Ford highlights promise to speed up Ring of Fire approvals at stop in Thunder Bay [Video]

Ontario Progressive Conservative Leader Doug Ford highlighted his promise to speed up project approvals in the mineral-rich Ring of Fire on Saturday as he visited northern Ontario on the last weekend of the provincial election campaign.

Speaking in Thunder Bay, Ford pointed to the critical minerals mined in the Ring of Fire region as Ontario’s “ace in the hole” in the face of possible tariffs from the U.S., an issue he has put front and centre throughout the snap campaign.

“To protect Ontario, to give us maximum leverage on the global stage, we have to get our critical minerals out of the ground, processed and shipped to the factory floors here in northern Ontario and across the province,” he said.

Ford has said that a re-elected Progressive Conservative government would push Ottawa to remove “unnecessary federal barriers and red tape” from major projects under provincial jurisdiction in order to “unlock …