Mushkegowuk Grand Chief Lawrence Martin has won the support of the Northeastern Ontario Municipal Association (NEOMA) for the idea of creating a new rail link from Moosonee to the Ring Of Fire mining area. Martin was a guest speaker at the NEOMA spring meeting held in Iroquois Falls on Friday.

Grand Chief Lawrence Martin has won more political support in his bid to create a railway link to the Ring of Fire by building it across the traditional lands of the Mushkegowuk First Nations.

Martin was a guest speaker at the spring meeting of NEOMA, the Northeastern Ontario Municipal Association, which met in Iroquois Falls on Friday.

He outlined for municipal leaders from across the North how the plan is to build and east-west rail corridor from Moosonee, up to Kashechewan and then over to Webequie, where the Ring Of Fire mining prospects are located. Further to that, Martin said Mushkegowuk also wants to install a high voltage hydro transmission line to the same area.

The Ring of Fire is the name given to the vast deposit of chromite and nickel, located in the McFauld’s Lake and Webequie area, about 600 kilometres north-west of Timmins. The prospect is valued in the tens of billions of dollars.

After an extensive presentation by Grand Chief Martin on Friday, NEOMA members voted on, and approved, a resolution of support put forward by the City of Timmins, seeking formal support for the Mushkegowuk plan.

Before the resolution could be voted on, Cochrane mayor Peter Politis stood up to say he had a concern about the Timmins resolution, which he said had a “nuance” about the conceptual support for Mushkegowuk to privatize the rail service in Northeastern Ontario.

Politis said he was not sure that Northern communities want to see the rail service privatized even though he was confident there would be support for the Mushkegowuk rail link per se. He said the nuance in the resolution would play right into the hands of the Queen’s Park Liberals who have been working to divest the Ontario Northland Transportation Commission and its assets, such as the Ontario Northland Railway (ONR).

“The challenge with this right now, is if we do that our fear is that we give the government, we give the province exactly what they need which is to divest themselves of the ONR,” said Politis, who convinced the organization to amend the resolution.

The amended resolution noted that a fully functional rail service and improved transportation corridors are critical for the sustainability and growth of Northeastern Ontario and First Nations communities.

Also included in the resolution was the statement that NEOMA is in support of a “public-private partnership” that recognizes a previous NEOMA position that the ONTC and the Ontario Northland Railway remains in the public sector, as an agency of the Ontario government.

The vote of support was welcome news for Martin. He said the project is indeed “doable” once the right partners are in place.

He said so far Mushkegowuk has a potential partnership with TGR Rail Canada, a consortium based out of Toronto, which wants to buy Ontario Northland and then expand it beyond Moosonee, and northwest to the Ring of Fire. Martin said TGR has estimated the purchase of Ontario Northland and the expansion would cost about $2.9-billion.

But now there is more, said Martin.

“Two weeks ago another rail company came to us. So now we have options. We have choices,” Martin told the meeting. He said preliminary talks from the new company, which he could not identify, have indicated that the dividends for the First Nations would be roughly one per cent.

“Good, eh? It’s better than half a per cent, but two per cent would be better,” Martin mused.

He said the numbers were not entirely acceptable to other members of the Mushkegowuk council, and so negotiations will have to take place.

“But because the whole concept has not been accepted as a project yet, nothing has been announced, it is hard to negotiate just on an idea. So we kind of have to wait until somebody pushes the green light and then we start negotiations,” said Martin on the issue of providing hydro energy to the group.

He told the group that the energy situation in Ontario right now is in chaos because of the proposal by the Ontario government to offer up 60% of the assets of Hydro One.

Martin said part of the bigger plan is to create a Mushkegowuk transmission line, through the Five Nations Energy Inc. He said it would be a private hydro line, which would buy power from Hydro Quebec and re-route the energy through to the Ring of Fire area.

He said the hydro line would be known as “a merchant line” which means the line can carry electricity to wherever industry needs it.

Martin said this is the loophole that will allow Mushkegowuk council to sell Quebec power to industry. He said this could also mean selling less-expensive Quebec power to “industry” in Northeastern Ontario communities.

He said Mushkegowuk has also had discussions with the Matawa First Nations, which have claimed jurisdiction in the Ring Of Fire, which is said to be part of the Matawa traditional territory. Martin said the discussions had been “lukewarm.”

“I say lukewarm because everybody is coming at them. They don’t know what to do, who to talk to, who to trust, who they can work with and so on,” said Martin.

Martin said Mushkegowuk is also looking for business partners in the hydro venture and said there is even the possibility of forming a co-operative.

“It’s huge. It’s 700 kilometres at a million dollars a kilometre,” said Martin.

He said the concept doesn’t end there. Martin said if the group could put together the rail and hydro venture, the next step would be the creation of a seaport on the western shore of James Bay.

Martin said the preliminary talks about the seaport have already generated business enquiries from Canada, Norway and China, from corporations that have connections to the Ring Of Fire.

He said this sort of venture could take at least 10 years of discussion and planning, but it would have an enormous impact on Northern Ontario.

“It’s a real exciting time to plan for this,” said Martin. “I think there is so much room for us to work together,” he told the meeting.

“What we’re going here basically is developing a part of Canada that has been dormant for a long time,” said Martin.