Toronto-based Generation Mining (TSX:GENM,OTCQB:GENMF) has secured C$340 million in final financing to complete a C$1.3 billion capital package for its Marathon copper-palladium project in Northwestern Ontario.

The final funding package relies on C$190 million in federal anchor commitments, comprising C$140 million from the Canada Growth Fund (CGF) and C$50 million from the Canada Infrastructure Bank (CIB).

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The C$340 million package breaks down across three distinct financial structures.

Generation Mining arranged a C$200 million public offering of 312.5 million common shares at C$0.64 per share, backed by C$100 million in combined commitments from CGF, Wheaton Precious Metals (TSX:WPM,NYSE:WPM), and Glencore Canada, the North American branch of London-listed Glencore (LSE:GLEN,OTCPL:GLCNF).

In addition, CGF subscribed for a direct C$40 million private placement of 62.5 million shares at the same price.

The remaining C$100 million comes via subordinated unsecured convertible notes split equally between CGF and CIB, carrying a 9 percent annual interest rate.

In tandem with the financing, Generation Mining executed a life-of-mine supply agreement with Glencore AG.

The arrangement will see Glencore purchase 100 percent of the project’s polymetallic copper concentrate during the first two years of commercial production and from year 13 onward, while taking roughly 50 percent during years three through 12.

The concentrate will be processed domestically at Glencore Canada’s Horne smelter in Rouyn-Noranda, Québec, and its CCR refinery.

“Today is a landmark day for Generation Mining,” President and CEO Jamie Levy said in the official press release. “This important milestone was made possible by the complementary tools put in place by the Government of Canada to help complete the project’s financing stack, with CGF providing equity financing and CIB providing debt financing.”

“Canada has everything it takes to be a global leader in critical minerals. Copper and palladium are essential to Canada’s economic future—supporting everything from clean energy and critical infrastructure to advanced manufacturing,” Minister of Finance and National Revenue François-Philippe Champagne said in a separate statement.

Over a 13-year design life, the Marathon operation is forecast to produce 532 million pounds of copper, 2.16 million ounces of palladium, 488,000 ounces of platinum, 160,000 ounces of gold, and 3.05 million ounces of silver.

The bought deal financing is scheduled to close on or about September 21, 2026, subject to Toronto Stock Exchange approval, with a special shareholder vote planned for the fourth quarter to approve the convertible note transaction.

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Securities Disclosure: I, Georgia Williams, hold no direct investment interest in any company mentioned in this article.

As the artificial intelligence (AI) market continues to grow, there are many AI stocks for investors to choose from on top exchanges like the NASDAQ, TSX and ASX.

AI technology has made strong inroads into a wide variety of key industries, including logistics, manufacturing, finance, healthcare, customer service and cybersecurity.

While AI has been around for a long time, this explosion in popularity is due to advancements in generative AI, starting with the release of OpenAI’s ChatGPT. Since then, many major tech firms entered the space with their own generative AI offerings, or now include AI technology in their own innovative products.

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A McKinsey report states: “AI is a widely applicable, general-purpose technology with use cases in every industry and business function — and thus lots of innovation and interest — and it is scaling rapidly across the business landscape.”

Here the Investing News Network profiles some of the biggest AI stocks by market cap on US, Canadian and Australian stock exchanges. Data for this AI stocks list was gathered on August 19, 2026, using TradingView’s stock screener.

Ontario Premier Doug Ford announced the province’s new data centre framework Thursday, saying it will “ensure Canadians’ data remains in Canada.”

The framework bases data centre approvals on three pillars, namely economic development, data protection and sovereignty and community investment and public confidence.

“Through our new data centre playbook, our government is choosing to build the economy of the future that generate billions in economic growth, increase tax revenues and create thousands of new jobs, while ensuring data centres operate by the rate rules,” Ford said during the announcement in Guelph.

“Our framework will ensure data centres cover the full cost of their electricity usage, encouraging projects to build their own power generation and establishing a separate rate class for large new data centres that is higher than the existing industrial rate programs for major electricity users. No costs are passed on to the hard-working Ontario families.”

Ford also said the province “will not be offering financial incentives to attract investments.”

