April 27, 2026
The Empire Club of Canada Presents
Accelerating a Mining Superpower: Galvanizing the Mining and Critical Minerals Sector for a More Sovereign and Prosperous Canada
Chairperson: Jenna Donelson, Immediate Past Chair, Board of Directors, Empire Club of Canada
Moderator
Robert Peterman, Chief Commercial Officer Toronto Stock Exchange & Global Capital Formation, TMX Group
Panellists
Tony Makuch, President & CEO, Discovery
Mario Grossi, President & CEO, Technica Mining
Shastri Ramnath, CEO, Exiro Minerals
Head Table Guests
Elian Turner, Managing Director & Head, Global Mining & Metals Investment Banking, National Bank Capital Markets
Ian Fitzpatrick, Partner, Freelandt Caldwell Reilly LLP
Welcome Address by Jenna Donelson, Immediate Past Chair, Board of Directors, Empire Club of Canada
Good afternoon, everyone. I’m Jenna Donelson, immediate past chair of the Board of the Empire Club of Canada, and your host for today’s event.
To formally begin, I want to acknowledge that we are gathering on the Traditional and Treaty Lands of the Mississaugas of the Credit, and the homelands of the Anishinaabe, the Haudenosaunee, and the Wendat Peoples. I encourage you all to learn more about the Traditional Territory on which you work and live.
Today’s event would not be possible without the generous support of our sponsors. The Empire Club is a non-profit organization. Our sponsors support the club, and they make events like this possible and reviewing complimentary for those of you that are online. So, please join me in thanking our Lead Sponsors, National Bank Capital Markets, and Freelandt Caldwell Reilly. Thank you. Thank you, as well, to our VIP Reception Sponsors, Anmar, Henley Strategies, Loyalist Exploration Limited, and Sandvik Canada. Thank you for your support. Thank you, as well, to our Supporting Sponsors for this event, Bennett Jones, BMO, Gold Leaf Financial Group, PwC, and TD. Thank you, as well, for your support. We also deeply appreciate the ongoing support of our Lead Season Sponsors, Bruce Power, Hydro One, and National Bank Capital Markets, and our VIP Reception Season Sponsors, Ellis Don, McKinsey & Company, the Ontario Road Builders Association, and Waste Connections of Canada. Thank you, for your ongoing support of the club. And finally, thank you to our Media Partner, The Toronto Star and our AV Partner, Bespoke Audio Visual. Thank you for your support.
If you have a question for our speakers, please scan the QR code that you will find in your program, or through the Q&A function, if you’re online. For those of you online, if you require technical assistance, use the chat feature, and our staff will be there to help.
Everyone here knows this is a critical time for our country. The global geopolitical landscape continues its rapid evolution, and we’re all focused on the questions that matter most. Where does investment go? How will our communities grow? And how does our country compete in this changing world? Our abundant natural resources give us a huge strategic advantage. Gold, iron, nickel, lithium, and cobalt define the modern economy. They power defense systems, electric vehicles and advanced manufacturing. We have what the world needs, but realizing this potential means overcoming real barriers.
This is a conversation the Empire Club has been leading for decades. In 1978, the legendary Canadian mining leader, Stephen Roman, stood at this podium, and warned that regulatory overreach and hostility to enterprise would stifle the producers our country needs. Nearly 50 years later, the sector still faces lengthy permitting processes, immense capital demands and labour shortages. At the same time, new technologies are creating new markets and opportunities. We heard this in 2021, when the Honourable Seamus O’Regan told this club that Canada can lead the electric vehicle revolution from stem to stern, from the actual mining of critical minerals to developing that battery technology. And now, we are hearing a strong urgent call for real action. Last fall, Enbridge CEO, Greg Ebel, told us that if we want to lead in this brave new world of resource development, we need urgent, confident, and investable decisions.
Today, we will explore what it actually takes to position Canada as a mining superpower. Setting a goal is important, we’ve done that. Now, it’s about the hard work of how we get there. Thankfully, we have an exceptional panel to guide this discussion. And before we invite them to the stage, I want to acknowledge the partners who have made this conversation possible. I’m delighted to bring up our Lead Sponsor for today. Elian Turner is the Managing Director and Head of Global Mining and Metals Investment Banking at National Bank Capital Markets. Will you join me in welcoming him to the stage?
Opening Remarks by Elian Turner, Managing Director & Head, Global Mining & Metals Investment Banking, National Bank Capital Markets
Good afternoon. My name is Elian Turner, and I have the privilege of running the Mining Investment Banking Team at National Bank. I’m joined today by a table of my colleagues, and we’re very happy to be the Lead Sponsor for this important discussion. What a time to be in mining.
So now, it is my pleasure to introduce our exceptional guests. Tony Makuch is President and CEO of Discovery Silver. He brings more than 35 years of experience building successful mining companies, including a historic period of growth at Kirkland Lake Gold, and now leading discovery to an almost 8 billion market cap in just under two years, through operational excellence and strategic M&A.
Mario Grossi is President and CEO of Technica Mining. He is a trusted leader in complex underground operations, and a strong advocate for workforce development and Indigenous partnerships.
Shastri Ramnath is Co-Founder and CEO of Exiro Nickel. She recently led the acquisition of the Thompson Nickel Operations from Vale Base Metals to strengthen Canada’s role as a secure and responsible supplier of critical minerals through a unique consortium with Orion Resources, Canada Growth Fund, and Valley Base Metals.
