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Northern Ontario Politics

EXCLUSIVE: Ring of Fire road study produces inconclusive results about transportation in Ontario’s remote north – by Jody Porter (CBC News Thunder Bay – August 22, 2016)

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/thunder-bay/

Report suggests more study needed to determine viability of all-weather access for remote First Nations

A $785,000 study, jointly funded by Canada and Ontario, suggests more study is needed before deciding if an all-weather road should be built in a mineral-rich area known as the Ring of Fire in northern Ontario.

The study was announced in March 2015 at the Prospectors and Developers Association of Canada convention in Toronto and was widely seen as a step towards getting “significant” nickel and chromite deposits out of the muskeg and off to markets.

“Today’s announcement represents our federal government’s latest meaningful contribution to helping the province enhance the economic potential of the Ring of Fire,” Canada’s then-Minister of Natural Resources Conservative Greg Rickford said at the time. But it turns out, the study was never really about mining.

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Sudbury Star Editorial: What Northern Ontario needs from Ottawa – by Don MacDonald (Sudbury Star – August 17, 2016)

http://www.thesudburystar.com/

Voters in Northern Ontario were good to Justin Trudeau and federal Liberals, giving the party seven seats in its return to power in 2015, including the Sudbury area’s two ridings. So in a way, it’s no surprise that Prime Minister Trudeau and his cabinet are meeting in the Nickel City for a retreat, starting Saturday.

The cabinet has a lot on its plate, as all federal cabinets do. But given where they are meeting, let’s hope Trudeau and his ministers take some time to consider what Northern Ontario and Greater Sudbury could use from the federal Liberal government.

If the ministers spend any time on Sudbury’s roads, they will learn quickly they are a mess. The City of Greater Sudbury is spending less than half of what it should each year to maintain its roads; there is a backlog of hundreds of millions worth of work that needs to be done and little money to do it. It’s a backlog that grows every year.

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Can Kathleen Wynne handle northern Ontario’s growing discontent? – by Steve Paikin (TVO.org – August 8, 2016)

 

http://tvo.org/

Kathleen Wynne arrives in Little Current, Manitoulin Island, in a big black SUV, surrounded by all the trappings of being premier of Ontario. There are the omnipresent staffers who do the advance work and try to keep her on schedule. And there is the Ontario Provincial Police security detail trying to look unobtrusive but not quite succeeding.

Wynne has decided to drop in on the Manitoulin Country Fest. It’s a blazingly hot day on the world’s largest freshwater island, and probably the last thing on anyone’s mind in this town of 2,700 people is politics. A smallish crowd has come to hear country music, and while Wynne doesn’t want to interrupt their enjoyment of the day, this is Day Two of her current northern swing.

And so, she will do the thing she is so good at ̶ shake some hands, make small talk with the locals, meet some island politicians, hear about their concerns, check out what’s on offer at the booths, and listen.

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Separatist Northern Ontario Party officially a registered party – by Jon Thompson, (tbnewswatch.com – August 3, 2016)

http://www.tbnewswatch.com/

http://northernontarioparty.simdif.com/index.html

THUNDER BAY – THUNDER BAY – When Ontario Northland motorcoach driver Trevor Holliday started a petition in March calling for Northern Ontario’s independence, he never envisaged becoming the leader of a political party with the aim of making it a reality. That’s exactly what happened within only a season.

“I go from saying I’ll never get involved in politics and now look at me,” Holliday said. “I’m jumping in with both feet.” Elections Ontario listed the Northern Ontario Party among the list of registered parties on July 28, breathing new life into a four-decades-old separatist movement with Holliday as its party leader.

The NOP inherits the mantle of the Northern Ontario Heritage Party, the separatist party which gained prominence in the 1970s and was disbanded in 1985, only to be re-launched in 2010.

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MEDIA RELEASE: Institute for Competitiveness & Prosperity Report Overlooks Sudbury’s World-Class Mining Clusters

Sudbury is the Silicon Valley of underground mining research

Nickel Belt – (July 6, 2016): The Toronto-based Institute for Competitiveness & Prosperity recently issued a report titled “Clusters in Ontario: Creating an ecosystem for prosperity” that, in the opinion of industry experts, overlooks Sudbury’s vibrant mining clusters.

Industrial clusters are interrelated businesses in compact geographical regions that are supported by educational, research and government institutions which enhance economic growth, prosperity and innovation through value-added manufacturing and internal/external exports.

