Fedeli announces job creation strategy for mining sector - NEWS RELEASE

By Press Release (Provincial Conservatives)

Posted 3 hours ago

Vic Fedeli, PC candidate for Nipissing, announced an exciting new strategy to create mining sector jobs in Nipissing. Fedeli has announced that he will lead a Sales Mission of local companies to the Ring of Fire, in the spring. The Ring of Fire is one of North America's largest mineral discoveries, and is located 240 kilometres west of James Bay.

Fedeli, who recently returned from the Ring of Fire, commented that as he flew in he was "thrilled to see a tent city filled with buildings made by Canadian Cantex, a Rutherglen manufacturer." He added, "As I walked through the site and saw drill rigs, stacks of drill rods, and all the equipment needed to build a mining community, I knew that we needed to get Nipissing suppliers up here to see this opportunity firsthand and introduce them to the actual operators and purchasers."

Ontario is sitting on a gigantic opportunity – tens of billions of dollars worth of jobs and prosperity. That's bigger than the Sudbury Basin. It is a once-in-a-century opportunity for the North, for Ontario, and for Canada. There are significant deposits of chromite, which is used to make ferrochrome, which is in turn used to make stainless steel. There is also a major nickel find with the opportunity to produce for 100 years.

Yet Dalton McGuinty's Liberals have dragged their feet, refusing to jump on the high-value jobs and investments that are waiting. We will not let this historic opportunity pass us by. We will champion the Ring of Fire, representing the voice of Northern Ontario throughout the entire province. We will convince people in Southern Ontario that the Ring of Fire matters to them. And wherever government policy is a barrier, we will be open to all options to remove those barriers.

Changebook promises to make the Minister of Northern Development, Mines and Forestry the government point person for moving the Ring of Fire forward. It is far too important to leave to a single middle manager in the bureaucracy as Dalton McGuinty has done.

QUOTES:

"To rebuild the mining industry, we will repeal Bill 191, the job-killing Far North Act. Do you realize that if that Bill was passed just a little earlier, the Ring of Fire would never have been discovered?"

– Vic Fedeli, Nipissing PC candidate

"Instead of considering Northern interests, the McGuinty government relies on Toronto bureaucrats. Between Dalton McGuinty's skyrocketing hydro prices and damaging Far North Act, the Liberals will effectively kill the Far North's resource industry."

– Vic Fedeli, Nipissing PC candidate

"We will allow all mining tax revenue from new mines to stay in local communities and First Nations."

– Vic Fedeli, Nipissing PC candidate

QUICK FACTS:

Organizations that oppose Dalton McGuinty's Far North Act include the Federation of Northern Ontario Municipalities, Ontario Mining Association, Ontario Real Estate Association, Nishnawbe Aski Nation, and the Ontario Chamber of Commerce.

The Far North Act choked off 50 per cent of northern Ontario from future economic development at a time when northern families need new jobs and investment.

Dalton McGuinty has presided over the loss of 45,000 northern jobs and the closure of 60 mills.