Thanks, Iain.
Thanks, Mr. Chair and standing committee.
We did circulate information on the producers and the advanced projects in northwest Ontario—that's really our focal point today—with Thunder Bay as a hub, as a key driver and locale for working with the exploration and mining industry in northwest Ontario.
This is a great opportunity to speak on the heels of Mr. Dirom, who presented things with a B.C. focus. There are some commonalities as we move forward.
With respect to northwestern Ontario, we are certainly an economic driver from the standpoint of the gold production site, producing roughly 19% of Canada's gold. We anticipate that number to rise. We have currently four producers. That number will rise with five new companies in production in the next four years to get us into the 23% or 24% range, as new producers come on in Quebec, the Northwest Territories, and British Columbia.
We also have 12 to 20 advanced exploration projects.
I must paraphrase and really clarify where we are right now. A lot of these discoveries, including the five new mines coming on to supplement the four existing—and again these are huge economic drivers for the economy of northwestern Ontario—were discovered, in most cases, during the run-up of 2004 to 2011, in terms of metal prices, particularly led by the gold market.
We also have hundreds of grassroots projects, not unlike the situation in British Columbia, that are stalled, that have been caught in the five-year downturn of 2011 to 2016. We're seeing some hints of moving out of that with lithium and gold prices moving. Right now we're also a palladium producer, so gold, copper, nickel, and palladium will be in our future, in our headlights. Discovery to production is roughly a 15-year to 25-year journey.
I will give you an idea of two of the major economic impacts before us now. New Gold, with a producer just outside of Kamloops, but also bringing in one of Canada's newest gold mines, four hours west of Thunder Bay in the Fort Frances area, is a billion-dollar investment. Greenstone Gold, northeast of Thunder Bay, is a $900-million investment. Its feasibility study will be out very shortly. And certainly there's the Ring of Fire.
I'll turn it back to Iain on that issue at this particular point.