Marc Serré, Nickel Belt MP and a member of The National Standing Committee on Natural Resources says, “Sudbury’s dynamic mining clusters are a globally unique concentration of Canadian hard-rock expertise and innovation, unique in North America and found in very few other cities around the world. My fear is that federal and provincial policy experts and politicians will read this report and assume any requests for multi-million dollar strategic investments for Sudbury to further enhance educational or research aspects would not be warranted.”

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Toronto think-tank’s industry cluster model excludes mining – by Ian Ross (Northern Ontario Business – July 5, 2016)

http://www.northernontariobusiness.com/

Researchers at the Institute for Competitiveness and Prosperity sure didn’t do their homework in the eyes of Dick DeStefano, executive director of the Sudbury Area Mining Supply and Service Association (SAMSSA).

The influential Toronto-based think-tank released a working paper in late June highlighting five of the most impactful industry clusters in Ontario, and is recommending Queen’s Park put the right supports in place to recognize and strengthen them.

In its paper entitled “Clusters in Ontario – Creating an Ecosystem for Prosperity,” the institute focused on Windsor’s automotive industry; Toronto’s marketing, design and publishing companies; Kitchener-Waterloo-Cambridge’s “supercluster” high-tech triangle; Toronto’s financial services district; and the Niagara region’s hospitality and tourism sector.

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Northern plan ‘making progress’ — Gravelle – by Mary Katherine Keown (Sudbury Star – June 30, 2016)

http://www.thesudburystar.com/

Michael Gravelle, the provincial minister of Northern Development and Mines, said Wednesday the province’s plan for the North is working.

“Our government is building on the North by driving a competitive economy, by supporting people and communities, by renewing and expanding modern infrastructure, and by supporting a healthy environment,” he said to a packed crowd at the Caruso Club. “We’re working hard for Northern Ontario. In fact, everything my ministry does is with the intention of meeting our growth plan commitments. Five years into the plan, we’re making progress.”

The minister spoke at the Sudbury landmark as part of the Greater Sudbury Chamber of Commerce’s president’s series of luncheons. Gravelle said his government has taken a made-in-the-North approach to boost the economy and keep northerners competitive.

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Reconciliation with First Nations requires action – by Avi Lewis (Toronto Star – June 16, 2016)

https://www.thestar.com/

Ontario’s inability to clean up Grassy Narrows is indicative of injustices that have been playing out for decades

On the surface, it seemed like unfortunate political timing. On May 30th, Kathleen Wynne apologized for historic abuses toward indigenous peoples as part of her official response to the Truth and Reconciliation commission. “We do not approach reconciliation as something we need to get over with — we approach it as something we need to get right,” she said.

And yet, just an hour later, she was getting heat in Question Period for getting it very wrong in her response to an environmental crime-in-progress on indigenous land that has been going on for almost 60 years.

It just so happened that week was the biennial Grassy Narrows River Run, when community members from the First Nation travel 1,700 km to Toronto to press the government for action on the disaster of mercury in their lakes and rivers.

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Endangered Species Act hot topic at upcoming NEOMA – by Len Gillis (Timmins Daily Press – May 25, 2016)

http://www.timminspress.com/

KIRKLAND LAKE – Concerns over Ontario’s Endangered Species Act continue to dominate discussions amongst Northeastern Ontario municipal leaders.

Less than two weeks after the annual meeting of FONOM (Federation of Northern Ontario Municipalities) was held in Timmins, Northern leaders are now preparing for the annual meeting of the Northeastern Ontario Municipal Association (NEOMA) which is to be held in Kirkland Lake this coming Friday.

Several items on the NEOMA agenda include The Endangered Species Act and what the implementation of the act means for Northern Ontario communities that rely on resource-based industries, such as logging and mining. The Act will be spoken to in a presentation to be made by the Ontario Ministry of Natural Resources and Forestry (MNRF).

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Sudbury could lead ‘Northern renaissance’ — Robinson (Sudbury Star – May 25, 2016)

http://www.thesudburystar.com/

Sudbury could be the centre of a “Northern renaissance,” David Robinson believes, if Northern Ontario had more control over its destiny and its economic development.

Robinson, a Laurentian University economics professor, wrote a report entitled Revolution or Devolution?: How Northern Ontario Should be Governed, released last month by the Northern Policy Institute. The report calls for an alternative model of governance to give the region more control over its resource-based economy, which more than half of Northerners believe would be managed better locally than by a centralized Ontario government.

The process, called devolution, could include granting Northern Ontario legislative powers, creating an elected but advisory Northern Ontario assembly, and the creation of a semi-autonomous district with most of the powers of a province. A strong case can be made, Robinson says, that there would be significant economic advantages from devolution of powers.

