With the Ontario election approaching, Premier Doug Ford’s government is highlighting its investments in energy, mining, transportation, trade and infrastructure as it promotes its record to voters.
Minister of Energy and Mining Stephen Lecce joined Minister of Transportation Prabmeet Sarkaria to announce the province is moving forward with the Northern Shield, a proposed “sovereign” pipeline project.
“We need a sovereign pipeline made and built in Canada for Canada,” Lecce said. “We're going to execute on the largest North American nuclear program. Sixteen thousand more megawatts of power for 16 million homes, leveraging Canadian technology, Canadian fuels, Canadian talent — 150,000 jobs.”
Lecce also announced plans to accelerate permitting timelines for energy and mining projects.
“We want to be aggressive and among the fastest in the industrialized world to move faster when it comes to permitting new energy infrastructure projects, new mining projects that help boost our sovereignty,” Lecce said.
Lecce also pointed to investments in high-speed internet as part of the government’s efforts to increase Ontario’s domestic capacity and reduce reliance on foreign companies.
“We're at 96% of access to high-speed internet, which is a massive leap forward,” Lecce said. “We are well on our way to achieving universality and now we're looking for a domestic sovereign low-orbit satellite technology that ideally is Canadian, certainly not owned by [Elon] Musk.”
The comments come as the province continues to emphasize economic self-sufficiency and domestic investment amid ongoing trade tensions with the United States.
Minister of Finance Peter Bethlenfalvy said the province remains hopeful about negotiations between Canada and the United States but is continuing to pursue investment and economic development while talks continue.
“We're a free-trading province, a manufacturing province, and so we're focused on supporting the federal government in their negotiations with the U.S. federal government to get a good trade deal. But at the same time, we're not waiting,” Bethlenfalvy said.
President of the Ontario Treasury Board Kinga Surma said the government is also focusing on sectors affected by U.S. tariffs.
“We invested more than $220 billion across all programs in 2025-26 to strengthen the public service, such as health care and education,” Surma said. “It's also why we announced $30 billion in relief and support measures to key sectors such as automotive, steel, forestry — which have been disproportionately hurt by President [Donald] Trump's tariffs.”
The province has also committed $3 billion to the Indigenous Opportunities Financing Program, $500 million for critical-minerals processing, $600 million to Invest Ontario and $150 million to the Ontario Trade Together Fund.
The fund provides grants or loans to help Ontario businesses diversify their export markets amid ongoing trade uncertainty.
Fedeli said 89 companies have participated in the program, protecting or creating more than 10,000 jobs.
“Despite the uncertainty that is worldwide, over the last year Ontario saw 750 companies invest $35 billion and create 64,000 jobs themselves,” Fedeli said.
The province’s economic strategy comes as Canada and the United States continue to navigate tariffs and broader trade tensions.
Ontario trade representative David Paterson said the province is working to strengthen relationships with American businesses and political leaders despite the current tensions between the two countries.
“We've been working on really deepening our ecosystem of relationships in the United States,” Paterson said. “There is a growing consensus amongst the American business community that we need adjustments to tariffs for Canada.”
Paterson also said politicians and businesses in the United States are calling for the renewal of the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA) the continental trade agreement that replaced NAFTA.
“In a letter that's been put together by leading Republicans, with some 186 Republicans signing on saying we need to renew the USMCA,” Paterson said.
Paterson said nearly 500 American businesses are also petitioning for the agreement’s renewal. He said he has continued meeting with businesses and political leaders across the United States.
“I've met with over 1,200 American businesses and members of Congress in the last two years, and I can say in all those meetings that people know their constituents that they need to be trading with Canada,” Paterson said.
Paterson said Ontario needs to continue diversifying its trade relationships while maintaining its economic ties with the United States.
“We really need to hunker down and make sure that we're diversifying our trade, and that we have a resilient economy during this period of change with Protect Ontario and the diversification work,” Paterson said.