The province said its framework will serve as a “key enabler” of its artificial intelligence (AI) strategy, which is expected to produce economic benefits including $122 billion in economic growth by 2035 as well as the creation of 17,000 new jobs annually.

The announcement comes as municipalities across the province deliberate about moratoriums on data centres, with Oakville voting to enact a one-year moratorium Tuesday and Mississauga set to vote on its own moratorium in September. 

Playbook ‘falls short’: Ontario Greens

Last week, Green Party of Ontario leader Mike Schreiner called for a pause on data centres. One of his concerns was how corporations are the ones benefiting from local water instead of Ontario communities.

Ilham Abdulkadir of the group Wellington Water Watchers joined Schreiner in his call, stating that the infrastructure behind these data centres are “largely physical” as they require the use of land and energy along with an “enormous thirst for water.”

In Toronto, more than 5,000 residents have signed petitions over concerns about data centres in their communities.

Vic Fedeli, Ontario’s minister of economic development, said the province will “make certain [to] give priority to the data centres that use a closed loop system.” 

A closed loop system works similarly to a car radiator, which reuses water to reduce water consumption. 

Ford seconded this, saying his government will be “prioritizing builds with closed loop systems that use virtually no water during…

A former silver mining area in northern Ontario has been tapped to be the home of North America’s first battery-grade cobalt refinery. The nearby town — aptly named Cobalt — may finally be living up to its name. 

When completed, the facility will process mined cobalt rock — refining it into cobalt sulfate, an essential ingredient in lithium-ion batteries used in everything from electric vehicles and smartphones to fighter jets. 

Electra Battery Materials, the company behind the project, says the plant will be fully operational by the end of 2027 and could produce 6,500 tonnes of battery-grade cobalt — enough to supply about one million electric vehicle batteries per year. 

“Increasingly we need these critical minerals for our batteries and for our high-tech in order to function in modern society,” said the company’s founder and CEO Trent Mell. “So it’s not just the cars, it’s not just powering our grid with storage, it is also national security.”

In the refinery’s lab, Graham Kinsman, Electra’s metallurgical lead, is busy tweaking chemical and physical processes to remove impurities like iron and copper from the cobalt.

“There’s a lot of specificity involved, so at each stage of the process we’re adjusting pHs, we’re addressing temperatures to make sure that we are efficiently removing the material that we need to remove,” he said. 

The final product is a very pure form of cobalt that stabilizes the batteries so they don’t overheat and helps them hold a charge for a longer period of time.

A long mining history

Despite the town of Cobalt’s name hinting at an abundance of it in the area, the plant won’t be sourcing mined rock locally — or even domestically. Instead, it will be imported from overseas.

The community got its name after cobalt was found during construction of the Temiskaming and Northern Ontario Railway in 1903. But more important at the time was the discovery of silver. 

The area immediately became the site of a major silver rush that lasted through the 1920s. At its height, it supplied 44 per cent of the world’s silver production, according to the Cobalt Mining Museum. 

Shares of MCFARLANE LAKE MINING (CSE:MLM,OTCQB:MLMLF) rose 25.64 percent this week, after the Canadian junior secured a US$4.86 million private placement led by well-known mining investor Michael Gentile.

Gentile is taking the bulk of the non-brokered placement, subscribing for US$4.57 million, while mining executive Pierre Beaudoin will cover the remainder.

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Each unit, priced at roughly US$0.09, includes one common share and one warrant, exercisable at US$0.12 for three years. Upon closing, Gentile will hold a 19.67 percent stake in the company on a partially diluted basis.

According to the firm, the capital injection will pay down outstanding debentures and further fund its exploration at the Juby project by covering the general working capital.

“We are very pleased to welcome Michael Gentile and Pierre Beaudoin as strategic investors. Their experience in the mining sector and track record of supporting high-quality exploration and development companies aligns well with our vision for McFarlane Lake,” CEO Mark Trevisiol said in a recent press release.

Trevisiol added that the financing shores up the company’s balance sheet beyond its immediate operational needs.

