Manitoba mineral production set to triple, premier says

Manitoba plans to triple mineral production in the next five years “to unlock a new era of wealth creation and growth,” Premier Wab Kinew said Tuesday.

“We’re going to make sure that opportunity is spread throughout the province,” he said at a news conference at the Canada investment summit in Toronto.

The province is working with industry and Indigenous governments to send a message to investors that “we’re going to do mining right in Manitoba,” the premier said.

For too long, Manitoba has lagged behind neighbouring provinces, Kinew said.

“What we’ve needed was the right environment and the right connection between people. So we’re going to make this happen. We’re going to (triple) mining production on our way to growing our economy,” he said, flanked by Mining Minister Jamie Moses and industry representatives.

The province is developing a fast-track pathway through environmental licensing for advanced projects and supporting streamlined early mineral exploration, it said in a news release.

Moses told reporters the government has reduced mine permitting time from more than 300 days to less than 95 days, on average.

Manitoba is working on a “risk-based licensing framework” and hiring more staff to process approvals, the news release said.

Changes are in the works to speed up hydro connectivity for mining projects and help proponents find interim power solutions. Mining demands will be included in Manitoba Hydro’s next integrated resource plan, the release said.

“We will do more than triple our production in five years,” said Daymon Guillias, president of Potash Agri Development Corp. of Manitoba. This summer, the corporation sent its first 20-tonne potash shipment from the Port of Churchill, owned by Arctic Gateway Group, to Brussels.

He said the corporation will be able to increase production by five or 10 times at its mine near Russell, 350 kilometres northwest of Winnipeg.

“It’s a great day for us, a great day for Manitoba and we’re very proud of our (Arctic Gateway Group) partners,” Guillas said at the Toronto summit.

Earlier Tuesday, Prime Minister Mark Carney announced a “productivity mega deduction” in which companies will have the ability to expense the cost of new investments. It will apply to fibre-optic cable, mining property, oil and gas pipelines, software, research and development, computer equipment, aircraft and vehicles, patents, rail track, bridges, and roads.

Manitoba’s premier welcomed the federal plan.

“That’ll make a new mine proposal all of a sudden become viable” and “make the Port of Churchill more attractive to outside investment,” Kinew said at the summit.

He didn’t announce any big deals to expand the Port of Churchill or establish an LNG terminal on Hudson Bay.

“The goal is always to bring back opportunities,” he said flanked by Manitoba delegates, including Brian Gibbs, CEO of silica sand developer Silex. That project and Canadian Premium Sands’ silica sand development both have some First Nation support, and the province is publicly promoting them to investors at the summit.

The Kinew government hasn’t publicly mentioned Sio Silica, whose earlier proposal was turned down by the government. Sio Silica is at the summit looking for investors for a scaled-down sand mine proposal supported by the Southern Chiefs Organization. It has signed memos of understanding with Germany-based RCT Solutions GmbH and U.S.-based NanoXSolar to extract silica sand and turn it into solar panels. In June, Carney and German chancellor Friedrich Merz hailed the proposal at the G7 leaders meeting.

When asked why the province isn’t promoting Sio Silica’s project, Kinew said: “We’ve got a world-class silica deposit in Manitoba, and we’ve got a couple of great proponents.”

“We’ve got Silex standing with us today, Canadian Premium Sands being the other one licensed – it’s here making their pitch to investors. So we’re going to keep working together to bring opportunity over.”

In December, Kinew called a public inquiry into the former Tory government’s failed bid to push through an environmental licence for a Sio Silica sand mine during the party’s final days in office in 2023 after losing the election to the NDP.

Sio Silica’s new proposal is working its way through the environmental approvals process.

It “will be subject to the same rigorous, science-based review process as any other project proposal in Manitoba,” a spokesperson for the premier has said.

carol.sanders@freepress.mb.ca