The pandemic will shrink lithium-ion battery demand by at least 25% this year even prior to further economic setbacks. But electric vehicles hold greater likelihood than many other industries not only for recovery but growth. Current reductions in lithium, cobalt, graphite and nickel supply will only mean greater need later this decade, according to Benchmark Mineral Intelligence.

With additional health standards in place and encouraged by a surging gold price, Quebec miners have been given a back-to-work go-ahead. On lifting a three-week suspension, the province allowed ramp-up procedures to begin April 15. A ban on non-essential industrial activities, including mineral exploration, has been extended to May 4.

Through grimly ironic coincidence, the country that unwittingly inflicted this on the world stands to benefit. “The Chinese Communist Party is seizing what its senior officials are calling the ‘opportunity’ of the pandemic to realize the party’s long-game objective of fully eclipsing North America and Europe in the global order,” writes Terry Glavin.

Given the danger of one crisis triggering others, essential infrastructure remains at risk. One plan to safeguard Ontario’s electricity service would require Toronto workers to bunk down in employer-supplied accommodation under lockdown conditions better known to isolated locations.

So strange now, to look back on those days when Canada sunk away from the rest of the world. That was just after the pandemic peaked, leaving a devastated species to bury its dead and begin the arduous task of rebuilding its economies and institutions. Where optimism surfaced, it sprang from the young—proportionately more numerous, less hindered by grief, and more adaptable to unprecedented challenge. In fits and starts, not without setbacks and confusion, the world was recovering.

Except for Canada.

Shut Down Canada has largely been achieved, but not by the forces that advocated it nor—until someone finds a way of blaming this on climate change—by the doomsday belief they were pushing. Residents of our strangely quiet cities and towns watch the horror unfold elsewhere while wondering how long and hard the pandemic will hit Canada. Meanwhile, workers and business owners might consider themselves lucky if the economy fares no worse than a very serious recession.

If you think that’s bad news, be glad the poll ended when it did. The Fraser Institute Survey of Mining Companies 2019 imposed a November 8 deadline on respondents. Shut Down Canada didn’t really gain momentum until a bit later.

There might be limits to the ideological realm after all. Not only can heretics get paid speaking gigs but investors, of all people, will forego avarice long enough to grant them an audience. Over 600 attendees crammed into each of three SRO events at VRIC 2020, once to hear establishment apostate Conrad Black and twice for Greenpeace renegade Patrick Moore, as they took turns denouncing the cause célèbre of our time.

Val-d’Or flaunted its abundance yet again as Eldorado Gold TSX:ELD reached commercial production at Lamaque in March. Pre-commercial mining and toll milling began the previous year, with the first gold pour from the project’s refurbished Sigma mill in December 2018. Guidance for 2019 was set at 100,000 to 110,000 ounces, with 125,000 to 135,000 initially expected for each of 2020 and 2021.

While mining sustains the electric vehicle revolution, EVs enhance sustainability at Newmont Goldcorp’s (TSX:NGT) “mine of the future.” The company announced Borden’s commercial production on October 1, eight days after an official inauguration attended by representatives from industry, government and natives. The new operation boasts “state-of-the-art health and safety controls, digital mining technologies and processes, and low-carbon-energy vehicles.” The latter distinguish Borden as Canada’s first underground mine to spurn diesel-fueled vehicles in favour of EVs.