And our moderator today is Robert Peterman, Chief Commercial Officer for the Toronto Stock Exchange, and Global Capital Formation. He oversees capital development for an exchange system that helps raise billions in equity capital for companies worldwide. Please join me in giving a warm welcome to Robert, Tony, Mario, and Shastri.
Robert Peterman, Chief Commercial Officer Toronto Stock Exchange & Global Capital Formation, TMX Group
All right. Let’s take our seats. All right. Good afternoon, everyone. Welcome to the Empire Club of Canada. Today, we aren’t just here to discuss an industry, we’re here to map out a national imperative. Joined by three leaders of the Canadian mining sector, we’re hoping to add a little bit to the dialogue of how Canada wins in a globally competitive environment for the mining sector. And to set the scene, just think a little bit about events like PDAC this year, the amount of global interest at that conference and the number of countries that are here. So, companies competing for capital, but countries coming here to compete for mining capital. And you know, when you think about how many of Canada’s global peers have executed aggressive government strategies for many years, and other peers are starting to execute their strategies around the mining sector right now, there is a lot of work to do for Canada.
Two big investment themes that underpin all of this that we speak about quite a bit. So, one is global scarcity. There are a number of commodities right now, where the world’s not producing enough of them. And so, there’s a huge opportunity to do that. And the other part is the junior engine. So, we know that the juniors are the ones that make about 70% of the discoveries in the world that bring the new mines online. So, an incredibly important role for the junior companies in Canada to play. So, our discussion today, we’re gonna try to touch on four topics and do them justice, but one is supply chain and infrastructure that Canada needs, our talent pipeline, access to capital, and the fourth is policy and partnership.
So, without further ado, we’ll get into our panel, and we’ll be taking some questions on this iPad as the panel goes on. So, I’m gonna start with Tony. And Tony, you’ve recently talked about how you drive capital efficiency, and create results for mining companies. Talk a little bit about what you think is most important, in terms of driving Canadian mining companies forward.
Tony Makuch, President & CEO, Discovery
Well, I mean, I think maybe the first part is you look at all the value chain and value, where we create value in our industry. And I think one thing that should never be lost is the value of exploration, and understanding geology in Canada. We got some exceptional geology. We have lots of deposits that are—and world-class deposits currently being mined. We have lots of high prospective areas to develop, and lots of new areas that you can discover stuff. But you have to recognize exploration is a key value driver, and we have to make sure we put money, it’s high-risk dollars, but we have to put a lot of effort into it, and we gotta run exploration like a business.
The second part is how we create value, and what we do in our industry is how we build the mines, how we develop them, and how we invest capital, in terms of what’s there. And whether it’s in processing plants, whether it’s in infrastructure for underground mine or surface mine, and get it built properly.
And then the third is operational excellence, and we do have a lot of good people in Canada. I mean, we have the skills and the knowledge and the capabilities to carry that forward. I mean, some of the challenges as we go forward is to maintain that, you know, either mentor it, or create the legacy and train people, new people coming in, and do that. And you know, some of the areas we’re missing out on, maybe, is how we don’t advance technology enough, and into our business and automation.
But I mean, those are three of the key value drivers that I see for the industry, and where we gotta focus on. Make sure we understand our business, how we pull that. I mean, there’s a fourth one, in terms of M&A, and how we do proper acquisition of assets. But you know, I’ll leave that for the other people to talk about.
Robert Peterman
Great. All right. So, as I was hosting the market open this morning, the news kept coming in. There was a new sovereign wealth fund announced for Canada. A big transaction was announced for a Canadian energy company. So, we live in very vibrant times. I’m gonna, Mario, I’m gonna go to you. You’re very passionate about the labour side of the mining sector, and asking if you can talk a little bit about how government and industry can work together to fill some of the talent gap that’s needed to move the Canadian mining sector forward.
Mario Grossi, President & CEO, Technica Mining
Yeah, for sure. If you look at all the work that has to be done in Canada, truly galvanize ourselves as a global superpower of critical minerals, we cannot do it without people. And we don’t have an entry level people problem; we have an advanced skills and proficiency problem. So, it’s not about, of course, we can do a better job attracting people, and young people, new people to mining, but we really have a bad gap that we need to work hard on. And how industry and government can work together is stop relying on each other.
And I’ll explain what I mean by that. We have to take the initiatives on our own to do the work, to put the training in, to build the facilities, the engines, so that we can minimize that skills gap. But we can’t rely on the government to do it for us. It’s on people like us as an industry to really take the bull by the horns. We’re building a training facility. Let’s get it built and proven. Then when it’s running, when it’s efficient, when it’s meeting the demands that we know can be met, that’s when we need government assistance.
So, I’ll use an example, or an analogy, that we’ll build the engine as industry, but we need public support afterwards. So, let us get all those tools ready, everything from advanced design and engineering, new technologies, and mastering of the basics—because it’s easy to train, but then we have to provide an environment where you can develop and hone in those skills. So, that’s where I think that that partnership and collaboration will exist between private industry and government. We can’t sit here as private industry and say government, give us all the money, and we’re gonna fix our labor problem. That’s not gonna work. On the other hand, industry cannot train thousands of people that we’re gonna need in the next three years without the help of the government. So, I think that little bit of initiative first from the private side, private sector, that will inspire our governments to pitch in and help fuel that need for us to grow.
Robert Peterman
Great. All right, Shastri, we bring you into the conversation now. So, on new financing models, your recent partnership with the Canada Growth Fund to acquire the Thompson Operations was a landmark transaction. And please talk a little bit about that, and what others can take away from that transaction.