Gentile’s entry follows a recent series of drill results at the Juby project, located in the Abitibi Greenstone Belt of Ontario, Canada. On May 19, the company reported it had extended the gold mineralized envelope at the property’s Golden Lake deposit to 750 meters along strike.

Recent drilling intercepted wide bands of lower-grade mineralization.Step-out drilling 1,100 meters to the northwest also hit mineralization, expanding the active drill pattern to 1.6 kilometers.

Gentile pointed to these project fundamentals as the driver for the investment.

“McFarlane Lake ticks all the boxes I look for in a mining project: size, scale, infrastructure, grade and compelling exploration upside all in a proven Tier 1 jurisdiction and trading at only a $60M market cap,” Mr. Gentile said.

McFarlane has completed roughly 7,500 meters of its planned 13,000-meter drill program. The company is using the expanded drill data to model a revised resource estimate.

“Our strategy remains on track: releasing an updated resource statement in June and continuing to ready our site for a bulk sample of mineralization in 2027,” Trevisiol said.

Don’t forget to follow us @INN_Resource for real-time news updates!

Securities Disclosure: I, Giann Liguid, hold no direct investment interest in any company mentioned in this article.

The new owners of Zellers will soon expand the relaunched brand to Ontario but are first making a few tweaks.

A new discount storefront is set to open near Toronto’s Yorkdale Mall on June 18th, and another at Windsor’s Tecumseh Mall in July.

Like the Edmonton location that marked the brand’s relaunch last year, the stores will be stocked with apparel, home goods, luggage and seasonal items.

The Ontario stores will also introduce snack foods and toys, a category the owners initially wanted to leave out of Zellers because they felt it would be too hard to compete with Walmart and Amazon.

Zellers chief operating officer Joey Benitah says he changed his mind because a small selection of toys he trialed at the Edmonton location wound up being some of the store’s best sellers.

The Benitah family, which owns the brand now, bought the rights to the almost 100-year-old Zellers name last year after its former owner, Hudson’s Bay, went under.

The family is also behind apparel stores Fairweather and International Clothiers as well as home goods retailer Wyrth.

In the almost 100 years since Zellers was founded, the discount department store has died and been revived several times.

Its current owners are less than a year into their relaunch but say they have national expansion plans.

Platinum-group metals (PGMs) include platinum, palladium, rhodium and other metals, all of which are prized for their durability, resistance to corrosion and excellent catalytic properties. However, just a handful of countries produce these precious metals.

The automotive industry is the world’s largest consumer of these metals, which among other things are used in catalytic converters for vehicle exhaust systems in cars with internal combustion engines (ICE). A rebound and continued growth in auto production is projected in the coming years, particularly in developing markets, and this should increase demand for PGMs, especially when it comes to platinum and palladium.

On the supply side, the platinum market remained at a significant deficit in 2025, with a shortfall of 692,000 ounces, and is expected to stay at a deficit through 2026. These fundamentals, alongside a run in precious metals, led platinum prices to an all-time high of US$2,913.36 per ounce on January 26, 2026.

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When it comes to palladium, the market is even more dependent on the automotive sector. Although 2025 recorded a 415,000 ounce supply deficit, analysts at UBS suggest that this could turn around to oversupply due to sales growth in the EV sector. Palladium prices reached an all-time high of US$3,221 per ounce on March 8, 2022.

Prices for the metal have declined in recent years on waning demand from the auto sector, and have been trading in the US$1,300 to US$2,000 range in 2026.

But where do platinum and palladium come from? The list of the world’s top palladium- and platinum-mining countries is a short one, and most PGMs come from South Africa and Russia. Russia’s ongoing war in Ukraine and electricity shortages in South Africa are expected to seriously hamper the ability of these nations to bring PGMs to market.

We dive into the miners, markets and regulations affecting the top platinum and palladium countries below, and you can also learn more about the companies mining them in our guides on how to invest in platinum and palladium here.

So what other countries are platinum and palladium producers, and which countries hold the most platinum and palladium reserves? Below is a list of the five top producers in 2025, as per the latest data from the US Geological Survey.

Equinox Gold (TSX:EQX,NYSEAMERICAN:EQX) and Orla Mining (TSX:OLA,NYSEAMERICAN:ORLA) have agreed to an all-stock merger to forge a US$18.5 billion North American gold titan.

