Mines Minister's Policy Staffer Who Advanced Kinross's Great Bear Mine Now Lobbies for Kinross

This is not a story about a proven breach of the rules. No finding of wrongdoing has been made against Kevin Rombout. Both Kinross Gold and the Ontario government say he consulted the Integrity Commissioner before leaving government for Kinross and followed all ethics rules. Kinross gave the Toronto Star an excerpt of the guidance, which says the commissioner "determined Rombout did not appear to hold any confidential information that could give Kinross an unfair advantage." The Integrity Commissioner's office told the Star it "cannot confirm or deny whether it gave advice to Rombout," and neither Kinross nor the government would share the full guidance (Toronto Star).

The accountability issue is structural, and it comes from the government's own records. According to more than 4,000 pages obtained by the Star under freedom-of-information law, Rombout — whom the Star describes as deputy director of policy for the Ministry of Mines, reporting to then-Minister George Pirie — was actively advancing Kinross's Great Bear file in 2024. By September 2024 he had briefed staff in Premier Doug Ford's office, exchanged emails with Kinross, and directed bureaucrats at multiple ministries on how to advance the project. He wrote that "The (Premier's Office) is going to want a sense of timing for executing the remaining steps," and in August 2024, noting Kinross's "frequent follow-ups," wrote: "We are hopeful we can get this across the line for them." He is now listed on Kinross's in-house lobbyist registration (Ontario Lobbyist Registry).

The records also show how unevenly access was distributed. The Star counted at least 20 Kinross calls and meetings with government in 2022–24, compared with five with Grassy Narrows First Nation, whose community lies downstream. In July 2024 a Kinross executive emailed Rombout and others: "Our primary concern, as discussed, is no more consultation with Grassy." In a July 2024 email, Rombout relayed Kinross's confirmation that any discharge water would contain sulfate "at or below background levels … meaning concerns about increased methylation are unfounded." Joseph Fobister, director of the Grassy Narrows Land Protection Team, told the Star: "This whole process seems rigged against us." Kinross calls Grassy Narrows' claims "demonstrably false" and its permitting "comprehensive and rigorous."

Ontario's ethics rules, as the Star describes them, require former staff to wait a year before taking a job with an entity they had substantial dealings with, and bar them from disclosing confidential information or changing sides in a negotiation. Whether a move like this one fits within those rules is exactly what the clearance advice would show — and that advice is being kept from the public. Duff Conacher of Democracy Watch alleges the move "appears to have violated an ethics law"; that is his allegation, which Kinross and the province deny, and Democracy Watch has asked the Integrity Commissioner to review it (Democracy Watch complaint). When a senior political staffer's documented work on a company's file is followed by a job lobbying for that company, the public is left to take the clearance on faith.

The Great Bear project has since moved further up the government's priority list. On Feb. 17, 2026, Energy and Mines Minister Stephen Lecce announced the mine would proceed under the One Project, One Process fast-track framework created under Bill 5 (The Narwhal; see Bill 5). The province says Energy and Mines staff have had "no direct engagement with Mr. Rombout on any mining projects related to Kinross" and that he "was not involved in lobbying his former colleagues" for that designation. Kinross's in-house lobbyist registration, which covers the company as a whole rather than Rombout personally, lists the Office of the Premier and the Office of the Minister of Energy and Mines among its targets.

The timeline matters and should not be overstated. The internal records show Rombout advancing the project during 2024. According to the Star, the permits actually granted for the mine came in spring 2026, after he had left government, and a permit from the 2024 period was rebuked by a tribunal and withdrawn by Kinross. The records document his work on the file, not its outcome.

For Grassy Narrows First Nation, the reporting adds to an existing fight. The community has challenged a Kinross water-taking permit and is pursuing a constitutional challenge to Ontario's Mining Act (The Narwhal; see Ring of Fire and Indigenous rights). Records showing a company pressing staff to avoid further consultation with the nation, and far more government contact for the company than for the community, feed directly into its argument that the process is weighted against it.

Democracy Watch's complaint is pending, and no ruling has been found. Whatever the commissioner decides, the broader question remains: clearance advice that governs when senior political staff can go to work for companies they dealt with is not public, so neither the public nor the affected First Nation can check whether it was sound. Premier Ford's office did not respond to the Star's questions.