Movement on a Ring of Fire infrastructure plan should come "within weeks, not months," Premier Kathleen Wynne told a gathering hosted by the Greater Sudbury Chamber of Commerce on Tuesday.

"I think we'll find a way to move forward," she said. "Nobody in the province wants a shovel in the ground more than I do."

The premier was responding to a question from a Laurentian Mining Innovation and Technology representative, who pointed out promising times lie ahead for the industry.

"Mining is a very cyclical sector and we're heading into a boom now," he said. "But mining does need some support and there's an amazing opportunity for us, with $60 billion in the Ring of Fire that's locked up."

Wynne said her government has been busily negotiating with the Matawa First Nations on a regional framework agreement, noting she personally met with the Cree and Ojibwe leadership as recently as a couple of weeks ago.

"It's very much my commitment and belief that we are better off if communities that are in the region can benefit and be part of that economic development," she said.

The government has already made investments in training and social supports for the remote communities, she said, but cannot wait indefinitely for an agreement on a transportation route for ore.

"What I said to the Matawa First Nations now is that we need to come to some consensus, because we need to get infrastructure built," she said. "If a consensus isn't possible, we need to start working with communities that want to work with us and get some of that building done."

Opposition parties and others frustrated by the slow pace of Ring development raised concerns earlier this year about the project not being explicitly mentioned in the latest provincial budget, but the premier insists it remains a priority.

"There was a malicious rumour circulating that the billion dollars that we had committed to building infrastructure was no longer on the table," she said. "It is on the table — it is there. We want to invest it, we want to get that infrastructure built, but we need to come to some kind of consensus about corridor and route."

Kevin Jarus, of Tulloch Engineering, said his role as a land-use planner is to "balance the social and economic benefit of whatever project we're looking at."

In the case of the Ring of Fire there is obviously great economic potential, he said, but also societal opportunity "in the sense of bringing social benefits to the First Nations of the area and the broader Northern community, through increased jobs and reduced social assistance needs."

As a businessman, however, Jarus said he's accustomed to asking "what is the timeline and what kind of certainty do I have of the project I'm working on?"

With the Ring of Fire, "those are two answers we haven't heard," he said. "Will there be shovels in the ground? And by what time?"

The planner asked if Wynne could commit to getting Ring of Fire infrastructure underway prior to the 2018 election.

"I am working towards that," said the premier. "That has been my intention, that we would come to an agreement either with the Matawa First Nations and businesses, or find a way to work with individual communities, and that we would do that within the next year. That is certainly our objective."

The Ring of Fire "is such an important part of the mining future of the North and the province," said Wynne. "Getting shovels in the ground on a transportation corridor is a fundamental aspect of that."

jmoodie@postmedia.com