Under the terms of the definitive arrangement, Equinox shareholders will retain a 67 percent stake in the combined entity, which will keep the Equinox Gold name, while Orla investors will hold the remaining 33 percent. Orla shareholders will receive one Equinox share and a nominal cash payment for each share held.

The deal anchors the new company in Canada.

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By combining Equinox’s Greenstone and Valentine mines (located in Ontario and Newfoundland, respectively) with Orla’s Musselwhite asset, also in Ontario, the merged entity is set to become Canada’s second-largest gold producer, with projected domestic output of 685,000 ounces this year.

Factoring in operations across the US, Mexico, and Nicaragua, management sees a clear development runway to push annual production beyond 1.9 million ounces.

“Today is an incredibly exciting day for both Equinox and Orla shareholders as we announce a business combination that creates a senior North American gold producer with increased scale, high-quality long-life assets, and one of the strongest organic growth pipelines in the sector,” Equinox CEO Darren Hall said in a company press release.

Hall will retain his position as CEO, while Orla’s current chief, Jason Simpson, will step into the President role.

“Orla was built on a simple idea: Acquire the right assets, develop them with discipline, and operate them well,” said Simpson.

The merger’s heavy emphasis on Tier-1 North American mining jurisdictions continues a trending industry retreat from volatile regulatory environments.

In January, Equinox closed a US$1 billion sale of its Brazilian gold assets to Chinese metals miner CMOC Group (OTCPL:CMCLF). However, a Brazilian court abruptly halted the transfer of mineral rights in March after state-run CBPM alleged the transaction violated its regional leasing agreements.

By pivoting decisively toward North America, the combined entity is projected to generate roughly US$1.4 billion in free cash flow in 2026, armed with matching available liquidity to self-fund its growth pipeline.

The transaction is slated to close in the third quarter of 2026, pending shareholder and regulatory approvals. The agreement also includes a US$475 million break fee payable by Equinox and a US$250 million fee payable by Orla under certain conditions.

Don’t forget to follow us @INN_Resource for real-time updates!

Securities Disclosure: I, Giann Liguid, hold no direct investment interest in any company mentioned in this article.

Honda has indefinitely suspended its plans for a $15-billion electric vehicle complex in Ontario due to changing business conditions.

The Japanese automaker said last May it was pausing development at the plant, with plans to review where the EV market was at in two years.

The decision to more definitively suspend the plant was first reported last week by Japanese media, but at the time Honda did not confirm the news.

“Based on our revised strategic objectives, we have determined that an indefinite suspension of the value chain project is appropriate at this stage. We will continue reviewing our future procurement and business strategies, while carefully monitoring market conditions,” Honda said in a statement on Thursday.

The company says the pause won’t impact current employment or production levels at its Alliston, Ont., manufacturing plant.

The planned EV complex could have created about 1,000 manufacturing jobs and made 240,000 vehicles a year once it was fully operational by 2028.

The project was first announced in April 2024 at an event that included then-prime minister Justin Trudeau and Ontario Premier Doug Ford, both of whom pledged money toward the project. Ottawa and Ontario said they would provide $2.5 billion each for the project.

In the Thursday announcement, Honda said it hasn’t received any of that promised government money.

Honda posts $3.68 billion loss

The change comes as Honda posted its first-ever full-year loss at 423.9 billion yen ($3.68 billion Cdn), which it attributed heavily to big plans for EVs not panning out.

“EV demand has declined considerably, due to the rollback of environmental regulations in the U.S. and other factors,” Honda said in a statement.

Honda’s chief executive Toshihiro Mibe said on Thursday that his company would still pursue carbon neutrality, but by allocating more development and production resources to hybrids.

Greg Layson, digital editor for Automotive News Canada, says many of the vehicles made in Canada head to the U.S. to be sold, so it makes sense that the Trump administration’s pullback on EV incentives hit Honda hard.

That’s layered on top of American automotive tariffs, which have also taken a toll on carmakers, Layson said.

“When you’re losing money in one sense and paying money out the door in another … it’s going to make it really difficult to follow through on $15-billion plans.”