many areas enables China to manipulate the current price of these minerals by increasing or decreasing production in a way that can make private-sector development of alternate sources commercially inadvisable.

In these circumstances, there has rarely been a more conspicuous area where the public and private sectors should work together as in the development of these minerals, yet another area where Canada is providentially well endowed. The designated critical minerals include many whose names are familiar to many, even if their use and value are not always well understood: aluminum, chromium, cobalt, copper, graphite, high-purity iron ore, lithium, magnesium, manganese, nickel, phosphorus, platinum, potash, rare earth elements, tin, titanium, tungsten, uranium, vanadium and zinc. Some others are relatively obscure, such as cesium, gallium, indium, germanium, niobium, scandium, tantalum and tellurium. Canada has the astounding good fortune to be wealthy in all of them and that wealth is scattered across all of the provinces and territories of Canada with the exception of Prince Edward Island.

To be considered critical for Canada, a mineral must be one where the supply chain is threatened and Canada has the potential to produce it economically. It must also be either essential to Canada’s economic or national security, required for our transition to a digital, and in some cases more sustainable, economy, or be capable of situating Canada as a strategic partner within vital global supply chains. Critical minerals are vital for the future of our economy, as they are used in products such as drones, satellites, smart phones, computers and mobile networks. The Canadian critical minerals strategy supports advanced manufacturing, sustainable technologies and information technologies. These include clean technologies, such as permanent magnets, semi-conductors and telecommunications equipment. The critical minerals value chain includes geoscience and exploration, mineral extraction, intermediate processing, advanced manufacturing and recycling.

The Ring of Fire has one of the greatest potential concentrations of precious and special metals in the world. But Canada being Canada, one of our most influential media outlets, the Globe and Mail, editorialized on Monday: “Sorry Doug Ford, but Ontario’s much-hyped Ring of Fire project doesn’t pass the bar. It’s known primarily for its chromite, which is useful for making stainless steel, but it’s not scarce or essential for national security.” For the reasons given, the Ring of Fire does indeed pass the bar and shows every likelihood of becoming the focus of resource development for Canada for many years to come. The leading explorer in the Ring of Fire is Juno Corp., which owns 52 per cent of all claims in the area and has almost nothing to do with chromite. Based on drilling completed in recent years, there is a reasonable belief that Juno has struck high-grade titanium, vanadium and other strategic minerals, as well as very promising gold discoveries. Earlier this year, Juno announced that in 2024, it “discovered multiple zones of gold mineralization within the North Arm area of the Ring of Fire.”

The Ring of Fire may have attracted premature enthusiasm following its initial discovery, but it has become much more important in recent years due to the significance of strategic minerals for the western alliance. The Globe and Mail’s astounding foray into mining speculation really doesn’t pass the bar. Chromite is necessary, though not scarce, but the primary sources are in distant and unreliable countries. It is essential to the production of stainless steel, which is currently dominated by China, a situation the U.S. administration does not consider acceptable. China has also tried to gain a foothold in Canadian critical mineral development, exploring the potential for building a railway to the Ring of Fire with the Canadian Chrome Company (the author has been a small option-holder in that company for some years), and by purchasing a major stake in a Canadian critical mineral mining firm, which the Government of Canada later ordered it to divest. It may be safely assumed that China’s interest was not based on the Globe and Mail’s eccentric perceptions. These matters have been under discussion with the U.S. government for some time, and the Carney government has expressed a commendable determination to exploit Canada’s mining potential.

Juno and Northfield Capital Corporation recently completed impressive financing arrangements to redouble their dominant position in the Ring of Fire. Investor participation and cordial agreements with the area’s First Nations are being racked up all the time. Premier Ford is right and the companies active in this area are getting close to a mighty bonanza. The president of the United States, as in many other areas, is leading the West toward self-sufficiency in critical and strategic minerals and rare earths, and the collective national interests of the western alliance will certainly frustrate Chinese attempts at market manipulation to gain and preserve a strangulation of the mineralogical lifeline of the West. Canada’s position is unique and enviable and the premier of Ontario and the prime minister are serving the whole country by publicizing these facts and encouraging these developments.

First published in the National Post