Shastri Ramnath, CEO, Exiro Minerals
Well, I think that it, yes, the consortium between industry and government is required to fund projects. But I wanna expand it to all aspects of the mining cycle. We’re talking, you know, in our case, it’s for an operation that’s already in production. But let’s look at the entire lifespan of the mining cycle. And that includes everybody from the prospector, to the junior company, to the developer, to the operations. And I think, you know, parts of Canada, we have done really well. There’s prospector assistance programs that are on the scale of tens of thousands. There’s junior assistance programs on the scale of hundreds of thousands. And there’s even funding groups like SIDEX, in Québec, which every province should have, where there’s millions of dollars invested into juniors. The challenge we face in Canada is that it’s not all across Canada; it is in certain jurisdictions do it differently. And we really need to start with the explorers, in order to have this pipeline of mining projects.
But I’m not gonna say that it should just be on government. There’s also industry. And Canadians are known for getting creative. I mean, we have the charity flow-through, that has helped a lot of juniors. We also have, I mean, streaming and royalty funding was invented in Canada. And the third piece is things like the BHP Explore Program, where companies now are investing in juniors, in order to jumpstart exploration. So, I think that, going back to your question about the consortium, it needs to be broader than just on operations or development investments.
Robert Peterman
Great. Okay, so Tony, you have experience turning around assets, and non-core assets. We’d like you to talk a little bit about what the important role of, say, like Brownfield, and other projects are gonna be, in terms of meeting the mineral needs that Canada wants to meet for the world right now.
Tony Makuch
Well, yeah, so let me, you know, again, you can have a lot of examples of that. And yeah, I guess you can look at what we’re doing in Porcupine, you can look at what Shastri’s doing in Manitoba, a lot of other areas. I think, and even some of the experience I’ve had in the past where, you know, one of the advantages, first off, what we have on a Brownfield site is you already have permits, you have people, you have infrastructure in place, you have suppliers in place, and you have the know-how. You know, in our industry, we should never underestimate the intellectual property that you have of the people. You know, the tech industry, I guess they focus on intellectual property. We kinda, don’t put enough emphasis on how important that is. We have a lot of intellectual property. So, you got people that know how to run their mines there, they got people that understand how to work in that climate, or in these regions, they understand the geology, they understand, you know, a lot of what’s going on, metallurgy, how do you put it, how it fits within the community. So, part of that, you know, I think in terms of Brownfields, there’s a lot to get from that.
I think the, really, one of the benefits you have is sometimes, you have somebody at Brownfield sites, and I would say, you know, like, as an example, Porcupine, it could be an example of Thompson, where you’ve had a lot of operation going on for a long time, maybe you’ve had tired developers, or tired people, if things have gotten costly, or there’s a chance you need reinvestment, and somebody doesn’t wanna come in back and reinvest, and so we come in, we reinvest. You know, we’re not, you know, I don’t go into the assumption that we’re smarter or better than everybody else. We just, you know—and maybe, you come in at a different time where this is important to us, and we’re gonna invest hard, and we’re gonna take our time and our effort, in terms of making this work. And, you know, that’s the value that we see in Porcupine. There’s still lots of gold left. I mean, definitely, you know, the metal prices help us. I always say high gold prices or high metal prices makes us all smart, when in fact, you know, what’s that old saying, a rising tide raises all ships.
So, you know, we gotta keep, stay humble, keep our feet in the ground, but we have that opportunity with where metal price is going, with the social license, with the acceptance of critical minerals or mining, more so today. So, we can take advantage of it and, you know, a big part of it then is to get investment, and put investment to work properly.
Robert Peterman
So, let’s shift to sort of also looking outside of Canada, what, you know, companies all over the world come here for expertise, and finance advice. Mario, you know, your company is a pillar of the mining services sector. Talk a little bit about what the opportunities are for Canada to export some of that expertise.
Mario Grossi
Yeah, there’s tremendous opportunity. I mean, if you look around the room, I recognize a lot of faces that, in my opinion, after my travels around the world, we have some of the best intellectual property, some of the best ideas, the most creative minds in mining. The opportunity comes, I think, when Shastri touched on it, once we get good at home, the real opportunity of Canada’s power is practice at home, get good at developing Canada as a superpower, and then leverage that and export that. We have a lot of opportunity in that sense, in my opinion.
Robert Peterman
Right. And Shastri, let’s talk a little bit about Indigenous Reconciliation Partnership, and ESG. In the race to become a resource superpower, how do Canadian companies take a leadership position on the global stage, and help the mining sector to move forward?
Shastri Ramnath
So, you know, in areas where there’s mining development, there are—so first of all, as Canadians, and as the industry, we have not, in the past, done a good job with our Indigenous relationships. So, I’d just like to start there. But in the recent time, we have done much better, and we are engaging with communities. And it is easier, when communities are exposed to mining and exploration, especially when it’s a positive experience. There are many areas in Canada where it wasn’t positive, and there have been messes left behind. And, you know, we talk about the pipeline. Where are we gonna get new discoveries? The elephants will be in places where we are currently not looking, and in areas that are remote.
And so, what we found—and, you know, I had run an exploration company for a long time—the challenge is, when you go into these geologically prospective areas, the communities are remote. It’s difficult for them. They don’t have the infrastructure to engage with you. They don’t have simple things, like roads to the town, or to the Reserves. They don’t have proper working internet. So, having a simple phone call can be really difficult. And so, there were some communities that we were engaging, and we wrote letters for them to get funding. But when we talked to the government, the government said, well, we focused the funding for communities who are in mining jurisdictions already. And the challenge was is these are future. They have geological potential for mining. But they didn’t have access to not just money or capital, but also access to people who can help them plan, and be, and administrate themselves.
