Quiet conversations but little mining, exploration action in province

Opinion

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 05/03/2025 (191 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Manitoba has had a relatively high profile in recent years at the annual Prospectors & Developers Association of Canada extravaganza, currently underway in Toronto.

This year, Ian Bushie, Manitoba minister of municipal and northern relations and Indigenous economic development, and Jamie Moses, minister of business, mining, trade and job creation, were in attendance.

There is a provincial news blackout because of the upcoming Transcona byelection and the Toronto conference is taking place amid the beginning of a full-on trade war, but the early silence has been deafening when it comes to news about mining or exploration activity in Manitoba.

A couple of exploration companies with properties in Manitoba issued news releases during PDAC about advancements being made in projects in other jurisdictions. Arctic Gateway Group announced it will ship double the amount of zinc concentrate from HudBay Minerals’ Lalor mine in Snow Lake this year via the Port of Churchill.

There may not have been deals to announce, but in a note to the Free Press, Moses said the PDAC experience at least got some conversations going.

“We’ve been exploring innovative opportunities to propel Manitoba’s mining and critical mineral sector to new heights,” Moses said of his time on the conference floor. “Manitoba is ready to attract transformative investments and create high-quality, well-paying jobs.”

As the country starts to consider the stark realities of tariffs on Canadian exports to the U.S. there was news Tuesday at least one Canadian miner is already diverting sales of zinc to Asia.

Even without the gloomy prospects of tariffs, the Manitoba mining scene has not really moved past the middling ground it’s been in for a while, even after plenty of vocal support from the province and its new critical minerals strategy.

The latest issue of The Northern Prospector’s Journal, published in association with the Manitoba-Saskatchewan Prospectors and Developers Association, features a map of the province with areas labelled attainable, difficult, unknown and very difficult for mineral exploration and/or extraction.

According to the publication, it is to “enable discussion of issues the MSPDA sees as currently affecting timely approval of exploration and mining work permits in Manitoba and further to address the areas of greatest risks, least risk and those areas unknown, in between, or undefined for mineral exploration investment.”

Other than the areas around Thompson and Flin Flon, all of the North is deemed either very difficult or unknown.

Late last month, Vale SA, which had already made public it was looking to sell its Thompson nickel operation, reported it booked a $1.14 billion impairment charge on that operation — likely not something to boost buyer interest.

MaryAnn Mihyhuk, president of the Manitoba Prospectors and Developers Association, who attended PDAC, said: “I wish I had something positive to say.”

She said the permitting bottleneck — an issue that’s long been a bone of contention for the industry — still exists, with Manitoba projects sometimes waiting years to be resolved.

That’s opposed to other provinces that have timelines for permits to get cleared in 30 or 50 days.

That’s not to say there are no developments taking place in the province.

Alamos Gold Inc. has decided to proceed with construction of two open-pit gold mines near Lynn Lake at the northern end of Highway 391. The $1-billion investment will be one of the largest capital projects in the province in some time.

Grid Metals Corp. recently completed two different partnership deals with mining companies that will allow it to fund continuing exploration in Manitoba without having to go to the market to raise money — something increasingly difficult with nickel and lithium prices, among others, on the way down.

Not so long ago there were more than a dozen junior mining companies actively exploring for lithium in the province. But sales of electric vehicles, whose batteries all need a healthy portion of lithium, have died down and the supply of Chinese lithium — where most of the global production takes place — has out-paced demand.

Mining and mineral exploration may not turn out to be the hardest-hit sector in the tariff war, but it was already in need of much support — and the new economic realities are not going to help.

martin.cash@freepress.mb.ca