Wynne government must save Ring of Fire

There is a vast tract of northern Ontario that is a veritable treasure chest of mineral riches — but the provincial government can't find the key to opening it up.

Experts say the 5,000-square-kilometre Ring of Fire, with its estimated $60-billion worth of chromite, nickel, copper, zinc and gold, could do for Ontario what the oilsands have done for Alberta — attract new investment, create thousands of new, high-paying jobs while boosting overall provincial prosperity. And for these reasons the government has, since 2010 and with much self-congratulatory fanfare, tried to help open the area to development.

But that initiative suffered a severe and, for the politicians, embarrassing setback when Cliffs Natural Resources Ltd. suspended development of its proposed $3.3-billion chromium mine.

The decision was a real as well as psychological blow to a sclerotic provincial economy still bleeding manufacturing jobs and desperate for new investment and growth. But the decision should also be a wake-up call to Premier Kathleen Wynne and her Liberal regime: They can't let the Ring of Fire fizzle.

The Liberals fancy themselves as business-savvy leaders. They played around with billions of public dollars to create a provincial green energy industry yet have little to show for it. In their fall economic statement, they considered ways to prod companies to spend more on training, research and development.

But instead of playing the entrepreneur, instead of trying to micromanage the businesses that are already here — and, in truth, already trying to paddle upstream against hostile economic currents — the provincial government should play to its own strengths and do what it is supposed to do. Be a government.

It should work harder at expediting the review process for such projects. It should try to partner with the business community rather than boss it. And, while natural resources fall primarily under provincial jurisdiction in Canada, the federal government has a role to play here, too. For a start, it could commit to sharing the bills for the necessary infrastructure.

But in this case, the buck clearly stops at Premier Wynne's desk. If she gets this right, what happened last week will be seen as a delay, not the halt, of something that would benefit Ontario for generations, that would improve life in a region that is too often seen as an economic backwater and dramatically raise living standards for many First Nations communities.

That's a legacy that would do the Liberals proud — if they can find the wisdom and the means to leave it to us.