Ontario mining cash boost: project approvals and grid upgrades for engineers
Reviewed by Joe Ashwell
First reported on MINING.com
30 Second Briefing
Ontario is ramping up mining support with C$140 million for Ring of Fire road preparation, a C$500 million Critical Minerals Processing Fund, and billions earmarked for high-capacity transmission lines including the 230 km, 230 kV Greenstone line delivering 350–700 MW with 50% First Nations equity. Kinross Gold’s C$1.4 billion Great Bear project near Red Lake, targeting 518,000 oz/y at US$812/oz AISC by 2029, has been moved into the One Project One Process regime to cut permitting to two years. Engineers should expect accelerated approvals, grid upgrades and new processing capacity across northern Ontario.
Technical Brief
- One Project One Process aims to compress mine approvals from >10 years to about two.
- Framework coordinates provincial ministries, federal agencies and Indigenous consultation on a single, integrated permitting track.
- Great Bear lies ~500 km northwest of Thunder Bay, near the established Red Lake mining camp.
- Ontario has already committed C$140 million specifically for pre-construction road works into the Ring of Fire.
- Government policy explicitly encourages First Nations equity stakes, moving beyond consultation to co-ownership structures.
- Strategy is framed as reducing reliance on Chinese processing capacity and countering potential US tariffs.
- Lecce flagged further infrastructure and mining-support announcements timed to the PDAC convention (1–4 March, Toronto).
Our Take
Ontario’s attempt to cut mine approval times from more than 10 years to about two years is aimed squarely at improving its policy perception, where Nevada has just overtaken other jurisdictions in the Fraser Institute’s 2025 survey referenced in our database.
The C$500 million mineral processing fund, alongside projects like Canada Nickel’s Crawford and Frontier Lithium’s PAK in Ontario, signals a push to keep more nickel and lithium value-add within Canada rather than losing concentrate to the United States or China.
A 50% First Nations equity stake in the Greenstone Transmission Line, combined with large power builds for sites like Great Bear and Georgia Lake, suggests Ontario is moving towards shared ownership models on enabling infrastructure, which can materially de-risk permitting for remote gold and critical mineral projects in the North.
Prepared by collating external sources, AI-assisted tools, and Geomechanics.io’s proprietary mining database, then reviewed for technical accuracy & edited by our geotechnical team.
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