Fortifying Ontario’s Economy: A vision for protecting Ontario, strengthening economic sovereignty, and securing global leadership in critical minerals

Overview

The Ministry of Energy and Mines (MEM) has released a policy vision paper, “Fortifying Ontario’s Economy: A vision for protecting Ontario, strengthening economic sovereignty, and securing global leadership in critical minerals”, to guide the development of a responsible, competitive, and secure critical minerals industry in Ontario. This paper sets the vision for an updated Critical Minerals Strategy and related policy, program, and regulatory measures that connect exploration, permitting, mining, processing, and manufacturing, into a resilient, end-to-end value chain. 

MEM is seeking input from the public, stakeholders, and Indigenous communities to inform the strategic update. This work builds on the progress made since 2022 to modernize approvals, expand processing capacity, enhance geoscience, and advance partnerships, especially in Northern Ontario.

To support informed input, this posting summarizes Ontario’s vision, provides links to background materials, and asks questions aligned to our priorities. Your feedback in response to these questions will help shape Ontario’s approach to protecting economic sovereignty, creating good jobs, and leading among allies in responsible critical minerals development.

Background

Ontario’s economy and those of our allies increasingly depend on secure access to critical minerals such as nickel, lithium, graphite, cobalt, copper, and rare earth elements. These materials are essential to clean technologies, national defence, advanced manufacturing, and the digital systems that support data centres, artificial intelligence, and modern energy infrastructure. Since the release of Ontario’s first Critical Minerals Strategy in 2022, global demand has accelerated and diversified, creating new pressures on supply chains and exposing Ontario’s industries to greater geopolitical and market risk.

Ontario has already made significant progress, modernizing approvals, investing in public geoscience, advancing processing capacity, and strengthening partnerships with Indigenous communities, particularly in Northern Ontario. We are also advancing development in globally significant regions such as the Ring of Fire, which contain some of the most important untapped deposits in Canada.

To respond to rapidly changing global conditions, Ontario now requires a more comprehensive, coordinated approach across exploration, permitting, mining, processing, and manufacturing.  An updated Critical Minerals Strategy will set the course for the next phase of action, unapologetically protecting Ontario’s economy, strengthening national sovereignty, and creating good paying jobs, while expanding domestic processing capacity, reducing reliance on unstable or concentrated foreign supply chains, and positioning Ontario as a trusted G7 leader in responsible critical mineral development.

Proposal 

Fortifying Ontario’s Economy: A vision for protecting Ontario, strengthening economic sovereignty, and securing global leadership in critical minerals builds on progress made since the province’s first Critical Minerals Strategy (2022) and sets the direction for its renewal, guiding how Ontario strengthens economic security, advances reconciliation, and positions itself as a global, trusted supplier of responsibly sourced critical minerals. While the previous critical minerals strategy of 2022-2027 prioritized clean technology and electric vehicles, the world has changed. Ontario must broaden the application of critical minerals policy to include materials needed for national security, advanced manufacturing, and computing power to drive the economy forward.

The updated vision focuses on ensuring Ontario can meet rising global demand, capture more value at home, and support strong, sustainable communities. To achieve these goals, the ministry has identified a set of strategic priorities that will shape the development of the renewed Critical Minerals Strategy.

Key Strategic Priorities

1. Plan for Growth
2. Build a Future-Ready Workforce
3. Infrastructure and Enabling Conditions
4. Regulatory Certainty and Faster Delivery
5. Supporting Exploration and Finding the Mines of Tomorrow
6. Advancing Indigenous Partnerships
7. Securing Investment and Resilient Supply Chains
8. Global Leadership and Allied Supply Chains

The ministry is seeking feedback on these themes to help shape the updated strategy and advance the vision outlined in Fortifying Ontario’s Economy: A vision for protecting Ontario, strengthening economic sovereignty, and securing global leadership in critical minerals.

This vision emphasizes protecting Ontario’s economic sovereignty, capturing more value through domestic processing and manufacturing, and coordinating planning across the critical minerals value chain. The updated Strategy will apply these principles to enable growth, attract investment, and reinforce Ontario’s role as a trusted G7 partner in responsible critical mineral development.

Guiding Questions

Feedback on the questions below will help inform the next phase of Ontario’s Critical Minerals Strategy.

To support your review, you may wish to refer to Fortifying Ontario’s Economy: A vision for protecting Ontario, strengthening economic sovereignty, and securing global leadership in critical minerals, available under Supporting Materials.

Your input will help the province refine its approach to responsibly developing critical minerals, supporting economic growth, and strengthening supply chain resilience for the future.