And then I’ll flip it to the other side. As a junior company, it, you know, we don’t have the budgets as, you know, the typical junior doesn’t have the budgets to just fly up to a remote community and engage. So, we need to help junior companies get organized, not just in terms of funding again, but also educate them on how to be respectful when you go to a community, and how do you engage? And there’s the three cups of tea, where we need to listen to the communities, and understand what they want. And the truth is, not every community wants mining. And I think we have to be respectful for those that don’t. But often what we found, 9 times out of 10, they just don’t know how to engage, and that’s where we need to help them.
Robert Peterman
Right. All right. So, talk a little bit about jurisdictional risk—I’m going to come back to you, Tony, you have operations in both Canada and Mexico. Can you provide the government of Canada on some of the key advice that they would need to make Canada a more attractive jurisdiction for mining investment?
Tony Makuch
Yeah. Good questions. I mean, you know, whether you look at Canada and Mexico—actually, in Mexico, there’s some exceptional geology in Mexico, lots of elephant deposits as Shastri might’ve alluded to, in a lot of areas where not necessarily remote, and you’ve got people there that are very intelligent, very hardworking, very industrious, in terms of what they can do. So, you have all those things happening in Mexico. And I look at what we have in Canada, well, we have a lot of the same stuff—the climate’s a little different, we speak a little bit of a different language, but we have a lot of similar skillsets.
So, but when you look at whether somebody’s gonna invest in Mexico, or in Australia, or anywhere else versus investing in Canada, I think it’s a couple things. First of all, if you wanna know that you have a clear path that if I invest the dollars that they’re gonna go to work properly, that I’m gonna get return for what I do, I have a high standard, in terms of how I’m gonna deal with, whether it’s communities and people, and I know that there’s that in place, that I have an understanding of what the regulatory environment is, things aren’t gonna change on us over time. You have all these in Canada, and you have the ability to attract new investment in Canada. We just—you know, and maybe we’re at a crossroads here, where all of a sudden there’s more of a social acceptance after myself, somebody said 35 years, but I’ll be, you know, add another 15 or 20 years of that experience. But where all of a sudden it’s socially acceptable to recognizing that we need mining, and all minerals are critical, and we need mining, in terms of what we do. So, as that comes in, and then as the investment dollars come in, and recognize, and so you get socially accepted. And then we need to be able to take that, and invest in all parts of the value chain in the industry.
Robert Peterman
Right. So, one of the government policy initiatives we’ve seen is the First and Last Mile. And so, Mario, with like your role on the ground working in the mining industry, what are the biggest gaps around the last mile that the government needs, and government and industry need to address?
Tony Makuch
That’s another tough question. Look, in any operation, you’re not finished until you’re finished, and you can’t get there without the infrastructure. When you look at the steps that we’ve made as a province and as a country with Bill 5, Bill C5, 1P1P, there are a lot of great initiatives taking place. I think on that last mile, we have to remain resilient, and we have to keep pushing. We have to get to those deposits, to Shastri’s point. There’s a lot of work to do.
Robert Peterman
Okay, Shastri, let’s talk about the junior pipeline. So, as we think about moving these projects forward, what are the most important things that you think the government of Canada and industry need to do, to move those forward?
Shastri Ramnath
Okay. So, I don’t know if you know, but I’m a geologist. So, I’m gonna switch away from money, and talk about data. I think that one of the things we’ve done well as, in Canada, is our how we deal with historical data. So, generally speaking, the governments, the various surveys across Canada have been custodians of historical data. So when you file an assessment report or do your work, you have to file it with the government. So, the government takes that data, and they’ve been, you know, generally, they put it on a website. We need to get better at that. Because there’s still boxes of paper sitting there. In this day and age, you can actually search that paper if, it’s even as simple as a PDF. So, I think one is how we are custodians of data.
The second is, these geological surveys, they actually do collect data. So, they’ll do programs of geological mapping, geochemical sampling, geophysical serving, and then they’ll put that out for the public to then utilize, to go and generate new projects. And then the third piece with the surveys is that they offer free advisors. The geologists who work at those surveys, you can just phone them, and ask them questions, and they’re experts. Often, they’ve been there for 30 years. They know the belts, they know the jurisdictions, they know the commodities.
And why this is important to get even better at this—because it is inconsistent, again, across Canada—is because you can have a geologist with a CFO, who’s a junior company, you know, a small junior company in Australia, if they have access to our data, they can then be generating their expiration thesis from the other side of the world. And if you’re in a jurisdiction where you can even map stake, which means you can go on, and pick where you’re gonna stake your claims, you can actually start spending money from the other side of the world in Canada. And if we—we should get, we need to get better at putting that data out there, so that we can generate more expiration, which will then, that will create the pipeline for the new mining projects.
Robert Peterman
Great. So, in a second, we’re gonna go to the audience, and we’re getting questions in from the audience, so please send those in, and we’ll let that drive the discussion. But I do want to ask each of the panellists just for their view about government policy right now. And I’ll summarize what I see as kind of the three largest initiatives from the government, and you know, with your position in the mining sector, would love you to sort of respond to what you think is the most important thing from your perspective. So, first of all, we have the Building Canada Act, and we have the Major Projects Office. Right now, we understand there are five mining projects that are in the Major Projects Office. Almost all of those include mine and integrated facilities. So, mine and processing facilities are in those five projects. You have the First and Last Mile Infrastructure Fund. And then the other is the expansion of the Economic Reconciliation Agreements. So, the ability to help fund the investment from Indigenous communities.
