Ontarians for a Just Accountable Mineral Strategy (OJAMS) has taken a closer look at the relationship between Ontario’s political parties and the metal mining industry in this province.

Using Elections Ontario’s financial statements available online, we found out how much each of the major mining companies with active operations in the province and the two junior mining companies with claims in the Ring of Fire gave to the three main political parties between 2014 and 2016.

In total, metal mining companies donated over $435,500 to Ontario’s political parties over the period 2014-16. At $286,700, the Liberal Party received about 66 percent of the total, the Progressive Conservative Party just over 22 percent, while the NDP received just over 12 percent of the donations.

The main contributing companies include Barrick Gold ($153,466.94), KWG and subsidiaries ($96,858.91), Detour Gold ($67,406.32), Goldcorp ($54,726.12), Noront Resources ($34,759.59), Vale S.A. ($20,450.00), Canada Chrome ($29,760).

Barrick Gold’s founder and chairman emeritus – Peter Munk – was also a major individual contributor. In fact, Munk and his wife Melanie donated $72,600 to the Progressive Conservative Party, $20,000 of which went to Christine Elliott’s 2015 leadership campaign (Elliott was former Minister of Finance Jim Flaherty’s wife before he passed away). If Munk’s donations are combined with Barrick’s, then the company spent $226,066.94 on political parties in three years, $155,764.00 of which went to the Progressive Conservative Party.

For information:

Matthew Corbeil [email protected]