Ontario renewed funding push for Ring of Fire roads as viability of venture questioned – by Niall McGee and Jeff Gray (Globe and Mail – November 4, 2019)

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/

The Ontario government appealed to Ottawa this summer to split a $1.6-billion construction bill for roads into the Ring of Fire region, despite mounting evidence the minerals project in the province’s North isn’t economically viable.

Documents reviewed by The Globe and Mail show that Greg Rickford, Ontario’s Minister of Energy, Northern Development and Mines, sent an e-mail in July to a number of federal ministers asking for Ottawa to kick in as much as $779-million to roughly match Ontario’s contribution.

As part of his business case for investing in the Ring of Fire, Mr. Rickford referenced a number of often-cited huge financial projections about the project that have no supporting evidence.

Last month, a Globe investigation uncovered serious cracks in the investment case for any branch of the government to invest in the Ring of Fire, an area that contains an undeveloped nickel and chromite discovery in a giant swamp in Northern Ontario about 550 kilometres northeast of Thunder Bay.

“The combined gross value of known nickel and chromite deposits has been estimated at over $60-billion,” wrote Mr. Rickford in the e-mail that went to federal ministers responsible for infrastructure, environment and Indigenous services.

For the rest of this article: https://www.theglobeandmail.com/business/article-ontario-cited-projections-with-no-supporting-evidence-in-bid-to-get/