David Starbuck is the Marxist-Leninist Party candidate in Nickel Belt.
One of the issues being discussed in the current election is the potential development of the Ring of Fire chromite-nickel deposits recently discovered in Northern Ontario. Each of the cartel parties is supporting this development and blaming one another and other levels of government for the perceived delay.
Even after Cliffs Natural Resources cancelled its plans to build a mine, beneficiation plant and refinery, the cartel parties are competing amongst themselves as to who can give away the most public resources to the foreign mining monopolies that have seized control of this project.
The Ring of Fire is said to possess more than $100 billion in mineral resources. The cartel parties see this as a huge bonanza, an opportunity for Ontario to get out of crisis. The relevance of the Ring of Fire to the Sudbury by-election is that the chromite refinery was to be built north of Capreol, in the City of Greater Sudbury, and that Sudbury-based mining supply companies seek to use the development of the Ring of Fire as part of their expansion in the global mining industry.
The development of an inorganic resource such as chromite — from extraction to processing to its manufacture into finished goods — can only take place once. Finished products can be recycled, but this will not assist to develop a long-term viable industry in the region if the products are exported and recycled elsewhere. An inorganic resource is limited and once exported cannot support further generations of workers.
This is unlike the development of organic resources such as forests, farms and fisheries. In the case of those endeavours, with careful husbandry, crops can be taken year after year, and an economic base can be developed that will support generations.
The fact that mineral ores can only be developed once means that it is vital for the Ring of Fire to be developed right, and not necessarily quickly, if the people of Northern Ontario are to reap any economic benefit from the development.
What does it mean to develop the Ring of Fire right?
First, none of the cartel parties that are so eager to develop the Ring of Fire mention that chromium is a strategic materiel and that the development of the Ring of Fire serves the interests of the American war machine.
Chromium is vital in producing stainless steels and superalloys which have significant military applications including armour and jet engines. There is no commercially viable source of chromium in the Americas and the main producing countries (Kazakhstan, India and Zimbabwe) are not securely in the U.S. zone of control. The establishment of a large-scale chromium production facility in the Ring of Fire and Northern Ontario solves this supply problem for the U.S. imperialists and facilitates their ability to wage a protracted war.
For the rest of this article, click here: http://www.northernlife.ca/news/elections/federal/2015/nickel-belt/starbuck/14-starbuck-ring-of-fire-sudbury.aspx