Frontier Lithium got a big boost from both the federal and Ontario governments on Tuesday, with the announcement of funding support for the construction of a lithium conversion facility in Thunder Bay, Ontario.  

Jonathan Wilkinson, Canada’s minister of energy and natural resources, announced that the federal government has conditionally approved funding of up to $120 million for the facility. The investment comes from Canada’s Strategic Innovation Fund, which also recently put $41 million towards Foran Mining’s McIlvenna Bay project in Saskatchewan, which is being planned as Canada’s first carbon-neutral copper mine.  

“We are focused not simply on mining,” said Wilkinson at a press conference held at the Government of Canada pavilion at PDAC 2025 on March 4, “but on end-to-end supply chains.”  

According to Vic Fedeli, Ontario’s minister of economic development, job creation and trade, the Ontario government is considering support of $120 million for what would be the province’s first such facility.  

“Our government is prepared to make bold decisions that will position Ontario as one of the best places in the world to invest, to grow and to create jobs through strategic partnerships, such as the one we are acknowledging here today,” Fedeli said.  

Frontier Lithium is currently developing the Pakeagama (PAK) lithium project north of Red Lake, Ontario, in a joint venture with Mitsubishi. A prefeasibility study released in 2023 laid out an integrated project that would mine and concentrate spodumene at site and then further upgrade it at a second processing facility into battery-ready lithium salts.  

The company recently finalized the purchase of a 183-acre industrial site in Thunder Bay to host the conversion facility. Construction of the refinery is planned for 2027, and lithium chemical production is anticipated to start in 2029.  

The joint announcement by the provincial and federal governments came after newly re-elected Ontario Premier Doug Ford scolded Ottawa in a March 3 speech at PDAC for obstructing resource development in the province with “redundant and wrong-headed impact assessments,” and demanded that the federal government “get out of the way.”  

At the Frontier Lithium announcement, Wilkinson said that he had met with all of his provincial and territorial counterparts earlier in the day to look at how to streamline processes. Subsequently, the ministers released a joint statement on March 4 that stated they “are committed to working together to establish predictable, reliable and timely regulatory processes by urgently eliminating unnecessary overlaps. This collaboration will take place in a way that respects jurisdictional powers of both orders of government.” 

The document did not, however, provide any detail about what overlaps they had identified for elimination.