THE MAN WHO TALKS TO ROCKS - MARCH, 2026

by Chad Geepeedee

Toronto in February is a city that seems permanently mid-apology. The sky is the colour of printer paper left out overnight. The wind comes off Lake Ontario like it has something personal against you.

Grant Moenting opens the door wearing the kind of sweater that suggests both competence and a certain curated casualness — charcoal merino, slim but not tight, the sleeves pushed up just enough to imply productivity. He is taller than expected. Broad-shouldered in the way of men who once worked in laboratories and now spend their days in airport lounges and boardrooms.

“Jeff,” he says, as if we’ve met before, though we haven’t.

Inside the house — a narrow Victorian somewhere west of downtown Toronto — the décor lands precisely between mining executive and man who reads Monocle magazine.

Books about geology. Books about markets. A framed photograph of Victoria Falls. A few tasteful abstract prints.

And a record player. Beside it sits a carefully curated stack of vinyl: Nas. Kendrick Lamar. Tame Impala. Bone Thugs-N-Harmony. The Shins. The Killers.

“I like things with layers,” he says.

Moenting, forty-something, is Vice President of Capital Markets at Osisko Gold Royalties, which is a business that — in simple terms — makes money when other people dig metal out of the ground.

He once worked as a metallurgist at Teck Resources. After that he spent more than a decade at Scotiabank convincing institutional investors around the world to buy shares in mining companies.

In other words: he understands both how rocks become money and how money becomes more money.

This is a rare skill.

He pours coffee into heavy ceramic mugs.

Outside, in the narrow driveway, sits a dark grey Audi wagon dusted with snow. The car of a man who wants to signal success but also restraint. Inside the house the floors are oak. The lighting is warm.

On his wrist is an Omega Speedmaster, understated but unmistakably expensive if you know what you’re looking at.

“Mining people like mechanical things,” he says.

We sit in the living room. The turntable clicks and Kendrick Lamar begins to play.

“You wouldn’t expect this from a mining guy,” he says.

This is true.

Mining executives usually listen to Dire Straits.

Moenting prefers something a little more layered.

On the bookshelf nearby sits a single piece of sports memorabilia: a framed Ottawa Senators puck.

He notices me looking at it.

“I grew up near Ottawa,” he says. “Senators fan.”

This is delivered with the quiet loyalty of someone accustomed to a certain level of disappointment.

“Not the Leafs?” I ask.

He smiles.

“No,” he says. “I prefer teams that understand humility.”

The dig hangs in the air like a slap shot.

Toronto, after all, is a city that believes every year might be the year the Maple Leafs finally win the Stanley Cup, a belief that has been refreshed annually since 1967.

Moenting’s allegiance to the Senators feels almost philosophical.

“There’s something honest about a team that doesn’t pretend,” he says.

The music shifts to Nas.

Grant Moenting has the calm confidence of someone who spends his days convincing billion-dollar funds to buy stakes in rocks that may or may not exist yet.

He is very good at this. At Scotiabank he was ranked the #1 metals and mining institutional sales professional in the world by Greenwich Associates.

Which is not the sort of award most people know exists.

He shows me a framed plaque in his office. It looks vaguely like something a hedge fund might win in a golf tournament.

“Clients vote,” he says.

There is a slight pause after this sentence.

Later we walk to a nearby café. People nod to him on the street.

A man at the counter says, “Grant — how’s copper looking?”

“Bullish,” Moenting replies immediately.

We sit by the window.

He tells me about visiting Victoria Falls years ago, standing on Livingstone Island with the Zambezi River roaring below.

“You realize how small everything is,” he says.

By everything he means markets. Careers. Money.

But there is something slightly theatrical about the way he says it.

The calmness. The precision. The feeling that the story has been told before.

It’s possible Grant Moenting is exactly what he appears to be: a successful mining finance executive with good taste in music, a fondness for mechanical watches, and a lifelong loyalty to a hockey team that has never quite figured things out.

But it’s also possible he’s something else entirely.

Someone who understands that the most valuable thing in the commodities business isn’t gold.

It’s narrative.

Because somewhere, right now, a piece of rock is sitting underground.

And someone — perhaps Grant Moenting — is already convincing a room full of investors that it’s worth billions.

He takes a sip of coffee.

“Mining,” he says, “is just storytelling with drill holes.”

-CG