MS

Post says: "No major participant wants to live through anothe Cliffs saga. Ontario was deeply involved with the Cliffs saga and commited to Cliffs and cannot be participant in ROF without being sued and making ROF chomite resourse tied into a lenghty law suit. The only way to make ROF development is to have the federal government being involved with port authority and get KWG and senior partners sitting down with FN and work out a deal."

Being sued by CLF is a very very remote possibility, but the threat is still there if CLF figures that it would have a chance to get some money from the province to extract itself from the current financial trouble. But this would require e-mail proof that Ontario promised a rose garden for CLF. But this promise, if it were actually given, would have been with some sort of conditions, such as...if CLF can demonstrate a commitment with detailed plan and money (~$3.3B) to develop the RoF within a short period of time. But now, CLF with a Mkt Cap of less than $1B and being downgraded further, and it has declared that it will abandon the RoF since it will have ZERO chance to be developed... by anybody for 50 years, paraphrasing Goncalves' words. So, much for comitment. With the current financial situation (going bankrupt) and all the negative remarks by its Chairman and CEO Goncalves, CLF would not be in any position to launch any frivolous law suit, which may trigger a counter suit by others.

However, taking "other issues" into account, it would be a much better (and less risky) arrangement to "allow" the Feds to take the lead with a Federal Port Authority as a main vehicle for the RoF development the RoF. Ontario government to take a "tag along" role to do whatever suitable for spending the committed $1B (which is not that much over a 10-year period): Roads to isolated communities leading to the RoF. Power transmission corridor to the isolated communities leading to the RoF, etc...anything that has no direct link to the RoF development. The development could stop short to let other people (the miners, etc) provide the last link. Clever scheme, eh?

Just my speculation.

goldhunter