Liberals failing to deliver on Ring of Fire, opposition says

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Experts say there are untold riches in the Ring of Fire but the real pot of gold sits untouched at Queen’s Park.

Not a dime of the $1 billion the provincial government has set aside to develop the mineral-rich area in northwestern Ontario has been spent. And it may not for a few years yet.

Last summer, Premier Kathleen Wynne made Ring of Fire development a central part of her election platform. However, the money is not officially booked until 2018-19, which is after the next provincial election.

“There is nothing preventing this provincial government to start building those roads to those communities and electrifying them . . . the government is in the driver’s seat here,” NDP MPP Michael Mantha (Algoma-Manitoulin) said.

Northern Development and Mines Minister Michael Gravelle said developing the Ring of Fire is a long-term venture, not a quick fix. He said the interests of First Nations communities in the region, environmental concerns and the needs of developers all have to be balanced off.

“First of all, our $1-billion commitment to transportation and infrastructure in the Ring of Fire is rock solid. And yes, while the budget indicates that it is booked on an estimated basis for 2018-19, the timelines are very much flexible should the project move forward,” Gravelle told the Star.

“That’s not to say we aren’t working as hard as we can to move the project forward,” he said, adding while the $1 billion hasn’t touched, millions in provincial money has been spent in the Ring of Fire.

The Ring of Fire is a region about 400 km northeast of Thunder Bay. It is estimated there is $60 billion worth of valuable minerals, including base metals, platinum and palladium, along with North America’s largest deposit of chromite, which is used to make stainless steel.

In 2011, Dalton McGuinty’s Liberal government created a Ring of Fire secretariat to develop the chromite and other deposits in the Ring of Fire, keeping in mind the environmental impacts and the economic needs of the First Nations communities.

Three years later the minority Wynne government announced it was prepared to contribute $1 billion on the condition the federal government match it. But during the 2014 election, the premier dropped the condition, saying the province would go ahead without Ottawa.

Progressive Conservative Leader Patrick Brown, who has visited the Ring of Fire, said the Liberal government talks a good game about developing the north but hasn’t followed through.

“When they (the Liberals) took office (in 2003) we were number one in mining, according to the Fraser Institute, in terms of mining investment. Today we are 23rd, so we have seen a historic slide,” he said.

Among the many obstacles to development, Brown cites red tape as being the crippler.

He noted that it took Noront Resources Ltd. three years to get approval from the Ontario environment minister on the terms of reference for its Eagle’s Nest project, which simply allows the company to move forward on the environmental assessment process.

“That was supposed to take 45 days and it took three years,” he said, adding the government is squandering an opportunity of a lifetime to extract up billions worth of valuable minerals of various kinds and develop the north at the same time.

Toronto-based Noront is the closest to developing its deposit of high-grade nickel, copper, platinum and palladium after U.S.-based Cliffs Natural Resources abandoned plans for a massive chromite mine in 2013. In May, Noront paid $27 million for Cliffs’ three key chromite deposits.

“We are all-in in the Ring of Fire. That’s the only place we play . . . we are committed there both from a technical point of view and a social point of view,” Noront president and CEO Alan Coutts told the Star.

“We want to be experts in one region.”

Coutts said Eagle’s Nest project is a modest endeavour.

“We said ‘let’s start with this project, let’s get some success under our belt, let’s get the First Nations participating and see that this is a winner and that we can manage the environment well. And then let’s turn our head to these kind of bigger potentially half century or century long opportunities like the chromite.’ That was our approach.”

Former Ontario premier Bob Rae has a front-row seat in what is happening in the north. Rae is the chief negotiator for the nine Matawa First Nations in their discussions with Ontario about development of the Ring of Fire.

“We are looking forward to working with the government on direct benefits to the communities as well as improved infrastructure and revenue sharing as has been set out in the regional framework agreement,” he said.

“It is important for everyone to realize this is not a process that the government can simply carry on unilaterally. It has to be done with the full support of the First Nations communities as well as stronger private sector engagement.

“There is still a lot of work to be done and I think people are just going to have to show some sense of understanding.”

http://www.thestar.com/news/queenspark/2015/06/23/liberals-failing-to-deliver-on-ring-of-fire-opposition-says.html