The Agenda with Steve Paikin (Audio) - Why Sudbury Says It Can Help Canada Win the Trade War

Episode Date: April 1, 2025

Sudbury Mayor Paul Lefebvre joins The Agenda to talk about his city's unique position to help protect Canada against U.S. President Donald Trump's trade war. Mayor Lefebvre is in studio to discuss critical minerals, tariffs, Canada's defence expenditure and more.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Renew your 2.0 TVO with more thought-provoking documentaries, insightful current affairs coverage, and fun programs and learning experiences for kids. Regular contributions from people like you help us make a difference in the lives of Ontarians of all ages. Visit tvo.me slash 2025 donate to renew your support or make a first-time donation and continue to discover your 2.0 TBO. In the fight against Donald Trump's terror of threats, one Ontario city mayor is making the case for why critical minerals could be Canada's trump card. His Paul Lefebvre, the mayor of Greater Sudbury, and he joins us now to discuss how the Nickel City and its partners across the province can help protect Canada's economic sovereignty. It's really nice to have you back sir. Thank you so much. So what are you doing in town? So I was invited by the Canadian

Club to certainly deliver some remarks to talk about critical minerals and to certainly discuss how certainly as in Canada, Ontario for Sudbury and what can we do to make sure that our economic sovereignty, you know, we uh that we ensure our economic sovereignty at the same time we make sure that we the jobs and the added value of our critical minerals is done here in Canada, certainly Ontario and truly as me as Mayor of Sudbury and Greater Sudbury and looking at the opportunities and discuss those opportunities with my friends and the rest of the GTA and the rest of Ontario. Well critical minerals are in everything from our cell phones to cars.

We might not be aware of what's in those products. And Ontario is a province that's rich with critical minerals. So what are they and how are they used? So they're basically nickel, you have cobalt, lithium, and manganese are critical minerals. And there's a number of other critical minerals, like copper as well, but certainly when we talk about electric vehicles and batteries, we talk about semiconductors as well when we're looking at storage of energy and so those are all, you know, and we look at the defense procurement, military equipment, nickel plays a large

role. So that's kind of your, some of your critical minerals. There is a number of critical minerals that the province of Ontario and the government of Canada has said that they were critical minerals in our country, over 30 some. So now they're basically as I said semiconductors right in energy storage or you're in batteries as well as in AI and in defense applications. So it's around us everywhere, right? And so it's very important that now that the world is changing and we are trying to make sure that we keep the opportunities here in our own province and in our own country

and just not try to extract and send that out around the world, right? And then basically with now with the threats of our neighbors to the south, of trying to shore up on their own internal economy as much as they can we need to be to make sure that we look at the opportunities that we have to make sure that we keep that economic powerhouse that we are when it comes to natural resources and critical minerals is one of them. I mean a year ago I don't think

any of us could have seen what's happening, the threats of annexation and the province and Canada pivoting to consider how we can take care of ourselves because we're being forced to do that. You wrote a column in Northern Ontario Business suggesting Sudbury can help fight Trump's trade war. How is your city positioned to do that? Well we're a very unique city in the sense that when it comes to critical minerals, we have nine operating mines right now that extract nickel, cobalt, as well as copper, and a lot of the platinum metals. And so those are critical because in the U.S., we actually send about 60% of our nickel that we actually produce in Sudbury is sent to the U.S.

And we actually provide most of the military equipment, nickel that they need in their alloys actually comes from Sudbury. We actually have another 10 mines that are under development in Greater Sudbury. That's very easy, you don't see that in a city, just give you a comparative. Sweden, which is a powerhouse in mining, has 10 operating mines. So we have nine operating mines in Sudbury plus another 10 that are under development. So as the world needs those critical minerals and it needs that supply, we've been doing that.

