Ontario government recycles oil sands propaganda for Ring of Fire mining development

.asset-paging .direction { color: #0073ec; } Featured Ontario government recycles oil sands propaganda for Ring of Fire mining development Jon Thompson, Local Journalism Initiative Feb 11, 2026 Feb 11, 2026 Updated Feb 11, 2026 Facebook Twitter WhatsApp SMS Email Facebook Twitter WhatsApp SMS Email Print Copy article link Save $(window).load(function() { window.setTimeout(affixShare, 2000); function affixShare() { var sHeight = $('#share-left-affix').outerHeight(true); var cHeight = $('#share-left-affix').parent().outerHeight(true); var sTop = $('#share-left-affix').offset().top - 50; var sBottom = $(document).height() - ($('#share-left-affix').parent().offset().top + cHeight - 50); if(cHeight > sHeight) { $('#share-left-affix').affix({ offset: { top: sTop, bottom: sBottom } }); } } }); $(window).resize(function() { var sHeight = $('#share-left-affix').outerHeight(true); var cHeight = $('#share-left-affix').parent().outerHeight(true); var sTop = $('#share-left-affix').offset().top - 50; var sBottom = $(document).height() - ($('#share-left-affix').parent().offset().top + $('#share-left-affix').parent().outerHeight(true) - 50); if(cHeight > sHeight) { $('#share-left-affix').data('bs.affix').options.offset.top = sTop; $('#share-left-affix').data('bs.affix').options.offset.bottom = sBottom; } }); Facebook Twitter WhatsApp SMS Email Print Copy article link Save Minister of Energy and Mines Stephen Lecce and Indigenous minister Greg Rickford announce the 230-kilometre Greenstone Transmission Line between Lake Nipigon and Aroland First Nation on January 28 in Etobicoke. Animbiigoo Zaagi-igan Anishinaabek First Nation Chief Yvette Metansinine, Biinjitiwaabik Zaaging Anishinaaek First Nation Chief Gladys Thompson, Bingwi Neyaashi Anishnaabek First Nation Chief Paul Gladu, and Red Rock Indian Band Chief Allan Odawa Jr. were also in attendance. Photos by Supplied/Jon Thompson Ontario cabinet members are calling the minerals in the proposed Ring of Fire development “the most ethical resources on Earth.”A December statement attributed the phrase to energy minister Stephen Lecce, then Thunder Bay-Atikokan MPP Kevin Holland posted it to social media following a January 28 energy announcement.“Ontario has what the world needs,” Lecce said last week, speaking to CTV News regarding the priority 230-kilometre Greenstone Transmission line. The project, which is expected to be completed by 2032, has been approved by seven area First Nations and would reach from Lake Nipigon to Aroland First Nation, ending 300 kilometers south of the proposed 5,500-square-kilometre mining development.“We are an ethical, reliable, democratic partner that has the vision to build the roads and transmission lines to help us improve not just quality of life in the north but also to help electrify the mines,” Lecce said.Neither Lecce nor Holland responded to media requests to explain what metrics they used to measure ethics or conclude those minerals were the most ethical in the world.The term “ethical” tied to Ring of Fire’s development first appeared in a March 2025 blog post by Edmonton-based SHIFT Media Strategies partner Matt Solberg, who called the proposed project, “a politically stable and ethical alternative” to mining jurisdictions with weaker labour and environmental protections. In an interview, Solberg says he hadn’t considered the parallels to “Ethical Oil” — a propaganda campaign created and promoted by Ezra Levant, whose 2010 book made a similar moral case for the Alberta oil sands. Solberg believes the Ring of Fire’s ethical construct stands on its own merits. Levant later went on to create the far-right news outlet Rebel News. “Ethical Oil” is still used as justification for the expansion of the oil sands, despite objections from surrounding Indigenous communities.Solberg points to Canada’s human rights laws and strong environmental protections. The term “ethical” tied to Ring of Fire’s development first appeared in a March 2025 blog post by Edmonton-based SHIFT Media Strategies partner Matt Solberg, who called the proposed project, “a politically stable and ethical alternative” to mining jurisdictions with weaker labour and environmental protections. “There’s a full suite of legislation and cultural values, I’d say, that makes Canada unique,” he says. “What I’m talking about is the full package of legal and statutory protections that Canada affords when it comes to environmental protections, human rights protections, labour rights. “Even the fact that we’re having this conversation – in some of the other countries that Canada competes with on the critical minerals stage, we wouldn’t be having this conversation or we’d be keeping one eye on our back while doing so.”Solberg says he isn’t employed by the Ontario government or any companies with mining permits or interests in the Ring of Fire. In the context of the World Bank estimating that the global demand for critical minerals will increase by 450 per cent between 2018 and 2050, Solberg believes that Canadian companies have a competitive advantage through their record of reflecting Canadian legal and corporate cultural values on the global stage.Those companies, he observes, also favour sourcing materials and contracts from countries where those “strong protections” exist. Solberg says the system works because the Canadian electorate will reinforce the values that sustain the ethical reputations for those Canadian companies. That, in turn, gives them a competitive advantage on the world stage through the ethical dimension that investors are increasingly rewarding.“Markets demand it,” he says. “I would also say it’s what Ontarians and voters across the country demand. They don’t want to see us extracting resources at the cheapest possible rate, leaving behind environmental issues. That’s not good politics, it’s not good business, and it’s just not good human behaviour. And in Canada, we either reward or we punish governments who don’t respond to those sorts of things.”Anna Baggio is the conservation director for the environmental conservation organization, Wildlands League. She sees Ontario’s new framing of ethical minerals as “an incoherent riff” and an attempt to craft an “utterly bizarre” narrative.