SUDBURY - Sir Winston Churchill purportedly once quipped that one never wants to see “a good crisis go to waste.”
Fortunately then for Ontario and Canada, we’ve got a whopper.
Under President Trump, the United States is upending decades of partnership with Canada and many other allied nations.
American support for Ukraine is now apparently subject to the fledgling democracy providing $500-billion worth of rare earth as a “back payment” for U.S. military support.
Taiwan, the southeast Asian democracy that lives under constant threat of Chinese invasion, is being threatened with potentially 25-per-cent, 50-per-cent, or 100-per-cent tariffs on its world-class semiconductors while the U.S. angles for more investment in domestic production.
And Canada, for our part, is being taunted about becoming the 51st American state while also being expected to radically boost defence and security expenditures to earn our portion of the U.S. security umbrella.
While uncomfortable, the Trump administration’s dramatic early moves are helpful because they communicate to the international community what America wants. Under Trump, America wants deals to boost its economy and burden-sharing to support allied defence.
I propose that my city — Greater Sudbury — and our partners across Ontario are uniquely positioned to help Canada lead on both fronts while shoring up our own economic sovereignty.
Here’s how.
First, President Trump is on the hunt for critical minerals and rare earth to fuel the American defence and technology industries for decades to come, and we’ve got them, along with the world-class mineral processing facilities and expertise in Greater Sudbury.
The U.S. is a net importer of 43 minerals from Canada, relying on its northern neighbour for 50-80 per cent of its needs. In fact, 80 per cent of the nickel used in America’s aerospace sector and 56 per cent of the nickel used in America’s defence sector comes from Ontario.
In addition, we also supply nickel for electric vehicle batteries, tellurium for solar panels, and vanadium for outfitting aircraft carriers and other defence applications, and all of it is only going up in value.
So obviously we need to rapidly — and environmentally sustainably — explore and control these deposits before the U.S. tries to make it their own and set radical political conditions on us like Mr Trump is doing to Ukraine. The faster and more of our own economic potential we control, the stronger hand we have with the U.S. heading into the planned 2026 renegotiation of the Canada-U.S.-Mexico Free Trade Agreement.
Critical to doing so, however, is investing in further processing capacity. There’s a reason Premier Danielle Smith doesn’t want to use Canadian oil as a bargaining chip in Mr. Trump's tariff wars: The majority of our oil does not get refined here in Canada, so cutting off America’s supply of consumer oil energy would mean cutting ours off, too.
We need to develop a nickel sulfate processing capacity right here in Sudbury, along with pre-cathode active material (pCAM) production capability. We have the land, the talent, the resources, and over 100 years of mineral processing experience needed to do this.
In fact, doing so would fully domesticate the Ontario EV supply chain, unlock untold millions of dollars and countless jobs for Ontario, and improve our global bargaining position for international investment and trade deals on a key future-focused industry with auto giants domiciled in Japan, Korea, the U.S., and Europe. I’ve got investors and Indigenous community leaders at the table to do this, and I’m ready to partner with the premier of Ontario to get it done.
Second, while taking domestic exploration, sustainable development, and refining to a new level, we should make the case for partnering with the U.S. and other democratic allies to co-invest in major national defence technology development — not just upstream extraction but mid-and downstream development and commercialisation and adoption right here in Canada and then for the rest of the allied community as well.
Earlier this year, the technical director for the U.S. Defence Industrial Base Policy said, “[S]ecure sourcing of critical minerals is critical to the defense industrial base, which uses them to produce virtually every Defense Department system, from unmanned aerial systems and fighter jets to submarines.”
Taking inspiration from the British Commonwealth Air Training Plan in the Second World War when Canada helped the Allies develop and train on aviation methods to win the fight for the 20th century, so too now — owing to our vast geography, expansive resources, and technological prowess — should we serve as a new gravity well for the defence of liberal democratic technology and supply chains to win the 21st.
There are recent, cutting-edge precedents for small groups of allies to partner with the U.S. on defence technology initiatives, like the AUKUS submarine pact between the U.S., U.K., and Australia. We can do the same in North America for critical minerals — ideally through the North American Aerospace Defence Command, which is the anchor for joint U.S.-Canadian continental defence — and every penny we invest in this venture should count toward Canada’s promised defence expenditure of 2 percent of GDP.
We should be under no illusions. The rise of China, the outbreak of war in Europe, and the America First doctrine of the new Trump Administration represent a geo-economic crisis for Canada and many of our democratic friends and allies.
So for goodness sake, let’s not waste it.
Paul Lefebvre is Mayor of the City of Greater Sudbury. He served as a Member of Parliament for Sudbury and Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Natural Resources from 2015-2021.