In response to a serious question about municipal revenues during the Northern Leaders Debate last Friday, Progressive Conservative leader Doug Ford touted the value of, “unleashing northern Ontario’s economic potential, and I’ll tell you where the potential is: their potential in the north is called the Ring of Fire.”
Ford had planned a northern victory lap to meet with industrial unions in Sault Ste. Marie and Thunder Bay this week, following leaders debates on Friday and Monday. That trip was cancelled after a plane crashed in Toronto, but it was designed to cement Ford’s vision that developing the so-called “Ring of Fire” is somehow a patriotic duty of blue-collar workers.
The Ford government plans to “protect” the north by coming to take its resources, something some in the region have described as doublespeak, but up north Ford is running an election campaign on both tracks at once.
He listed roads Ontario promised to build to Marten Falls, Webequie, and Aroland First Nations as “historic agreements” that will “make sure we build that road to the Ring of Fire,” located about 500 kilometres northeast of Thunder Bay.
In reality, much of that work was announced by Ontario’s previous Liberal government eight years ago, while each of those communities and their neighbours have been vocal that these are access roads for their people, not roads to any mine site or consent to further development of any kind.
Ford then once again trumpeted his entirely dubious value of $1-trillion to describe the Ring of Fire’s economic potential. That figure’s astronomically out of step with actual estimates that go as high as $77-billion, when adjusted for inflation.
And finally, he introduced the plot twist of U.S. President Donald Trump’s protectionist trade threats, which Ford believes renders him the protagonist in this premature election he called.
“As Donald Trump’s tariffs come at us – it doesn’t matter if it happens tomorrow, next month or in a year – I can tell you, northern Ontario plays a critical role in protecting our province and protecting our country.”
So when Ford stands behind podiums that read, “Protect Ontario,” northerners should understand that to mean the northern role in “protecting the country” is cheering on unfettered access to mineral development in a specific, ecologically controversial, and constitutionally complicated region.
Ford’s position isn’t new, it’s just refined. He’s spent the past four years pitting southern Ontario’s auto manufacturing workers against mine-skeptical First Nations in northern Ontario. Only through developing this proposed mineral deposit, he has been saying since 2021, can the south’s proposed electric vehicle plants revolutionize the auto industry, together restoring Ontario’s economy to a recognizable assembly model that precedes free trade.
In that debate moment, Liberal Bonnie Crombie offered little by way of alternative. She responded by taking a swing at Ford’s 2022 election promise to “Get It Done.” The implicit suggestion was that she would have been more successful, using a similar approach to Ford’s 2018 campaign promise to “hop on that bulldozer myself,” if that’s what it took to build the Ring of Fire.
“All the Doug Ford eggs went into the EV basket so we didn’t diversify our trade or trading partners,” she said. “We didn’t build other strong sectors, our mineral sector, because nothing is being done up in the Ring of Fire – nothing. You said you’d get that done. You said you’d ‘get on a bulldozer’ and do it. You didn’t get it done.”
On Wednesday, when Ford was to have rallied with unionized workers in Thunder Bay, the PCs issued a press release demanding the NDP leader Marit Stiles answer for Lise Vaugeois, who is the incumbent NDP candidate in Thunder Bay-Superior North.
The PCs called Vaugeois’s past statements “disrespectful and offensive attacks on Northern Ontario, its workers and the industries that sustain communities and create jobs across this important region,” while accusing Vaugeois of “choosing to side with extremists, elites and activists, instead of hard-working Northern Ontarians.”
At issue was a social media post Vaugeois made in April 2024 in which she called PC mining Minister George Pirie, “Minister of Perpetuating the Violence of Resource Extraction.”
Vaugeois was responding to an interview Pirie gave to Thunder Bay news site NetNewsLedger, in which Pirie said, “(Northern Ontario) is largely empty and begging for exploration drill holes.” At the time, NDP Kiiwetinoong MPP Sol Mamakwa said Pirie’s choice of words was “Very colonial” and “almost to the point where it’s racist.”
Vaugeois responded it’s “shocking that Pirie doesn’t recognize or respect communities and families in the North, including First Nations communities that have treaty rights that must be respected.”
The so-called Ring of Fire, discovered in 2007 and rumoured to hold a treasure trove of critical minerals rivalling Alberta’s oil sands, can only come about at the successful end of complex consultation the Crown is responsible for conducting with a number of First Nations. This process is not a nice-to-have, it’s international law. And while the area’s chiefs have been clear that they don’t oppose development on principle, they’ve proven willing to sue, and win, when Ontario tries to rush mining consultation through.
They’re now demanding to be treated as an equal partner. A $95-billion suit that 10 area First Nations filed in 2023 claims the Treaty 9 agreement requires that the lands be co-managed. They’re seeking an injunction to prevent both Canada and Ontario from regulating or enforcing regulations without the plaintiffs’ consent. A separate case six First Nations filed in 2024 argues that Ontario’s free-entry mining system, which allows prospectors to stake claims online, violates the Crown’s responsibility to consult.
“The Ontario Mining Act is a piece of racist legislation that bulldozes over First Nations lands and rights. It says to the world that the land in Ontario is free for the taking and drilling and blowing up,” Apitipi Aniciapek Nation Chief June Black said of the latter suit, referencing Ford’s imagery. “These are not your lands to give away, Ontario.”
Beyond the inherent value the land holds to those who have lived there for time immemorial, keeping the area intact has globally significant ecological value. First Nations communities and companies see one of their roles as leading environmental monitoring and Nature-based climate solutions, to ensure that any industrial activity includes control for those who will be left behind.
This is the change that’s actually underway in the so-called Ring of Fire. There are blueprints for a serious future that would create a constitutionally viable, economically and environmentally sustainable northern Ontario.
As the Progressive Conservative trophy list of union local endorsements grows, so does the pressure to conflate the interests of capital with those of ordinary working people. The implication takes us back to the stale environment-versus-economy fallacy, with Indigenous rights in place of the environment, and precarious union jobs representing the fragile economy.
The morning of the northern debate, The Globe & Mail prominently ran an editorial board piece about how mining giant Barrick is considering moving its offices to the US. Barrick’s interests in Nevada have surpassed its long-standing northern Ontario gold project and staffing in its Toronto office is thinning. The piece goes on to warn how global markets are buying up Canada’s largest mining firms, and Trump is offering better deals through a closing door at the border.
If we accept that Ford is fighting for working people so northern Ontario can “protect the country,” it begs the question whether Ford is protecting us from Trump or protecting mining companies from his obligation to consult.
Correction: The lawsuit that 10 area First Nations filed in 2023 is for $95-billion, not $95-million, as previously reported.
