Walk into any mine site, exploration camp, or mineral processing facility in Northern Ontario right now and you’ll hear the same quiet anxiety underneath the optimism about critical minerals and Ring of Fire potential — where are the people going to come from? It’s a question that Franco-Nevada President and CEO Paul Brink is asking out loud, and loudly enough that it deserves to echo across every bunkhouse and boardroom in the region.
In a recent conversation with The Northern Miner, Brink put it plainly: the bottleneck isn’t capital, it isn’t permitting, and it isn’t the ore body. It’s people. Franco-Nevada, one of the world’s most respected mining royalty and streaming companies, has partnered with The Northern Miner to bring that message directly to the industry. For Northern Ontario, where communities from Timmins to Thunder Bay have staked their futures on a mining resurgence, the workforce pipeline isn’t an abstract human resources problem — it’s an existential one. A mine without geologists, engineers, and skilled tradespeople is just a hole in the ground.
The conversation Brink is pushing for in 2026 — one that ties mining’s future directly to investment in education and training — is one Northern Ontario has a particular stake in shaping. This region built the modern Canadian mining industry. The knowledge, the grit, and the culture are already here. The question is whether we’re doing enough to pass it on to the next generation before the window closes.