So, when you think about those three policy initiatives—and if anyone has views on the new fund that was announced today, that would be great—but when you think about those three government initiatives, what’s the number one thing that jumps out at you, or where are you seeing, you know, things missing? So, what’s your response to those initiatives from government? Maybe, Mario, I’ll start with you.
Mario Grossi
Sure. Yeah. The new fund that was announced today, I’m a very big fan. I think, when we talk about galvanizing ourselves as Canadians as critical mineral superpowers, we’re doing a really great, great job. The investment that the Canada Growth Fund participated in with Exiro is a classic example of what I mean by that. It means the government, our government, is investing our tax dollars into our projects. We are creating jobs for Canadians. It is getting a handle, a firm handle, on the output, the downstream, those critical minerals. I think, generally speaking, I’m very happy with the way the government is working, both provincially and federally. There are a lot of things to overcome.
The biggest roadblock for me, or the biggest concern that I have, is that we’re doing all these things to make our car go faster, but the brakes is the fact that we don’t have human capital. And the faster we allow permitting, the more that government at the federal and provincial level participates in mining projects, those are great. But if we really don’t get a grasp on the workforce that’s required to capitalize, to maximize our resources, to maximize current metal prices, current precious metal prices, those are great, but we really need—and again, I’m speaking from that passion part on labour—but just in attrition alone is 40%. We can’t keep up. And so, we really need to have that concerted effort.
And what I was mentioning a little bit earlier is that I’m not gonna rely on government to come help us. That’s not their job. Their job is to help us when we’re ready to be helped. And so, we’re taking initiatives to drive our own training facility. And we’ll show our governments, both provincial and federally, this is the world-class training facility for mechanized mining, no longer in [Indiscernible], where we develop new technology. And that’s when we can lean on the government, provincial and federally say, here’s our working model, help us, because we need to fill this pipeline.
Robert Peterman
Shastri, your thoughts?
Shastri Ramnath
Well, I think I’m gonna go back to one of the answers I’ve already said, is that I think there’s funds available, and I think there’s a disconnect between people who need the funding, and know how to apply for it. And I’m going back to the Indigenous communities again, because I think that that’s where our pipeline is really gonna start. And again, it’s 9 out of 10 communities are interested, but don’t know how to get organized—and I’m talking about in the remote parts of Canada. So, I think if there’s a better way for us to be able to deploy that funding, to get it to people who really need it.
Robert Peterman
Tony, any thing you’d like to add?
Tony Makuch
Well, yeah. I think, first and foremost, you know, we talk about the value drivers in the business, and recognizing we need access to funds and expiration is one, you need a lot of access to funds. And so, that’s important to go and discover new deposits. And I recognize the initiative of building new mines in Canada. And you can see that our nickel production, our copper production, a lot of zinc production, a lot of—except for gold production in Canada—a lot of the metals that a lot of things we produce has been going down year over year, in terms of what’s on globally.
But one of the other fundamental parts of all that is, like, 90% of our nickel, 95% of our nickel goes off shore to be upgraded. All of our copper—none of the copper gets, it’s worked in Canada. A lot of it goes out as concentrate, same as with the zinc. So, we need to have a plan that reinvest back into smelters and refineries. We need to reinvest back into secondary upgrading, and actually produce the metal here.
And then I’ll go one step further. We also need to now invest in the end use of these products. And you know, I can throw something out there, just let’s say we mine nickel. We’re mining nickel in Sudbury. We have Algoma Steel sitting there in Sault Ste-Marie that’s been a dead industry, or a hard industry to try to be economically viable for years—I shouldn’t say a dead industry. They’ve had a hard time. Why wouldn’t we make stainless steel? Why wouldn’t we think outside the box? Why don’t we, when you look at countries like China, let’s say we ship $20 billion of nickel to China, they sell this back, they turn that into $200 billion worth of value. We, you know, you go to a country like Japan, they have smelters and refineries. They don’t mine anything. They bring in stuff from all of the concentration, from all over the world. They got one of the cleanest economies. They’re vibrant, they’re innovative. There’s research and technology. You know, a lot of that is, it’s not just all coming from Canada, but a lot of that is things that we could try to bring back home. I know when we were doing the work on a project in Mexico, and we’re making, you know, a silver concentrate, and we’re making a zinc concentrate. And you know, when we’re looking for a home for these concentrates, well, 75% of it is in Asia. And so, you’re taking that product, that metal, and you’re shipping it to somebody else, and then you got to ask for it back.
So, if we really want to think about strategic and we’re building strategic roads—yeah, we can build more mines and we do need to build more mines in Canada, and we do need to invest to get our production back up to where it was from a, from a, excuse me, world scale. But we also got to think bigger picture, bring the smelters back, and reinvest in these, whether it’s the horn smelter, whether it’s the things in Sudbury, et cetera. I don’t know when the last new ones have been invested in, and/or when have these been upgraded. But I think we got to think of doing that, as well.
Robert Peterman
Yeah, and you can read a lot about this that would say look like 5X or 8X of the value is actually in the refining of the resource. And then, of course, the control you talk about, Tony. So, just like Mario, Shastri, anything you want to add just on, you know, like what we need to do to build this processing capacity in Canada, to drive some of this value. Do we need to choose the minerals that we’re investing in processing? What would you like to see?