Plus we have two smelters, two refineries, and a mill. Again, you don't see that type of mining complex anywhere in the world and the talent we have. We have the best hard rock miners in the world as well. And we do it safely and responsibly and sustainably. And we also have our indigenous partners in our area that are supportive right so we it took a while to it's early to get there and but certainly we are trying to make sure that we move forward in the right way and that they're engaged and they have economic opportunities as well so there's lots that were very unique in in Greater Sudbury and that's

why there's value proposition to make sure that we increase the supply and we do a bit more advanced processing. So ensure that we do the advanced manufacturing in Canada and Ontario and certainly in our area as much as we can. So as we want to keep the jobs in Canada, these are things that certainly as governments, municipally, originally, federally, we need to be focused on to make sure that we keep that resource here as long as we can before we export it around the world. Do you have knowledge of plans to build processing facilities in Sudbury? Well, that's one of the things that we'd like to see.

Again, we have two smelters and two refineries in a mill. But when we look at the electric battery vehicles, and there's been big investments by the province and by the federal government here in the GTA and certainly across the southern Ontario and we always say well the whole supply chain is going to come from Ontario because we're going to get the supply from the north when it goes to the minerals but then it needs to be provided into a form called a pre-cathode anode material, PCAMs and we don't have one of those yet. There's only one in Canada that's being built and it's near Montreal. What's unique about it is that is the first one in Canada between GM, POSCO, which is a Korean manufacturer, and Valet. So the nickel that is being provided

to Quebec is actually coming from, mainly from Sudbury and you need sulfuric acid as well and that's coming from Sudbury as well, which is great. The fact that they're doing a PCAM plant and a CAM plant in Quebec, that's what the government wanted. But now in Ontario, there's been investments in the lithium plant in Thunder Bay, which is great news, a cobalt plant in Cobalt, Ontario. And now we need to have a nickel-sulfate refinery created in Ontario to make sure we take the nickel and create it into that powder that goes into the PCAMP. It's very complex, but we have an opportunity in Ontario to create all that supply chain, that independent supply chain when it comes to battery electric vehicles.

What does your city stand to gain? Jobs, right? And at the end of the day, jobs is one and foremost. But you know what? We've been seeing our minerals being extracted, right, and processed and then shipped out. Before, because our world has changed. Before it was mainly stainless steel, right?

The application for nickel was mainly stainless steel, but that world has completely changed in the last decade. So we're seeing an opportunity. So right now we're shipping our nickel out, which is great, but there's more supply in the suburb basin than ever. As much as we've been mining for 100 years, there's at least another 100 years of mining in our area, if that's what all the geologists are saying. So we're just seeing that this is a great opportunity

for our province, certainly for our community, as well as for our country, to have that economic sovereignty, because critical minerals is key. a great opportunity for a province, for a community, as well as for a country to have that economic sovereignty, because critical minerals is key. And when you look at the geopolitical situation, right now China's leading the way by far. But they've been doing this for decades now. They had their industrial strategy lined up.

The US is really late to the game. That's one of the things that President Trump is trying to say, well, that's why he wants to get Greenland, Ukraine, and now he's threatening us to become the 51st state because he sees that race and they're so far behind. So we're disappointed, obviously, as Canadians, because we say, well, we want to be partners. You don't come here and just try to think you'll be able to invade us. We don't work that way. We are trading partners. We are reliable trading partners. And for us as a country, I think we need to do more to shore up what we have here, create the jobs here and create the economic benefits in our

communities and with indigenous partners as well and in our province and in our great country. To fight for our sovereignty. Exactly. A part of Ontario that we're hearing a lot about lately in the news is the Ring of Fire and for those who may not be familiar with it it's located approximately 500 kilometers northeast of Thunder Bay. So if you're flying from Toronto, a plane to Thunder Bay and another plane, a smaller plane, it's really far. It's far and it covers about 5,000 square kilometers. Can you explain to us why this area is so valuable? Yeah, well there's a lot of the mineral deposits there that we don't even know really the value

of it because it is massive. There's loss in nickel and there's copper in there and there's some base metals as well as chromite. But right now the price of chromite is very low so there's no real business case to go and extract the chromite. Whereas nickel and copper we believe is a good starting point. So it was discovered a few almost two decades ago now and it's it's taking the time because it's so remote we need to build a road there and it's you're in very challenging environmental situation a lot of water a lot of muskegs or very very swampy area

