TIMMINS – With Timmins making a hard push to convince Noront Resources to locate its ferrochrome production facility here, 2018 is shaping up to be a potentially significant year for this city.
“When you look at the Ring of Fire and Noront, there is probably no more crucial time to celebrate our successes,” said Timmins Mayor Steve Black. “This has been the heart of mining in Ontario for a century now and will likely be for another century going forward.
“We have the expertise, we have the supply sector, we have the people, we have the goodwill. When you look at Timmins versus some of the other communities that are in that race … there is no community that is as positively supporting of mining as Timmins is.
“I mean, we have a mine in the downtown of our community.” It is not just access to industry suppliers and a skilled labour force that Noront is interested in.
“One of the criteria in their bid documents that they hand out asked to detail the quality of life in our community and the recreational opportunities that would exist for employees should we build the facility in this community,” said Black.
“When we are having these debates about recreation facilities, people will say, ‘No one is going to set up their business just because you’re going to build a new aquatic centre.’ I agree. They may not set up the business just because of an aquatic centre, but it’s part of the bigger picture of what a community has to offer and I think just the fact a company like Noront, that is going to be building the largest facility in Northern Ontario in the next five years, included that as part of their bid requirements is a statement on its own that people should acknowledge.”
For the rest of this aticle: http://www.timminspress.com/2017/12/29/city-hopes-to-tie-leash-on-noront-plant-in-2018