Where is the sense of national ambition to seize and build on new opportunities today?

TORONTO—As Canada strives to become a major source of critical minerals and rare earths for the new age of electric vehicles, solar power and advanced electronics, will we become the supplier of raw materials or will we make sure that refining and processing is done here as well? The experience some 100 years ago of Ontario in forcing the refining of nickel in Canada shows how we worked to bring nickel refining, as well as nickel mining, to this country. It could be relevant today. Ontario appointed the Royal Ontario Nickel Commission in 1915 in response to widespread public “agitation” because rich nickel deposits mined in the Sudbury region were not being refined in Canada—the ores or matte were exported, with the refining value-added captured by the United States or other countries. This “agitation," the commission said, was “in favour of the refining of nickel in Ontario. This agitation has at times been very active, and at times less so, but has always been active.” Moreover, the companies mining nickel in Ontario had large profits “never larger than at the present moment.” The United States posed a big problem for Canada, pursuing trade policies that promoted the import of raw materials from this country while levying tariffs on processed resources so that the processing would take place in the United States, not Canada. The lumber trade was an early example. In 1897, America imposed an import tax on sawn lumber from Canada, but no tariff on imported logs. This was important for Ontario. “Large rafts of logs were year by year being towed from the north shore of Lake Huron across the lake to be sawed in the mills of Michigan, and smaller quantities were rafted from the west shore of Lake Superior to mills in Duluth.” When Canada threatened an export tax, the U.S. Congress moved to retaliate. Ontario then declared that all pine timber cut on Crown lands must be manufactured into sawn lumber in Canada. Mills and machinery were subsequently transferred from Michigan to the north shore of Lake Huron in Ontario. The result was increased prosperity and jobs for Ontarians from their forests. The same American protectionism faced Canadian nickel and other mineral miners. The United States admitted imports of nickel matte and ore duty-free, but imposed a tariff on refined nickel. “It is evident,” the Ontario nickel commission said, “that the tariff arrangements of that country, which furnishes the largest market for Canadian nickel, are unfavourable, and beyond doubt, designedly so, for the development of the nickel refining industry in Canada.” However, the solution adopted for the lumber industry could not be used in the mining industry where land rights where owned, not licensed. There could be no manufacturing clause where land rights had been sold. By the late 19th century, the commission said, “it was known that the ore was mined and smelted in the province, but that the refining took place mainly in the United States, and popular feeling began to ask ‘why is nickel not refined in Ontario?’” The commission found a number of reasons for this concern. These included “the natural desire to have all the work on raw material which is produced here done at home, up to the point of the finished article. Employment is given to Canadian workmen, Canadian chemists and Canadian experts. The rewards of this labour are spent in Canada and swell the volume of Canadian business.” There is, it said, “a feeling of impatience at seeing Canadians hewers of wood and drawers of water, while in another country, technical and skilled work is performed in refining an article of Canadian origin. It is felt that Canadian prestige would be enhanced by the establishment of an important industry of the kind which would ‘build up Ontario’.” The outbreak of the First World War was another factor. The British Navy recognized the value of nickel as an alloy in armour plate and it had become a necessity of modern warfare. All of Canada’s nickel, it was argued, should be placed “at the service of the Mother country and her allies.” If it were refined in another country it could end up in German hands. There was another risk, the commission reported. “Suppose the United States were to decide she needed for her own use the nickel being refined there from Canadian ore. Canada might indeed restrain the export of matte, but this would not put her in possession of the refined nickel, were there no refineries here.“ Ontario eventually got its refineries with public pressure playing a role. But Sudbury proved to be one of the best locations in the world for the mining of nickel with the nickel commission concluding that Ontario could “compete successfully as a nickel producer with any other country.” What was remarkable about the Ontario nickel story was that it originated with what the commission called public “agitation." Canadians had ambition for their country and expressed it. This has happened on other occasions, as well. Four of our country’s major Canadian-owned and headquartered corporations today—Potash Corp., Cameco, Air Canada, and CN Rail—all originated as Crown corporations. Our major electric power utilities are other examples of public policy pursuing major opportunities. But where are the examples today? Where is the sense of national ambition to seize and build on new opportunities and needs? For example, when it came to developing Toronto’s waterfront as a testbed for digital and sustainable cities, our three levels of government turned to a giant American Corporation, Alphabet/Google, to develop the project and reap the benefits. There was no thought of using this as a testbed for Canadian technology led by a home-grown enterprise. In 1915, there would have been public “agitation” and that eventually was what defeated the Sidewalk Labs project. We now need that spirit to ensure we reap the full benefits of our critical minerals and rare earths today. David Crane can be reached at crane@interlog.com. The Hill Times