Shastri Ramnath
Well, all I was gonna say is I know a smelter that can be rebuilt in Manitoba. So, yes, we do, we do. I think looking at different areas too for multi-commodity, and making sure that we’re not just, you know—I look at the Thompson Nickel Belt, for example, it’s never been explored for gold. And so, we need to be able to actually open up, and think differently about how when a company has a belt, and controls an entire district, how we can get them to have other commodities explored for in those areas.
Mario Grossi
Yeah, and I think, as Canadians, we should have a lot to be grateful for. You know, there are a lot of things that are happening in our industry that are good. And we just need a little bit of time to digest these programs, how to fit these programs into our ecosystem. And I agree with Tony, if we are going to be a superpower in critical minerals, we can’t just stop at mining. It has to be in the refining, and then it has to be in the value add. So, I agree. And I think what we need to do is there’s a lot of global noise going on. Just take a deep breath. And as Canadians, as a mining industry, with our support of federal and provincial governments, now’s the time to put our heads down and go to work.
QUESTIONS & ANSWERS
Robert Peterman
Great. So, we’re gonna shift to some audience questions, but we’re gonna start with a video questions. I think, Jessica, you’re gonna roll a question from a student from TMU for our panellists.
Video Question from David Kim, TMU Student
Hi, my name is David Kim. I study Global Management Studies at the Ted Rogers School of Management at Toronto Metropolitan University. I’m also representing the Global Management Students Association. My question is that Canada has the geology to become a mining superpower, but overseas, Australia has a more aggressive fiscal toolkit. China is locking up global supply through overseas acquisitions, and Indonesia has built unparalleled scale and cost advantages nickel. In a multi-polar system like this, what is Canada’s realistic competitive advantage? Thank you.
Robert Peterman
Does someone wanna take the first crack at answering how Canada will compete on the global stage? We’ve got competing with Indonesia in nickel, with Australia for the incentives they’re providing for exploration.
Tony Makuch
Well, I’ll start. I mean, you know, I’ve been to a lot of these places or, you know, first and foremost, when you talk about trying to compete, let’s say with Australia, they’re good explorers, they’re good miners. They know what they do. I remember sitting underground in a mine in Australia, and somebody asked me, “What did you think?” I said, “Well, if I close my ears and I open my eyes, they’re doing exactly the same kind of work, even something better than we do.” So, you know, in terms of what they do in processes, they’re really good at it. The mineral endowment is pretty strong in Australia. You know, there’s lots of exploration. And yeah, they explore well, and they have lots of potential, but so do we, in Canada. We’re good at what we do. We have good technical people. We have good operating people. We have good work ethic, similar to what I would talk about in Mexico.
I think what will separate us, allow us to compete, is again, recognize we can’t just be like Australia ships almost a billion tons of iron ore off the west coast to Asia, and they ship about 800 million tons of coal off the east coast. You know, and we always kidded on one time, the world’s one time’s gonna flip upside down, the south pole’s gonna be the north pole. But the point of it all is, if we stay as just a primary resource, developer and producer, and ship all our concentrates on our products somewhere else, then we lose fact with all the other opportunities. So, how do we separate ourselves? Again, I’ll go back and let’s, we gotta vertically integrate our business. We gotta go back to building smelters and refineries. We can do it clean, we can do it properly, and then invest in other industries that are the byproducts of that. We have all the minerals here. We can take all the minerals, and we can make our own products, you know. All the minerals to build batteries are in Canada, but we don’t build any batteries in Canada. We ship all this stuff to China, and they build the batteries, right?
Robert Peterman
Good. Shastri, Mario, do you wanna go ahead?
Shastri Ramnath
I really think it comes down to how we, how we basically advertise ourselves to the world for global investment. This might not be a popular answer, but I think we need to be showing how much potential there is for, I’m going back to discovery again, and for mineral development projects. We should be attracting capital to Canada, and we need to show how much opportunity there is here. If you look at some of Manitoba, Ontario, Québec, how many greenstone belts are sitting there completely unexplored? There’s elephants in those greenstone belts, and we don’t put it out, we don’t open it up, and advertise that we’re open for business enough. And we want other foreign money being spent in our countries for the benefit of Canadians, and that will help us make discoveries, and get access to metals that we want, that are controlled by our country.
Robert Peterman
Great.
Mario Grossi
Sure. If David’s listening, my answer to his question would be very simple. If part of the question says, China’s locking up global supply through overseas acquisition, right? So today we announced, or we—I’d like to take credit for it; I have nothing to do with it—but the new fund, Sovereign Fund of $25 billion, those are the steps that we need to do. If Canada’s going to be competitive—and I touched on a point I made earlier—before we go and become global experts in exporting our services, we have to look in the mirror, and say we have a lot of work to do internally. From the federal level, at the provincial level, as an industry, we have a lot of work to do.
Why Canada over Indonesia? All these young folks have YouTube, do your own research. Canada is one of the most ethical producers of nickel. You ask what our advantage is, we respect the communities that we work in, we respect the people that work for us in the communities, we respect the environment, and we’re producing high-grade nickel. So, what gives us our advantage is that we produce Canadian nickel.
Robert Peterman
Great. I was just gonna add from a capital perspective, if you look right now at the world, and where capital’s being raised around the world, it’s almost all the mining capital now is being raised either in Canada or Australia, and London’s not very active in that market anymore. And we were proud to announce a transaction last week that allows us to, we’ve acquired the—or at least announced a transaction to acquire an exchange in Australia, and the potential to unite both of these places, in terms of access to capital and liquidity for the Canadian market.
