I may be wrong (and I am often corrected around home) but my thinking is the next milestone in the development of the RoF will be the Mining Commissioners's decision in the Cliffs/KWG issue. If the decision favours KWG, then the Ontario Government has a reason to review their commitment to Cliffs on the N/S route. Until then they would appear to have bargained in bad faith with Cliffs if they pulled their support for N/S. Provincial bureacrats must be looking at Cliff's balance sheet as well, and questioning whether Cliffs are really prepared to execute on their development plans in the short term and the right partner with the Province on road access.

With native stakeholders wanting an E/W solution and recent information that proposed power solutions following a similar route, I can't help but think that both Federal and Provincial authorities would sit and wait to see how the easement over KWG's claims plays out. Infrastructure costs for E/W would clearly be cheaper for both levels of government and play to aboriginal stakeholders.

Lakeside