Capital Market Opportunities

1. Should Ontario act as a long-term investor in critical minerals—accepting delayed returns of 8–10 years? What does “success” look like if returns aren’t immediate? Should Ontario be involved in the financing of critical minerals projects at all?
2. Acknowledging that Ontario generated $13 billion worth of minerals accounting for 24% of Canada’s total mineral production value (which contributes to Canada’s GDP) in 2024, how can Ontario best advocate to make the federal government a financial partner in this process?
3. With challenges of proponents going to markets to raise capital for construction of critical minerals projects in volatile commodities markets – should Ontario consider alternative financial arrangements including price floors, contracts of difference, or stockpiling of minerals?
4. What’s the biggest obstacle holding back investment in Ontario today—capital, regulation, market uncertainty, or government indecision, and what steps should be taken to eliminate said obstacles?
5. Can improvements be made to the Indigenous Opportunities Financing Program (IOFP) to increase equity ownership, revenue participation and governance influence by Indigenous communities in Ontario mining projects?

Supporting Critical Mineral Exploration 

1. What enhancements could Ontario make to its platforms and data formats to improve access to geoscience data?
2. What emerging technologies could the Ontario Geological Survey adopt to improve the range, quality, and usefulness of the data it collects (e.g., drill‑core scanning)?
3. Which stages or types of exploration activities should be prioritized for incentive programs, and could a multi‑year funding model better support those activities? Are there financial incentives or regulatory reforms that Ontario should pursue to increase exploration spending in the province?

Enabling Infrastructure 

1. How could Ontario, Indigenous partners, industry proponents, and other resource sectors collaborate to plan, build, maintain, and fund multi-use corridors?
2. Should Ontario adopt a regional strategy for connecting future Critical Minerals projects to enabling infrastructure, taking a multi year approach to planning mines of the future?
3. How does relying on Fly-in-Fly-Out (FIFO) workers versus local talent impact employee retention? How should Ontario’s housing strategy account for new critical minerals projects?
4. How can Ontario contribute to communities near mines to make them more appealing as places to live and work? How should Ontario measure success on supporting communities where new projects are built in proximity?

Ontario’s Energy & Digital Infrastructure Future

1. How can Ontario use its critical minerals to help plan for future energy needs and support the growth of AI compute and data centres? How can Ontario support the AI and data centre supply chain through the critical minerals strategy?
2. What are some ways we can use critical mineral-based technologies to make our energy system work better and more reliably?
3. How should Ontario promote the uses of critical minerals in advanced manufacturing products that the public uses?
4. How can government, industry, and Indigenous partners and communities work together to utilize Ontario’s critical minerals in order to plan for their future energy needs?

Workforce Constraints

1. What mining sector occupations are expected to have the highest demand, with the lowest supply? What are the proximal causes of this imbalance?
2. How can Ontario work with colleges and universities in the province to ensure that the skills needed for mining are being proactively addressed?
3. What actions has Ontario taken on workforce development, that have proven to be most effective?
4. How can Ontario attract, train, and deploy skilled workers to the mining sector? What programs or incentives would attract more people to consider a career in mining?
5. What can Ontario do to improve the participation of underrepresented groups including women and indigenous peoples in the mining workforce? 

Regulatory and Policy Reform

1. As Ontario implements recent mining regulatory reforms (e.g., the Building More Mines Act and the One Project, One Process initiative), what other process improvements can Ontario make to its mining approval pathways?  Are there examples from other jurisdictions that Ontario could look to?
2. Within the current legislative framework, where could clearer guidance, standardized interpretations, or more accessible process information help reduce unnecessary back‑and‑forth and delays for proponents?
3. Should Ontario consider whether a standardized or permit by rule approach would be appropriate?
4. How could consultation processes be improved to ensure more predictable, timely, and meaningful engagement with Indigenous and First Nation communities? 

Value Chain Development

1. What gaps remain in Ontario’s critical minerals value chain and how can the province leverage its mineral wealth to attract the investors and partners required to fill those gaps and add value beyond mining?
2. With the announcement of the G7 Critical Minerals Buyers club, how should Ontario be promoting and engaging international groups on our critical minerals resources? Should Ontario play a role in business to business supports, finding partners on a willing buyer willing seller basis in international markets?
3. Given the urgency to diversify trading partners and our sources of international investment, how can Ontario best support this diversification and reduce trade barriers to realize our full critical mineral value chain potential?
4. Responsible mineral development can result in economic development for Indigenous communities in critical mineral rich areas of Northern Ontario. How can Ontario develop critical value chains while ensuring meaningful Indigenous participation?

Innovation

1. How can innovation in Ontario’s critical minerals sector best support economic growth, worker safety, and environmental performance in communities across the province?
2. What research, development, or technology gaps present the greatest barriers to advancing critical minerals projects in Ontario, and how could government programs better support technology development, testing, and commercialization?
3. How can innovation in critical minerals development better support Indigenous priorities, including environmental stewardship, community capacity building, economic participation, and long‑term benefits?

Supporting Partnership Opportunities with Indigenous Communities 

1. Which model of partnership between industry and Indigenous businesses has proven most effective in developing long-term partnerships between Indigenous communities and businesses in the mining and mining supply and service sectors (JVs, service contracts, equity ownership, etc.)?
2. What supports or government programs can help Indigenous communities and businesses benefit from the critical minerals sector? Are there significant gaps in the regulatory or financial programs offered by the province that prevent more Indigenous communities from participating in the mining sector?
3. Looking at other sectors, what models of Indigenous participation could be replicated in the mining sector, and why?