Paul returned my mid-day phone call at dinner time today after all-day metings. He remembered our previous conversations about Permiting being the critical path, etc. In response to my questions he said that:

1."government support for infastructure" was now the critical path. "Critical" (no longer permitting).

2. McGinty's recent Thunder Bay (?),speach was less guarded than before in terms of McG actually declaring ON infastructure financial support. He saw this as incremental progress (by a man holding his cards very tight- my words in brackets) Feds not mentioned, but assumed by me.

3. Permitting process on schedule, and if anything, ahead. Much"community/FN" done and ongoing has been very helpful. All of his/NOT efforts have/are been expended on "removing risks".

4. Discussions with CLF ongoing and amicable. NOT infastr. contrbutions known to ON gov't, he said he didn't know about CLF (non disclosure/fiduciary reasons no doubt. While east/west road is NOT preferred, he could live with N/S route if it was chosen.

RE Mar.20/12 NR: a)testing for new Ni sulphides; AT12 and AT2; and Feasibility Study deliverables: all anderway, "a bit delayed", due to lab backups and extremely busy consultants working on thefeasibility study reports.

5. Q to Paul: Had there been any bad news not reported? "No. If there had been I wouldn't be working here anymore." It was clear that any of the questions I asked would not be answered due to his fiduciary responsibilities, and he chucked at my (feable) attempts.

6. Did the PP close today? He hadn't heard- he was in meetings all day, but had assumed all was ok.

7. Was there any danger of not meeting current NOT mine build/production timeline? Not so far/no.

My sense of the conversation with Paul was that it was all political and up to McGinty (and the political timing of orchestrated maximum media benefit for the McGinty liberals/jobs announcements).

His tone was positive. He said that he had bought NOT stock "with my own money".

Peter