Ford backs Ring of Fire infrastructure

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Doug Ford is tired of just talk about the Ring of Fire.

If the former Toronto city councillor becomes the next leader of Ontario's Progressive Conservatives, and his party wins the June election, he vows to “pour money” into infrastructure to access the substantial chromite deposit in the James Bay lowlands.

“They've been messing around. They keep talking about it, but no one's doing anything,” said Ford before speaking at Algoma's Water Tower Inn on Saturday. “There's billions of dollars in the North that have to be mined. My dad had a favourite saying, 'You have a gold mine, now you have to learn how to mine the gold.' We have a gold mine. We know how to mine it. We just have to make sure we have access to it.”

But Ford won't say just what he'll do to help develop the Ring of Fire until he does a “line item by line item” review of the province's finances if his party defeats the governing Liberals.

Ford is also keen to axe Ontario's cap and trade carbon pricing scheme that launched in January 2017. He calls the Liberal program “an absolute job killer right across the board.

“We're trying to compete on a worldwide market,” said Ford. “A lot of countries don't have the carbon tax. I just want a fair and balanced playing field. I want to make sure we have the advantage over our counterparts south of the border. We're going to give every incentive we can for companies to open up.”

His stop in the Sault, part of a one-day Northern Ontario swing that also included apperances in Timmins and Thunder Bay, follows American President Donald Trump's plans to slap a 25 per cent tariff on imported steels. Sault Ste. Marie's largest employer is Algoma, a steelmaker for more than a century.

Saying he'll “take (Trump) on any day,” Ford wants American states to realize their communities that supply raw materials, such as ore, to Canadian steel mills will be hurt by the president's decision.

“I don't think it's good for both sides of the border to get into a big battle here,” said Ford. He wants trade policies “that benefit both sides of the border.”

He spoke for nearly an hour to an audience of about 40.

“We have to make sure we have incentives rather than tax, tax, tax, spend, spend, spend,” he said of fostering business investment in the province. “It's going to be incentive, incentive, incentive and reduced taxes across the board.”

Ford is the second Conservative leadership candidate to visit the Sault. Caroline Mulroney stopped in the city on Feb. 19. Christine Elliott seeks support at Quattro Hotel and Conference Centre on Tuesday at 5 p.m.

Online voting to choose a new leader to succeed Patrick Brown ends Thursday with the winner announced March 10.