Feeling left out: northern Ontario junior miners want more critical minerals funding

Junior mining exploration companies in northern On‐ tario are feeling a little left out of government funding aimed at growing electric vehicle battery production.

The federal and provincial governments recently an‐ nounced they are investing billions of dollars in subsidies to attract and build electric vehicle battery plants in On‐ tario.

Ottawa is giving the Volk‐ swagen St. Thomas, Ont. plant up to $13 billion in subsidies over the next decade alone.

That's about three times more money than what is be‐ ing spent on the federal criti‐ cal mineral strategy, which commits to spending $3.8 bil‐ lion over the next eight years.

"I think they need to look at it from both angles," said Harry Barr, CEO of New Age Metals.

"Our end of it is obviously more risky than maybe build‐ ing a battery plant, but they're going to have to help us a little bit more if they want an end product."

New Age Metals owns pal‐ ladium properties in Temis‐ caming, Ont. and has one of the largest undeveloped pri‐ mary palladium projects in North America.

Ontario has invested $35 million in its junior explo‐ ration program since 2021 to support companies like New Age Mining.

However, Barr said his company has had to rely on its own funding contributions to develop its projects, be‐ cause it hasn't been able to access provincial funding so far.

"We've applied for and lit‐ erally on the day it opens two years in a row and we haven't got anything because the funds were gone."

Barr said people have heard a lot about the govern‐ ment investments being made to attract EV battery plants, but said more of those funds need to extend to the critical mineral sector as well.

"We would hope that there'd be more and more available." he said.

"We're not just a company saying we're going to go out and drill a few holes and hope to find a deposit. We actually have a deposit and we'd like some help you know in vari‐ ous ways on it going forward." Less reliance on China Rachel Ziemba is a senior fellow at the Center for a New American Security, a think tank based in Washington, D.C.

She said there is an in‐ creasing recognition of how important critical mineral sup‐ ply chains are for the energy transition, from oil-fuelled ve‐ hicles to electric vehicles.

"There's been a recogni‐ tion that there needs to be more investment," she said.

"This is also coming at a time when countries like the U.S and, to some extent, countries like Canada are very much focused on trying to re‐ duce the reliance and domi‐ nance on China in that supply chain."

Ziemba said Canada has recently stepped up its fund‐ ing to attract and build elec‐ tric vehicle battery plants to keep up with the U.S and Eu‐ rope.

"There is money being sort of thrown at this point to make sure that Canada can al‐ so be part of the EV supply chain," she said.

She adds that in the gov‐ ernment's haste to invest, critical mineral projects can get left behind.

"The problem is that so much money is going to these battery plants, and much less money and time and policy I think is being spent on the raw materials and the partial‐ ly processed materials that will actually be used in those plants."

Ziemba says she worries that if not enough funding is contributed to the critical mineral sector, it will take longer to produce the materi‐ als needed for any EV battery plants.

She says in that case, Canada may have to continue relying on minerals imported from other countries.