Centre for Excellence in Mining Innovation, Sudbury, Elizabeth May | Sudbury Star

If the Green Party has its way, the federal government would sink $40 million into Sudbury’s the Centre for Excellence in Mining Innovation.

In a release, the party said the Sudbury-based mining cluster stands apart as a global center for mining technology development, and that mining is at the foundation of solving the climate crisis.

The Green said the technologies needed to take Canada from fossil fuels to a green, clean environment rely heavily on metals such as nickel, copper, cobalt, lithium, rare earth elements and more, the party said. Indeed, many of those metals are needed to build and power electric vehicles, for example.

Elizabeth May, leader of the Green Party of Canada, and Sudbury candidate Bill Crumplin met with Doug Morrison at the Centre for Excellence in Mining Innovation where they discussed the initiative to establish a Sudbury-based mining super cluster.

“Elizabeth learned from Doug Morrison this initiative needed a $40-million commitment from the federal government to get a jump start,” Crumplin said.

May immediately directed her staff to include this mining initiative in her platform.

According to the Green platform, the party will “support the transition of the mining sector to an innovation hub for greener technologies, commercialized technologies and be attractive to export markets, including $40 million for the CEMI proposed Sudbury-based mining innovation centre.”

This commitment to mining is the result of years of work by Sudbury Greens, local mining entrepreneurs and post-secondary institutions working together and lobbying provincial and federal governments.

“She consults, she listens, she understands, she assesses and she acts,” Crumplin said of May. “What more do we want from a leader?”

Established in 2007 and based in Sudbury, CEMI’s mandate is to lead innovation by introducing new practices, procedures, tools, techniques and technologies to help generate a significant improvement in the performance of mines.

The innovations are intended to find more ore, mine ore more effectively and safely, generate more value from mines, and reduce the impact of mining on the environment.

“Essential to successful innovation,” CEMI says, “is market acceptance. CEMI works to ensure that these mining innovations are commercially viable and achieve a level of operational integration into day-to-day mining activities.

“Our approach is purposeful, to ensure innovations are sustainable and economically feasible for the mining industry.”

Money to fund CEMI comes from government and private sector sources.