By LAURA STRICKER, THE SUDBURY STAR

Updated 23 minutes ago

After getting back from his one-day trade mission to the Ring of Fire, Vic Fedeli remains optimistic about the area's potential.

"I brought mining companies from North Bay in (on Friday)," the Nipissing MPP said. "(The companies saw) the challenges of exploration, and ultimately production, there, but they also saw the opportunity. That was the sole purpose of the trip, to really give North Bay companies a good upper hand in seeing the facility, seeing the sites and being able to come back and be in a position to offer assistance to a company in the Ring of Fire."

Senior executives from First North Enterprises, Redpath, J.L. Richards, Stantec, GAP and Foraco accompanied Fedeli on the trade mission.

This was Fedeli's second visit to the Ring of Fire area -- his first was last August. This time around, he said, it was easier to get to Esker Camp in the James Bay Lowlands, where they stayed and where Noront Resources Ltd. centres its exploration.

"When we went up in the summer, it was a lot more complicated because you had to fly to the town of Webequie and then take a float plane from there into Esker. And then from there you'd take a helicopter into the base camp. But in the winter, they plow a runway right on Koper Lake. So (we) were able to just fly right directly into Koper Lake, land and then chopper in to the base camp. It was a little more convenient and a much quicker trip, but truly a reminder that every single thing you need needs to be flown in."

The Ring of Fire, which is about 500 km northeast of Thunder Bay, is located on First Nations homelands. There are more than 35,000 staked mining claims in the area, which holds chromite and precious minerals. Chromite is processed into ferrochrome, which is used to make stainless steel.

A hot topic during the mission, said Fedeli, was transportation.

"We had good discussions about rail or road. We had good discussions about a road that links the First Nations communities, and what that will do to benefit them on a social (level)."

He worries, though, that progress isn't being made fast enough.

A few weeks ago, Fedeli said development of the Ring of Fire has been delayed to 2016 from 2015. He blamed the provincial government and its Ring of Fire co-ordinator, Christine Kaszycki, saying she told him at a North Bay conference that she has never been to the site.

"Not enough (is being done). There's a lot of talk, a lot of bluster, but not a lot of activity. There are no firm decisions made between the government, the First Nations and the mining principals, if it's going to be a road or it's going to be rail.

"No questions are totally answered ... (there's) a lot of talk. I won't be surprised to hear more talk in the budget. Certainly there was talk in the throne speech. But again, between the talk and the action, there's not a lot happening. We're also very concerned about electricity prices," he added, specifically that prices are on the rise and show no sign of slowing down, making Northern Ontario an unattractive place to build a smelter.

A Progressive Conservative government, said Fedeli, would take swift action to stop hydro prices from climbing even higher.

"Tim Hudak put a private member's bill in to cancel the FIT (Feed-In Tariff ) program. The FIT program is basically paying exorbitant fees for wind and solar producers and putting that power on the grid at a price consumers and businesses can't afford.

"As energy prices continue to rise and when the government continues to put expensive wind and solar on the grid, the auditor general told us a 46% increase in two years is coming up on your hydro bill. That's certainly not the way to go. So that's what we would do immediately. It would halt the climb of hydro prices."

Once development on the Ring of Fire gets going, Fedeli said, Northern Ontario, and the First Nations people who live in the Ring of Fire region, will see huge benefits.

"When you look again at the amount of consumables that will be needed in the Ring of Fire if both mining principals go into production, as I expect they will ... is staggering. Most of those are made here in Northern Ontario. It bodes well for North Bay. It bodes well for the other mining communities in the North.

"I see skilled trade jobs, there's everything from building the road -- the logistics -- to transportation, to communications, the human relations aspect. All of those are going to need people, and those people can all come from the North."