So very hard hard to get to and plus to do it properly you need to engage with the first stations, right? And there is a lot of competing Jurisdictional claims to the area as well. We have Webiquay. You have Martin Falls, we have Yibimitong, we have Nishigandika, that's four communities, and then there's a number of communities even further than that that certainly want to play a role there. So the province has said they want to move it forward, right? And so there's communities there that, you know, their situations are very challenging on the social side, so they want to see commitment by everybody to help them surmount that.

So it's not easy. It's a complex one from where it is and how to extract it and then how you're going to get the R out. Right now, Martin Falls, I believe, is doing the design for a road in the area. It's a long, long road, but that will open up those communities. And they're not used to that. They've been very secluded, they've been on their own, so there's a lot of work to be done to assist them and to work with them, and certainly it's led by them. It has to be led by them or else, you know, then you don't have the social license to go in there.

That's where we unique about Sudbury. When you talk about it, we're going to fire in. As my Indigenous communities are talking to those Indigenous communities, they're kind of relaying the message of what we learn here. It hasn't always been perfect in some way for Indigenous communities, right? Where we were 50 years ago, where we are today, where we are going in another 50 years, there's about more conversations than we've ever had. That's what it has to be on every deposit in our province as well. So consultation with Indigenous communities is important to you?

100%. I'm going to talk about the province in just a second but we are in the middle of a federal election and federal conservative leader Pierre Polyev made an announcement on March 19th in Sudbury and said that within six months if he were to become prime minister he would greenlight all federal permits for the Ring of Fire and he'll commit one billion dollars to build new roads to access it. Subway isn't directly in the ring of fire. Why is this issue important to you? Well certainly for us, at the end of the day, where is that nickel going to be refined?

Right? It has to be suburb. There is no nickel refinery or smelter that can do that but suburb right now. So certainly as that will be extracted, they're going to have to ship that somewhere else. So it's important for us That being said we want all deposits because at the end of the day mining And once a community has mining they don't want to lose it But once they don't with communities that don't have mining sometimes they don't want to have it because it's the uncertainty

Right, they don't know and they're what uncertainty well because the environmental is reduced, right? Are we going to get the benefits or are they going to leave us with this environmental catastrophe? Right? The image sometimes of past mining projects is not very positive, even though as we come back to Sudbury, obviously we have really taken our environment to where we were a number of years ago, which is a devastated landscape. We planted 10 million trees, we reduced our SO2 emissions by 98 percent, so we have clean air in our community.

Before there was a lot of pollution in the air. In our lakes, we have 330 lakes in Sudbury and all of it now have marine life. That wasn't always the case. So we've learned a lot. Now we can share a lot with the world and certainly I share a lot with Northern Ontario as well. So that's why that license that I like to call about being able to move these projects forward, they have to be done in the right way. So we send the benefit,

but certainly it has to be done in the right way. I imagine too, like once you do get all of those approvals in place, that a mine isn't just built overnight. I read it's like 17, it can take to 17 years. Well that's with the permitting, right? The permitting and then certainly the build of mine, you're looking at a number of years as well. Because by the time they do the, they determine where they want to do the, what we call the shaft, right?

In the middle of the ore body or beside the ore body so that they can get to it. It's very complex, a lot of expertise and that, it's interesting because Sudbury, the people from Sudbury and a lot of expertise comes from Sudbury because we export that around the world. They live in Sudbury because a lot of expertise comes from so because we export that around the world they live in Sudbury because they've learned in Sudbury but now we export that around the world. So how can Sudbury benefit from the development of the Ring of Fire?

Well like I said right it's basically the nickel would come to Sudbury and be processed there and now when we talk about that advanced processing and that pecan plant I talked to you about that could be one of the sources of it as well. It's interesting because I think that could be one of the sources of it as well. It's interesting because I think some of my friends in the northwest of the province will say, well, how can you talk about that because that's our area? My response to that is this, I don't think you want to smelter in your backyard with the tailings and the slag that comes with that.

