A unique company model, particularly for a mining company, is set to see Manitoba and its residents truly benefit from the province’s first-ever potash mine thanks to the Potash and Agri Development Corporation of Manitoba (PADCOM). The locally owned and operated company, which has the potash mineral rights for the province’s Harrowby project, is focused on giving back through its thoughtful community development model and wants to ensure the benefits of this critical mineral found here stay here to benefit local communities, Indigenous groups and Manitobans.
The love for his province and neighbours is evident within minutes of speaking with PADCOM president, Daymon Guillas. It’s followed very closely by the pride he has for the work the company is doing–work that opposes the commonplace profit-first focus of so many resource development companies.
“We believe in profit–we believe in really good profits, but we abhor greed,” says Guillas of himself and his PADCOM partners. “With highly profitable projects in resource development, it needs to be shared. It’s wrong, wrong, wrong that this profit goes to shareholders out of the country. It’s wrong.”
Although the provinces and country see some money from foreign-owned mining projects through taxes and royalties and job creation, it’s still a pittance compared to the real profit—the extraction of the resource itself.
Guilllas would sooner see the resource left in the ground than having the valuable resource and subsequent profit leave the country. “It’s our resource. Ours meaning Manitoba, Canada, and the profit should stay here.”
So, keeping it local is just what PADCOM is doing. The organization stepped up and raised the funds needed to develop the Harrowby mine themselves with zero foreign ownership. That means all the profits stay in Manitoba.
Production on the mine began in June 2023 with commercial production starting in early 2024. The mine currently employs 30 people and is set to extract 250,000 tonnes per year, and PADCOM is committed to giving at least 11 per cent of its net profit back to the community. This will be done through local Indigenous groups, including Gambler First Nation, which owns a 20 per cent stake in the project, and the Manitoba Métis Federation.
In addition, the company is setting up Impower, a regional social and economic development fund for those in the region. The fund can be used to support the community in many ways, and all that is required to pay it back is to pay it forward–through volunteering and community engagement. For example, if a daycare wants to expand, they can borrow money from Impower and instead of paying back the funds, they can instead send one family each week to visit a personal care home. If someone is ever required to pay back the funds, it can be done over a long period with “no garbage terms and interest,” says Guilllas. “We want success in the region. We want business to grow and grow and grow.”
As the mine sees larger profits, Guillas is planning to give back a significant percentage, including to organizations that fight food insecurity and arts and sports programming. This is all possible because of local ownership.
“It is easiest to find the resource, sell it off to a big company and cash in. But we’re not going to do it,” says Guillas, who thinks Canada has taken the easy way out for years when it comes to resource development, and we now need to stand up and do better.
“We’ve done it. We’re proof it can be done,” says Guillas.
Popularity of potash
The Harrowby project is promising to be a nice claim for Manitoba as the critical mineral is needed around the world, and thanks to Saskatchewan, famous for potash, Canada is the world’s number one supplier.
Potash is essential to food availability. The three main fertilizers used to grow crops are nitrogen, phosphate, and potassium (found in potash). But as excessive use of nitrogen and phosphate as fertilizers have been found to cause serious environmental issues, the world needs potash–which does no harm–now more than ever.
“If you don’t have potash, you don’t have food availability,” says Guillas. “That’s how important Saskatchewan is to feed the world. If Saskatchewan potash wasn’t always consistent, on time and available, there would not be enough food in other countries to feed people.”
But the mineral is not without some market drama due to the ever-changing world stage in recent years that have led to shifts in prices and demand. Record potash prices were seen in 2021 due to high demand and prices continued to rise as Russia—a top potash supplier—invaded Ukraine, resulting in economic sanctions for the country as well as neighbouring Belarus, another top supplier. Without the supply from Russia and Belarus, investors began putting billions into the potash industry elsewhere, including a multi billion-dollar investment from Australia’s BHP Group into Saskatchewan’s Jansen potash project. But the higher prices also caused lower demand as farmers waited for prices to drop.
Given the world’s trials and tribulations as of late, Canada is the most safe, secure, and reliable supplier of the critical mineral.
Saskatchewan may be the Niagara Falls of potash production and, by comparison, Manitoba is merely a drop in the bucket, but we can still offer high-grade potash that can do its part to contribute to feeding people around the world. And due to PADCOM’s caring values, it will also benefit Manitobans.
“For this mine, we want to get up and running and get very profitable and expand and expand and expand,” says Guillas. “And I really want to see 50 per cent of our net profits going back to help the regions and Manitobans. That’s what fills our soul without question.”
