The man tapped to lead an overhaul of Ontario’s potentially lucrative mining sector says critical minerals buried across the north represent vital “soft power leverage” against the United States.
During a recent cabinet reshuffle, Ontario Premier Doug Ford added responsibility for mines to the portfolio of his existing energy minister.
Stephen Lecce, who was trusted by the premier to lead on the complicated education file for years before moving to energy, has now been told to overhaul Ontario’s mining system at speed.
His mandate sits at the heart of Ford’s economic plan.
“The premier and our government recognize is that we have a critical generational opportunity to scale up with a greater sense of ambition our plan to accelerate getting resources out of the ground to processed and to being exported to new markets,” Lecce said in an interview on Focus Ontario.
In recent years, Ford has hung his economic development strategy on northern minerals. The provincial and federal governments convinced automakers to relocate to Ontario to concentrate on battery plants and electric vehicle projects.
And then, as U.S. President Donald Trump threatened to plaster Canada with tariffs at the start of the year, Ford switched his pitch to offer Ontario’s critical minerals to the United States as part of a closer trading relationship.
Get daily National news
Get the day’s top news, political, economic, and current affairs headlines, delivered to your inbox once a day.
Trump has repeatedly said he “doesn’t need” Canada’s natural resources and did not exclude Canada from recent 25 per cent aluminum, steel or auto tariffs.
Lecce, however, maintains the critical minerals in Ontario’s north are something the United States needs — whether Trump wants them or not. They also offer a chance to forge new trade relationships.
“The most relevant for the Canada-U.S. file, as it intersects with our soft power leverage with President Trump,” Lecce said.
“The U.S. needs critical minerals for the military and for the national security. And Ontario — in Ontario alone, let alone our country — has the bounty of one of the largest natural critical mineral deposits on earth. And so for us, it’s a mission of speed. It’s also a recognition that we want to diversify our export markets and get these commodities to other dependable allies around the world.”
He said two gold mines opened in Ontario last year. One, he said, took 17 years to obtain all the approvals it needed.
Lecce wouldn’t say what the target time to open a mine in Ontario would be under his portfolio, nor would he say if new legislation was needed to make it possible. He promised a major policy was in the works.
“You’re going to see a comprehensive plan being brought forth this spring,” Lecce said. “This is a top priority for the premier.”
Accessing mines in northern Ontario will also require a massive infrastructure and diplomacy effort.
To get to the mineral-rich Ring of Fire, in particular, Ontario will need to build a massive new all-season road to replace the ice routes that currently exist. That will require funds to build and buy-in from a diverse group of local First Nations communities.
Ontario NDP MPP Sol Mamakwa, who represents a riding in the north, recently told Global News the Ford government was approaching that challenge wrong.
He said the government was doing little to benefit local communities it needed to get on side.
“They want access to the resources that are there (but) they have no interest in dealing with the housing, they have no plans to address the nursing stations or the high schools in the north and the infrastructure,” Mamkwa previously said.
“The mental health issues, the addictions, they don’t want to address those.”
Focus Ontario premiers at 5:30 p.m. on April 5, 2025, on Global TV.
© 2025 Global News, a division of Corus Entertainment Inc.