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PoV: Leap Manifesto a threat to Sudbury, NDP – by Don MacDonald (Sudbury Star – April 13, 2016)

http://www.thesudburystar.com/

Don MacDonald is the editor of the Sudbury Star.

Members of the NDP from a certain generation used to rail against companies like the former Inco and Falconbridge. The old NDP firebrands would argue they treated their workers poorly and didn’t pay their fair share of taxes. Some — like former Nickel Belt MP John Rodriguez — called for Inco to be nationalized.

Nothing became of such talk. The NDP was no threat to win a federal election and besides, Steelworkers Local 6500 and Mine Mill Local 598 did a fine job negotiating good pay, benefits and pensions for Sudbury’s miners.

Provincial governments also brought in tougher safety and environment laws, and the people who ran the companies themselves seemed to have adopted a somewhat kinder and gentler approach to running things. And why not? Their companies still made billions in Sudbury.

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Federal budget 2016: northeastern Ontario leaders wait on infrastructure funding (CBC News Sudbury – March 22, 2016)

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/sudbury/

The latest Wynne government budget assumes Ontario will get an extra cash for transit and highway projects

Northern MPs are waiting to see how much funding will be available for infrastructure when the federal government tables its first budget today.

They’re also hoping to get money for the Ring of Fire, a mineral-rich development project on the James Bay Lowlands.

The Liberals have committed to doubling their investment in infrastructure, and Timmins-James Bay MP Charlie Angus tells CBC News it’s the right thing to do.

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Sudbury analysis: Still no action on Ring of Fire – by Carol Mulligan (Sudbury Star – March 19, 2016)

http://www.thesudburystar.com/

The Ring of Fire in the James Bay Lowlands is as different from the recreational areas of Muskoka and Parry Sound as night and day.

But twice last Friday, Parry-Sound Muskoka MPP Norm Miller was asked the same question by constituents in his riding: “What’s going on in the Ring of Fire?”

The inquiries were made at events that had nothing to do with mining or the chromite deposits, said the Progressive Conservative, who is his party’s critic for Northern Development and Mines.

Their questions echoed one Miller had posed a week earlier during Question Period. He asked why there was such a lack of urgency on the part of the Liberal government to develop Ring of Fire deposits believed to be worth $60 billion.

Northern Development and Mines Minister Michael Gravelle was upbeat when he responded, saying how excited he was about the potential of the Ring and the historic framework agreement his government negotiated with neighbouring Matawa first nations.

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Is there any hope in the Northern Ontario separatist threat? – by Charles Cirtwill (Northern Ontario Policy Institute – March 14, 2016)

http://www.northernpolicy.ca/

By Charles Cirtwill is President and CEO of Northern Policy Institute.

March 14, 2016 – In my February column, I talked about how shifting to proportional representation in place of our current first-past-the-post electoral system could give Northern Ontario more clout in the halls of power down there in Ottawa. Interestingly enough, as I was crafting that piece someone else was reviving another idea meant to give Northern Ontario more power over its own future right here at home: Separation! Vive la Northern Ontario libre!

A fellow by the name of Trevor Halliday has launched an online petition calling for the creation of the province of Northern Ontario. As of writing, his online petition had 3,815 supporters. A Sudbury Star story talking about the petition also included a poll on the issue; the results there stand at 2441 in favour, 744 opposed.

Even if we were to assume that the 2,400 Sudbury Star voters and the 3,800 petition signers were not mostly the same people, the total is still well short of the 10,000 supporter threshold that the Northern Ontario Heritage Party (NOHP) achieved in October 1977, the point at which it became an official party in Ontario.

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MP Charlie Angus Ring of Fire Infrastructure Letter to Natural Resources Minister James Gordon Carr (March 2, 2016)

Charlie Angus is the NDP Federal Member of Parliament for Timmins-James Bay.

James Gordon Carr is the Liberal Federal Member of Parliament for Winnipeg South Centre and the Minister of Natural Resources.

The Ring of Fire provides a tremendous opportunity to unlock the economic potential of Northern Ontario, Ontario, and the entire Canadian economy. Federal leadership is sorely needed to move this project forward. I am writing to ask that this government ensure that the Ring of Fire is part of the promised commitment to infrastructure project across the country. As well, the Federal government has an important role to play in engaging in meaningful consultation with First Nation communities to ensure that all the benefits of this huge project leads to meaningful improvements in the lives of the people of the north.

The previous government’s lack of leadership on this issue was very unfortunate. There was no attempt to bring together the major players, there was no infrastructure plan, and there was no consultation with First Nations. In fact, then minister Tony Clement received a failing grade from the Ontario Chamber of Commerce.

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