“Think about it: they’re claiming that the rocks on the ground are ethical – and not just that they’re ethical, but they’re the most ethical on Earth,” she says.“Just because Ontario exists doesn’t mean that it’s actually doing all the right things. It doesn’t mean that we’re necessarily good or great. In order to have a democracy, we have to continually invest in it and improve it, fix our weak spots, and deal with the vulnerable. We can’t just, by existing, pretend that ‘we exist, therefore we’re great and good.’” The “Ethical Oil” campaign was an attempt to frame the Alberta oil sands as ethical by presenting a binary world in which Canadian oil is ‘ethical’ and the rest is produced by ‘oppressors’. Baggio disagrees with Solberg’s context of “ethical” production as a sum of Ontario’s environmental, human rights, and labour protections. She cites the province’s recent Bill 5 legislation, which allows the government to avoid environmental and human rights protections by designating “special economic zones,” inside of which existing regulations can be suspended. Doug Ford has said he intends to name the Ring of Fire such a zone “as quickly as possible.” First Nations leaders responded through 2025 promising an “Idle No More 2.0” direct action response if Ontario proceeds with projects under that legislation in their territories. Some communities have insisted that basic infrastructure like drinking water and a nursing station be provided before conversations about mining can begin.While the province frames the construction of community access roads to fly-in communities south and west of the Ring of Fire as a “corridor to prosperity,” members of Neskantaga and Attawapiskat First Nations have criticized the government for failing to consult, and are constructing a permanent village on the Attawapiskat River in the path of the proposed highway. Other First Nations are taking Ontario to court over what they say is the law’s unconstitutionality.Baggio says even if Lecce and Holland intend to say the mining process is the most ethical in the world, the actions that Ontario’s Progressive Conservatives are taking to access the Ring of Fire are defying those values.“A government that was trying to do something in an ethical way wouldn’t have brought in legislation like Bill 5 that would basically wipe the board of any environmental laws or health laws, safety laws to develop these deposits,” Baggio says. “A government would be embracing UNDRIP – the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples – if they were actually going to want to be positioning themselves as ethical. A government would want to be doing right by endangered species. A government would want to do right by climate. They’d want to do right by the communities like community health. “If you wanted to be positioning yourself as ethical, those are the things you would need to be doing – and they’re not. In fact, they’re doing the opposite. So to come at this late hour and now try to tell Canadians that this is all part of some type of ethical play is frankly embarrassing, and I just don’t see any evidence to support it.”MiningWatch co-lead Jamie Kneen’s organization tracks the environmental and human rights records of mining companies across the world and he has never heard anyone, anywhere, describe mineral extraction as “ethical” before Ontario started doing it over the last month. He ponders whether the PCs might be “greedwashing” the Ring of Fire.“I honestly can’t think of anyone offhand claiming that it’s [mining is] ethical,” he says. “Usually, they say something like, ‘we’re being responsible’ because there’s an acknowledgement that mining is an inherently destructive activity and it’s going to rip up some land, it’s going to destroy some watersheds, and some of that will be rehabilitated and some of it will be left for future generations to look at and drink from.“And that often, whoever lives there is going to get the short end of the stick. That may be accompanied by different levels of coercion and violence, so people are sort of reluctant to say it’s a great thing.”Kneen recalled when the late Barrick Gold president Peter Munk would address shareholders’ meetings in which people had come to testify about abuses at Barrick’s mines, where people had been killed and raped, and he’d respond was that he was proud to be providing jobs (and that the people bringing this testimony forward were irresponsible).The industry, Munk contends, has always recognized its adverse impacts on biodiversity and watersheds. The impacts of those projects on the lives of those working at and near mine sites are well-documented. He points to the Canadian initiative, Towards Sustainable Mining, as evidence of voluntary, market-based, and independent report-card-styled auditing, but adds that no mining project receives top marks across the board in every area.Turning to the Ring of Fire, Kneen sees First Nations leaders in the area signing on for roads but none are on the record supporting mining itself. He says we don’t have to look far for evidence of the industry’s impact. Downriver in Attawapiskat, De Beers, the British multinational diamond company, pleaded guilty in 2021 to failing to monitor methylmercury. In that case, the company’s internal documents recommended pursuing American environmental standards, noting their Canadian counterparts “are not sufficiently protective.”Kneen cautions Ontarians against accepting morality as a metric for the industry. “Without being able to say what somebody has in mind, maybe the purpose of this is to make people stop paying attention,” he says. “And the danger is that people don’t pay attention because these things are complicated and contentious. It’s actually a lot easier to ignore them, right? It actually takes work to keep up with them and sort out the garbage – the bullshit – from reality. And there’s an awful lot of hot air around the Ring of Fire so it would be a lot easier if you can kind of go, ‘Yeah, I guess it’s OK’ and go on with your day.” The Local Journalism Initiative is supported by the Government of Canada. 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