But I’m gonna go to the iPad here for some questions. So, our panellists haven’t seen these questions, so they’re just gonna have to react on the spot. But since we’re in Ontario, what better topic to start with than the Ring of Fire? So, a question has come in for our panellists. Don’t all jump at once, but is the Ring of Fire viable, and could it be expedited with a project through the Major Projects Office?
Tony Makuch
Maybe, I’ll talk. I mean, we have a number of other areas in Ontario, say that, you know, we can say we already have a couple of rings of fires that are already burning, right? And going whether it’s in Abitibi, in Northeastern Ontario, whether it’s in Sudbury—and then we do have the Ring of Fire, where it is in Northwestern Ontario. I was talking to somebody, and I was thinking about like, we gotta keep ourselves in perspective. If the Ring of Fire, if Sudbury was discovered today, or when the Ring of Fire was discovered, would it be developed, or would we still be talking about it, right? And if Timmins was only discovered in 2020, 2021 versus 1908, would we have developed it? We’ve got to, you know—so the Ring of Fire is extremely viable. There’s lots there, there’s been a lot of investment put into the Ring of Fire.
There’s still a lot more investment. And a lot of it is still the Greenfield investment and exploration, et cetera. You know, like the priority, yeah, you need roads, you need infrastructure, you need power. But some of the investment that needs to go in there is exploration, and work and, you know, we need to put support, in terms of building it. Because, again, what would you think 100 years from now, if we were here 100 years later, somebody, and they were still talking about the Ring of Fire in Sudbury, and it’s not developed yet. So, you know, it’s something that needs to be taken seriously. I think it is something that’s important. I’m not sure that there’s a project ready to be built at this point in time. But there definitely has to be more emphasis, in terms of investment, and to bring in that forward, and more acceptance of what needs to be done there, right?
Robert Peterman
Anyone wanna add to that?
Mario Grossi
I agree with Tony. We’re very blessed in Canada to have known jurisdictions that were past producers, and still continue to have at least twice the useful life of mine left in them. Do I think, do I believe that the Ring of Fire is the right thing to do? Absolutely. If we’re going to be leaders in critical minerals, we have to look at the longer term ones. But to Tony’s point, we cannot ignore the ones that are in the ground that we know of today. If we look at Sudbury as an example, we’re probably about 30% drilled off? Fair?
Tony Makuch
Well, I would hazard to say that probably 10 deposits in the Sudbury basin undeveloped that are equal or better than the nickel deposit in the Ring of Fire. That doesn’t mean that we should ignore these ones. That doesn’t mean we should ignore the other ones.
Mario Grossi
Yeah. So, I think the true opportunity is really a concerted effort on what we have known now, and don’t let our foot off the gas on the Ring of Fire. So, they both have to happen, in my opinion.
Robert Peterman
Great. All right. Well, I’m gonna jump into one of the other more controversial questions that came in, but you know, would really enjoy your view. We’ve seen a lot of M&A around the mining sector. A lot of it are Canadian companies combining, and putting assets together. But we’ve also seen over the years international companies coming in, and buying Canadian companies. And there was a transaction announced today with Shell Canada announced a transaction to buy Arc Energy in Alberta. So, what are your thoughts on these transactions, and how do you think the government should react to these sorts of transactions?
Tony Makuch
Well, first and foremost, I mean, you know, I believe in capitalism, and socially responsible capitalism, and a fair market to do things. And when you see this investment, I mean, you have a foreign investment coming in, and we should acknowledge it and be happy that it’s happening there. At some point in time, we’ve gotta shake ourselves within. But why would, as Canadians, don’t we believe in some of our own products, our own areas? And why aren’t Canadians investing more into Canadian things? So, that’s a bigger question.
I know, you know, when you talk about what happened in Sudbury, when Vale bought Sudbury, no Canadian company came forward and said, oh, we’ll outbid you. No Canadian company came forward, and looked, outbid for the acquisition of tech. And there’s things that happened there. So, we have to start thinking of that. We have to look internally within ourselves. We have to—and in terms of the investment in climate. But recognizing you’re competing for investment dollars all the time. And if me, as a Canadian, I can invest in Canada and get a dollar five, and I can invest somewhere else and get a dollar fifty for it. Everybody’s gonna be looking at that. So, I don’t discredit the—sorry, say it’s a bad thing. We should be happy to see the investment coming in from foreign companies. We should find ways to support that investment from Canadian companies as well, so.
Robert Peterman
Great, well, so we only have a minute left, and trying to stay on schedule here. But I did want to give each of them, before we thank the panellists, each of them, 20 seconds just to, you know, closing thoughts, things that you think are important, that you’d want the audience to take away. And, Mario, maybe we’ll start with you, and work our way down the panel.
Mario Grossi
Yeah, just, I don’t think we’ve ever been in a better position as a country to really become that superpower in critical minerals. We have a lot of work to do. We’re not out of the woods. But we have a provincial government, as I mentioned. We have a federal government that are very supportive. They’ve identified what we need to be that superpower. We have a lot of work to do. It’s not a home run, but at least for the first time in a long time in our industry, I could see that runway. And it looks great. We’ve got to attract new people to industry. We’ve got to make mining cool again. Because mining really will be our true economic engine. And we have to, it has to be a concerted effort. From academia, to industry, to the public sector, and government. So, it’s a brilliant runway. We just have to put our heads down and go to work.
Robert Peterman
Great. Shastri?
