At least The NorthernMiner had the savvy to ask Minister Gravelle 'some' of the hard questions regarding development of the Ring of Fire.

Mr. Gravelle passes off the Fraser survey as 'an opinion poll' and resorts to the use of statistics to bolster Ontario's weak arguments to defend poor First Nations consultation, lack of transparency, impractical mining regulation and not supporting the local prospectors and junior mining companies who first discovered the area.

More recently, his government again showed disrespect by not including the nine Matawa Firsts Nations during the RoF Transportation Development Corporation announcement, exactly as they had done three years ago during the announced Cliffs Capreol chromite processing facility north of Sudbury.

The rushed announcement clearly showed the Liberals disregard for transparency and is directly connected to their planned benefit from political opportunity.

The main RoF project mineral income earner is the $50B chromite which can not travel any east west route, unlike the $10B nickel. The heavy chromite must travel by rail or slurry pipeline.

KWG, Noront, Bold, Fancamp, Probe and other Canadian juniors need the Federal and Provincial 3P funding loan guarantees now to help finance the all-important private side of a joint industrial mining ore corridor.

Do governments not understand that business investment is a precursor, requiring simple government loan guarantees, not public money, many years before the mining development and technical innovation can occur? Financial leverage is stronger if begun during a low commodities cycle.

Any governmental east west road 'study' outcome is directly dependent on the choice of the chromite mining ore corridor. That decision must be determined in advance by the Transportation Development Corporation. Again, both governments putting the cart before the horse. - Laura Brown

The Northern Miner

Mar 3, 2015

Michael Gravelle beats the drum for Ontario

Ontario's Minister of Northern Development and Mines, Michael Gravelle, and Greg Rickford, Canada's Minister of Natural Resources and Minister for the Federal Economic Development Initiative for Northern Ontario, kicked off PDAC with an announcement of a joint investment of more than $785,000 to support economic development and community access in northwestern Ontario......