Ontario is introducing legislation today to try to speed up mine approvals, as pressure mounts on the province to deliver on its promise to produce critical minerals to feed the electric car industry.
The changes to the provincial mining act, to be proposed Thursday, come not long after the Federal Canadian government said it was working with the provinces and territories to reduce red tape in the sector, after conceding that mine approvals take far too long. Developing a mine in Canada can take up to 25 years.
“This process is too time consuming and costly, leading to project delays and lost opportunities for Ontario’s mineral exploration and mining sector,” George Pirie, Ontario’s minister of mines, said in a release on Thursday. “We need to get building.” Among the changes proposed by Ontario is making it easier for companies to obtain permits to mine metals from tailings, quickening up the process to shut down mines by allowing conditional closure plans, and loosening up the process around the rehabilitation of closed mine sites.
The province said that the new measures will not compromise environmental standards, and will not jeopardize the constitutional duty to consult Indigenous communities on mining projects.Over the past few years, the Canadian and U.S. governments have made a big push to try to establish North American supply chains of critical minerals such as lithium and palladium.
You'll have to ask China's permission.
It’ll save the environment…
You can’t rescue the environment by destroying it. BatteryMetals Lithium palladium environment
The green agenda isn't environmentally friendly.
Don’t give access to enemies, foreign companies from a particular country or their guys on our soil. Time to fight the enemies hiding behind multiculturalism. Time to call enemies enemies.
Time to destroy the environment using a different method. Open pit lithium and cobalt mining.
This is a bad idea...modern day Manifest Destiny...will we ever learn...Doing more damage to Mother Earth in the name of speedy progress is not the answer...speeding up approvals will only lead to a wild west with no accountability...and bigger opportunity for corruption.