Paul Martin Commentary
Ontario premier Doug Ford’s vocal promotion of the Ring of Fire appears to have caught the attention of mining company executives.
The Fraser Institute conducts an annual survey of the heads of mining companies, asking them to rank the most and least attractive places to invest based on two key factors: the natural mineral endowment of each jurisdiction as well as its policy environment.
The latest survey on overall investment attractiveness is out and Ontario has bumped Saskatchewan in second spot as the most mining friendly jurisdiction in Canada. We also rank number two and number three globally.
Saskatchewan’s geological blessings play a big role in our ranking. We came in second in the world on this one but the perception of our policy environment is not as strong, leaving us at number eight on the global scale and fourth in Canada on the purely policy measure.
Ontario, Newfoundland and Labrador as well as Alberta outpaced on this metric. But, when mineral potential is added in to generate an overall measure, we move up to number two in the country and third worldwide.
