Yesterday I listened at 7pm to a part of TVO's 'Agenda' from Timmins. After posting a
comment about it I listened again the repeat at 11pm, this time the whole program.
This was a town hall type of meeting with half a dozen guests, two of which were the mayor of Timmins and a former mayor, see the list:

http://www.tvo.org/cfmx/tvoorg/theagenda/index.cfm?page_id=7&bpn=779746&ts=2010-03-22%2020:00:00.0

Their main points were on how northern Ontario has been ignored by Ontario's governments and Bay street. That the north is a resource bread basket for the province but not enough has been invested to sustain and develop it.
One of the comments that struck me was that the present government has given way too much to the environmentalists at the expense of economic development. Example given was that endangered species protection was given to local carribou population which are Not endangered but no protection or development for local jobs particularly forest products. In other words, Ontario imports more wood than it exports. (This from Jamie Lim, president and CEO of the Ontario Forest Industries Association). Being a southern Ontarian, this was hard for me to accept.

Where am I going with this?
The people speaking and audience were mostly non natives of Timmins. Everyone was for development and jobs and of the opinion that this was recently curbed by disproportional influence from environmentalists on the government. In other words, nature given precedence over mothers and their children.
Be aware that be it environmentalists or natives, they not only can delay things but put a halt, not to mention making development more expensive.
The primary thing that is needed from the government is to build all year road access and most things will fall in place.
Just my opinion based on what I heard.

p.s listen to pod cast at:

http://feeds.tvo.org/TheAgendaWithStevePaikin