Shastri Ramnath
So, I think Canada—thank you—I think everything you’ve said is what I would agree with. I think Canada has been, if you look at us globally, compared to other countries, I think we have done a good job. And that we’re really, we just want to be better. So, I think that we have been in the past a superpower. And I think that we can, but I think we can do better.
Tony Makuch
You know, maybe I’ll talk a little bit about that, even in terms of what Mario discussed. In terms of people, you know, definitely this industry needs people. I’ll applaud the provincial government. They started talking about, you know, getting people to go and become trades. We need trades people. We need that across Canada. We need to act, and recognize that mining is sexy. It’s a great place to work. There’s lots of interesting jobs to do. You can be an environmental, you can be a lawyer, you can be an accountant, you can be an entrepreneur. There’s lots of really neat stuff to do, right? And so, we need to bring that back, and the acceptance of mining as a whole, and acceptance for people that, you know, if somebody grows up, and not like my father, who said, “Well, I don’t want you to work in a mine.” Where people sit there and say, “Hey, we want you to work in a mine.” And where communities call me up, and say, “Hey, can you build a mine beside our town, because you’re gonna do good things, and you’re gonna help us. You’re gonna bring prosperity.”
Robert Peterman
Great. I would say, I do think, as a country, we’re gonna need to make some bets on some of the minerals that we think are most important for us to build processing capabilities—not that we won’t build other capabilities, but we’ve gotta start somewhere, and make some of the biggest bets on that part of our value chain for the mining sector. But if everyone would join me with a quick round of applause, I’d very much appreciate all of the panellists here.
Marsha Seca, 2nd Vice-Chair, Empire Club of Canada, President, Broad View Advisory Inc.
Robert, Tony, Mario, and Shastri, thank you so much. You may take your seats. You made it clear what it will take to secure our supply chains, build our competitive edge, and position Canada as a global mining superpower. Today is a powerful reminder that institutions matter. Partnerships matter. Public dialogue matters. These are exactly the kinds of conversations the Empire Club exists to hold. Before we conclude our program, I want to recognize our Lead Sponsor, Freelandt Caldwell Reilly LLP, Northern Ontario’s largest private accounting firm. And a special thank you to my friend, Ed Riley, who always leads with kindness, and the pursuit of excellence.
Conversations of this calibre happen because of strong partnerships with leaders of industry just like yourselves. We appreciate your commitment to advancing this critical dialogue, and the role you play in driving success in Canada’s mining sector. Please join me, in welcoming Ian Fitzpatrick, partner at FCR, to the stage to share a few closing remarks.
Note of Appreciation by Ian Fitzpatrick, Partner, Freelandt Caldwell Reilly LLP
Good afternoon, everyone. On behalf of Freelandt Caldwell Reilly, I’d like to welcome you, and thank the Empire Club of Canada for hosting today’s discussion. We’re proud to be the Lead Sponsor of this important event. Freelandt Caldwell Reilly, for everybody’s knowledge, is a full service accounting, tax, and advisory firm with 185 professionals rooted across Northern Ontario. We work closely with companies across the mining and natural resource sector, supporting them through the growth, transactions, and increasingly complex regulatory and capital environment. We see firsthand how critical this industry is, not just for our clients, but to Canada’s economic future. That’s why today’s conversation is so timely. Canada has a unique opportunity to strengthen its position as a global leader in mining and critical minerals, an industry that is essential to everything from energy transition to national security. Bringing together leaders like those we had on stage today is exactly what’s needed to move that conversation forward.
For us, sponsoring the event is more about, more than just visibility, it’s about contributing to the conversations that will shape the future of this sector, and ultimately, Canada’s role on the global stage. We were very excited to hear from today’s panel, and to be part of the dialogue. Thank you again for being here, and we really hope you enjoyed the discussion.
Concluding Remarks by Jenna Donelson
Thanks, Ian, for those remarks. Thank you again to our panellists, our sponsors, and of course to all of you for joining us. Before we wrap up, I’d like to take a moment to recognize the students and young leaders we have joining us today. Their presence is made possible through our charitable arm, the Empire Club Foundation, and the generosity of our donors. This support enables us to invite future leaders to take part in today’s dialogue and to empower them to turn knowledge into leadership that shines in their communities, in boardrooms, and in the national conversations shaping Canada’s future. Mario, I think you’ve inspired a couple of our students to get into mining today, so I think there’s some benefit there too.
To stay connected with us, please subscribe to our newsletter by scanning the QR code on your tables. I also hope you’ll join us for a few upcoming events. I’m excited to announce that we have a newly added event to our calendar on May 6th. We will be welcoming the Honourable François Philippe Champagne, Canada’s Minister of Finance and National Revenue. Just one week after the federal Spring Economic Statement, he will be coming to our platform to outline the country’s fiscal priorities, and the strategic choices required to navigate global volatility and ensure long-term economic resilience for Canada.
And on Tuesday, May 12th, we host the second annual “State of the Airport.” Deborah Flint, President and CEO of Toronto Pearson, will outline the next generation of growth for Canada’s Gateway Airport. She and Andrew Willis from the Globe and Mail will dive into how the Pearson Economic Zone drives prosperity across our country. I know that will be an exciting one.
And finally, I am happy to announce that on June 2nd, we have our inaugural Empire Club Golf Tournament. Please visit our website for more information on that. Tickets for all events are on sale now.
As always, and as a club of record, all Empire Club events are available to watch and listen to on our website. A recording of today’s event will be available shortly. Thank you all for being a part of this conversation. I hope you have a wonderful afternoon. This meeting is now adjourned. Thank you.