We're used to that. That's what we do in Sudbury. We know how to deal with it. We have confidence in the people that minimize the exposure to the slag and the tailings in our area. We have hundreds of thousands of tons of it. And that's why we're saying we can do more because

of the knowledge that we've created, because the environment that we've created, and the fact that we know how to do this. And that's very unique around the world. Well, with that being said, this isn't a new conversation. Parties on both sides and on both levels haven't been able to get this done for a very long time. Why now? Well, I think there's always been talk about it, right?

But it's a challenge. I think now we need more of those critical minerals than ever. We need to, as we're competing around the world, the people have a choice to make, right, as to where they're going to source their critical minerals. We have the endowments here in Ontario and certainly in Canada as well. And I would say that if it's not us, it's China. If it's not China, Russia has some as well. So you have countries like Canada and Australia that have these endowments and certainly versus

China and Russia. So I think if we want to have that independence, if we want to make sure that we're not beholden to other countries, when it comes to our manufacturing sector, we need to be sure that we develop as much as we can that we have in our own country. You talked about how we need to consult Indigenous communities in this process. During Premier Doug Ford's campaign trade, he said consulting with Indigenous communities hundreds of kilometers away is a quote, ridiculous ask. What types of conversations are you having

with Indigenous communities around Greater Sudbury? Well, I have them all the time. Actually, it was interesting. We just had the big mining conference here in Toronto a few weeks ago, and actually we were on a panel. Myself, my two Indigenous chief chief rock from one of the day and She's good new style from tick machine with valet Talking about surely how we were doing in summer. It's not perfect

It's not it's been where we were 50 years ago was not perfect at all like we do the big challenges But it's about having conversations sitting down together making sure that there's opportunities because this needs to benefit everybody just not the mining company It needs to benefit the community as well, and the First Nations as well. That's the approach that we've taken, that's why we're very unique, because we're very successful. And I'm not saying that in the future

there won't be challenges again, but that's why these conversations, sitting down together, ensuring that we're at the table together, is key to make sure that people have confidence in the project and in the process that we're following. Have you spoken with federal government and the province on easing regulations around mining? Yeah, we always talk about that. It's more, I think right now,

it's more having one process instead of two or three processes. Right now, there's a review on environmental review by the province and environmental review by the feds as well. Saying is there a way that government can work together to have one review instead of two? Because at the end of the day day we need to get supply in our country of our critical minerals. We need to process it as fast as we get in our country as well and then we need to develop our the manufacturing capacity. But if we're not getting the processing or it's all right well the the permitting process completed quickly that could take decades. So is there a

way to streamline that, have confidence in the process, but make it quicker and more resilient. Do you worry because we were talking about how fast the news is moving from the US, but do you worry in this moment when we are trying to figure out how to look inward and to take care of ourselves that maybe by easing certain regulations it might cause problems down the road? Well that's always a concern, but I think we're not saying stop doing the review, right? We're saying let's do one review instead of two reviews, right? And I think it comes up to the same level but at the same time, you know, we have to have the confidence in the system and I think in Canada we have one of the best, you know,

processes and certainly the reviews that we do we have the best confidence in confidence in the world because we are a world-class mining country. But things are so slow and we need to do it quicker, but we need to make sure that we have confidence in the way that we do it as well. In our last minute, as mayor of one of Ontario's largest cities, what do you want from both levels of government? Well, certainly to take, you know, when we look at critical minerals and subresidents at the forefront of that. Let's look at opportunities to develop more of that supply and that processing so that

we can help Canada manufacture more in Canada. Critical minerals are at the forefront of that. They're actually at one of the bedrocks of that type of economy. And we want to make sure that we're at the table to have those conversations. Thank you so much for making the time to speak with us. Pleasure. We appreciate it. And safe travels home.

Thank you so much.