Why Doug Ford's controversial law to fast-track development is focused on the Ring of Fire

Hamilton Spectator

6 days ago

The story
In the beginning, when it was still called Kawana 'bi 'kag, no one imagined that the 5,000 square kilometres near James Bay might one day save Canada from economic warfare launched by an American president named Donald Trump.
There's nothing like an existential crisis, it seems, to focus a country's attention on unearthing billions of dollars worth of critical minerals.
Amid First Nations protests and legal challenges, Premier Doug Ford passed Bill 5, creating sweeping new powers to fast-track development and in the north, that means brushing past years of delay on the land now known as the Ring of Fire.
It holds what the world craves: nickel, chromite (for chromium), cobalt and more, all needed for global security or green energy. And all often in short supply, threatening economic devastation from supply chain disruption.
Ford wants jobs for Ontarians. Prime Minister Mark Carney needs economic prosperity independent of America and its mercurial president.
Now, nearly 20 years after the minerals were first discovered, the Ring of Fire may be entering its prime time. Although, as First Nations leaders recently observed, Trump will be out of office long before the mining roads are built, so why the 'unconstitutional' rush?
Here is an explainer on the remote north, a place of conundrums.
The earth
You may ask, what makes these minerals critical?
In short, the digital and green economies of the future — including massive new infrastructure needed to support artificial intelligence — will not exist without them.
'There is no energy transition without critical minerals: no batteries, no electric cars, no wind turbines and no solar panels,' a federal minerals strategy once said.
Depending on market fluctuations, minerals hold immense value. The Democratic Republic of Congo provides 70 per cent of the world's cobalt. Indonesia supplies 40 per cent of nickel. And China is the largest processor of minerals, a dominance that has, on occasion, led to disruptive trade practices and price swings, according to a recent Public Policy Forum report.
Deposits locked under the Ring of Fire include:
Nickel:
It is used in the production of stainless steel and is increasingly valued in advanced technologies, particularly in batteries for electric vehicles.
Cobalt:
Considered essential for the production of military equipment, it is used to produce superalloys used to make jet engines, missiles and submarines.
Copper:
Used in electric vehicles, wind turbines, solar power panels, and battery energy storage systems, it is also considered essential for the creation of data centres that will support artificial intelligence.
Chromite:
This is the ore from which
chromium
is extracted. Chromium is essential to the manufacture of stainless steel.
Platinum:
A metal that plays a vital role in autocatalysts, which reduce greenhouse gas emissions from vehicle tailpipes.
Palladium:
A 'platinum group element,' it is used in electronics and in vehicle emission reductions.
The timeline
As modern mining lore has it, speculators in the Hudson Bay lowlands discovered its chromite in 2007.
Depending on the loquaciousness of the storyteller, one or several prospectors were
Johnny Cash fans
and so inspired, quickly named the lands around their discovery the Ring of Fire, launching years of environmental assessments, ownership changes and new mining claims.
The Ring of Fire was included in Ontario's 2010 speech from the throne and in the ensuing years, premiers Dalton McGuinty and Kathleen Wynne raved over its potential, although Sudbury already mines critical minerals.
And in 2018, along came Doug Ford.
Running for the premier's job, he promised to build roads to the untouched minerals, which were in a distant region of the province accessible only by airplanes or (melting) ice highways.
'If I have to hop on a bulldozer myself, we're going to start building roads to the Ring of Fire,' Ford tweeted.
This did not impress the First Nations who make Kawana 'bi 'kag their home.
Today, seven years and two elections later, with no roads built, Trump's antics inspired new laws rushed through the Ontario legislature and the House of Commons: Ford's Bill 5, the 'Protect Ontario by Unleashing the Economy Act' and Carney's Bill C-5, the 'One Canadian Economy Act.' Before Carney met with First Nations leaders on July 17, he promised 'Indigenous equity and full participation' in Canada's new economy. When the meeting ended, the chiefs' were not convinced.
The constitutionality of both laws faces a legal challenge by nine First Nations chiefs, who called Ontario's law a massive overreach that gives the government unlimited development powers across the province. As one said, Ontarians should be worried.
The request for an injunction, the chiefs' lawyer said, will likely be heard within a year.
The miners
In the world of prospecting, ownership is known to change hands. Australia-based Wyloo acquired Noront in 2022 and with it, the Ring of Fire's 'Eagle's Nest' project.
While Juno Corp. appears to have the most mining claims in the region, Wyloo says its development progress is the most advanced, in terms of passing government hurdles.
Wyloo's footprint, its corporate documents say, will cover just one square kilometre. Instead of an open pit, Eagle's Nest will be vertical, plunging 1,600 metres into the ground, with below-surface space to store tailings, the leftover materials.
The company's current projections say it will annually produce 15,000 tonnes of nickel, 6,000 tonnes of copper, 70,000 ounces of palladium, 22,000 ounces of platinum and 340 tonnes of cobalt.
And as for the fragile peatlands across the region?
Wyloo's mine, its document says, will mainly be built on 'uplands' and not the low-lying peatlands.
But there is a different threat: road construction.
The ecosystem
The Ring of Fire is rich with watery peatlands, a fragile, living entity of decaying plant matter that traps carbon equal to many decades of greenhouse gas emissions. And yet the earth here also holds minerals needed to build the energy-saving solar panels and electric cars of the future.
This is an environmental predicament.
If new mining roads disturb the peatlands by as little as three per cent, Wildlands League's Anna Baggio says data shows that the equivalent of 62 million tonnes of carbon dioxide would be released.
Climate change is already threatening peatlands, from nearby wildfires to melting permafrost. So it was not surprising to see 'peatland' cited 113 times in a 2025 draft environmental assessment for a proposal by Marten Falls First Nations to build and maintain an all-season access road. Marten Falls chief says the road would connect the remote community to health supports and economic opportunities. A separate proposal would link a series of new roads to the Ring of Fire mines.
Last week, Marten Falls First Nation said it held a joint ceremony with Webequie First Nation, (which is has filed a proposal to build another road) and together, took down a ceremonial teepee erected last year. It symbolized, the Marten Falls news release said, the 'joint and mutually respectful process required between the First Nations and development proponents.'
First Nation communities on the Treaty 9 land have expressed concern about environmental risk, noting the age-old relationship between peatlands, water systems and wildlife. But much like Marten Falls, many also say they want development — and a seat at the decision-makers' table. Ford's Bill 5, some say, killed the opportunity for government discussions, forcing protests or legal action.
Eabametoong Chief Solomon Atlookan leads one of many First Nations communities in the region. In June, Atlookan wrote a letter to Ford and Carney, warning their new laws could leave governments tied up in court challenges or worse, create dangerous confrontations on the land.
'Cranking up the legislative bulldozer,' Atlookan wrote, 'will not yield positive outcomes.'