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Ontario’s Ring of Fire Mineral Discovery

McGuinty calls on Ottawa to help him open up the North – by Karen Howlett and Shawn McCarthy (Globe and Mail – May 26, 2012)

The Globe and Mail is Canada’s national newspaper with the second largest broadsheet circulation in the country. It has enormous influence on Canada’s political and business elite.

TORONTO AND OTTAWA— Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty is pledging to work closely with the federal government on its controversial overhaul of environmental assessments as he calls on Ottawa to play an active role in exploiting the untapped potential of the Ring of Fire.

Mr. McGuinty is counting on mining exploration in the northern wilderness to lead to a new generation of prosperity for Ontario. Emerging economies in India and China have an “insatiable hunger” for the province’s resource riches, he said on Friday in urging Prime Minister Stephen Harper to help him open up the North.

“Failure is not an option,” Mr. McGuinty told reporters. “Success is mandatory.”

The mining exploration area in the James Bay Lowlands of Northern Ontario is one of the most significant mineral regions in the province, and includes the largest deposit of chromite ever discovered in North America.

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The mining onslaught in native communities – by Saul Chernos (Now Magazine – May 24-31, 2012)

http://www.nowtoronto.com/

The Liberal government may be buoyant about the mining boom it hopes will juice up the economy, but recent events have many wondering if mining firms are capable of delivering fair treatment to First Nations living over or near those subterranean resources.
 
A few weeks back, the Libs wrapped up the feedback process for their long-awaited revamp of the Ontario Mining Act, a target of native groups and mining watchdogs.  The act enshrines the right of prospectors to subsurface minerals on land owned by others, and activists want changes allowing communities the right to refuse.
 
Alas, the province released its draft amendments earlier this year, and the fine print reveals major loopholes. Exploration firms would still be able to stake and sample claims without notifying First Nations; consultations would only be required for high-level prospecting.
 
Most striking, however, is the absence of any reference to the right of refusal.  “We want to have the authority to say no, and I think we have that authority,” says Chief Donny Morris of northwestern Ontario’s Kitchenuhmaykoosib Inninuwug (KI), which has had mining run-ins with the Libs.

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Premier Dalton McGuinty reaches out to Prime Minister Harper on Ring of Fire – by James Murray (Netnewsledger.com – May 25, 2012.

 http://netnewsledger.com/

THUNDER BAY – Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty’s reach out to Prime Minister Harper on the Ring of Fire started early in May. The Premier wrote the Prime Minister on May 8th seeking federal goverment assistance. The Premier stated, “The Ring of Fire, located 540 kilometres north of Thunder Bay, is one of the most promising mineral development opportunities in Canada in almost a century”.

The May 8th letter continues, “Tomorrow morning, Cliffs Natural Resources management plans to announce the Ontario location of their ferrochrome processing facility, and Ontario Ministers will announce the province’s plans to engage First Nations in the region to help those communities benefit from this historic opportunity”.

“I am writing to invite your government to take a more active role in supporting the tremendous economic development opportunity associated with the Ring of Fire”.

The Premier adds, “Canada needs to deal with the acknowledged and widespread problems of inadequate First Nation’s social and community infrastructure.

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McGuinty wants PM’s help to develop Ring of Fire – by Jonathan Jenkins (Sudbury Star – May 25, 2012)

 The Sudbury Star is the City of Greater Sudbury’s daily newspaper.

TORONTO — Pulling stuff out of the ground is catching on with Premier Dalton McGuinty. “His curiosity was piqued,” McGuinty said Thursday of a meeting he had with Prime Minister Stephen Harper on Tuesday regarding development of the so-called Ring of Fire area of Northern Ontario.

“I pressed upon the prime minister that we’ve got a great natural resource in our own province right here in our backyard that we need to develop together,” McGuinty said.

The Ring of Fire, about 250 km west of James Bay, holds North America’s largest deposit of chromite. Chromite is an important building block of stainless steel and the find could mean billions of dollars if it’s developed.

“We need to put a road up there, we need to extend electricity transmission up there, we need to invest the skills and training levels of our First Nations communities,” McGuinty said.

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Premier Dalton McGuinty seeks Stephen Harper’s help to develop Ontario’s Ring of Fire – by Rob Ferguson (Toronto Star – May 25, 2012)

The Toronto Star, has the largest circulation in Canada. The paper has an enormous impact on federal and Ontario politics as well as shaping public opinion.

Premier Dalton McGuinty had a secret meeting with Prime Minister Stephen Harper this week to pitch for federal help in developing the mineral-rich Ring of Fire in northwestern Ontario.

McGuinty said he’s looking for aid on developing the arc of mining deposits — including chromite for stainless steel — in a project that could be Ontario’s equivalent of Alberta’s oilsands, resulting in billions of dollars in revenue.

“I think I piqued his real curiosity, if not his real interest, in developing the Ring of Fire,” the premier said of Harper, whom he met for an hour Tuesday in a downtown Toronto hotel. The meeting was not listed on McGuinty’s detailed daily itinerary.

The two men talked about the Ring of Fire “a great deal” with McGuinty noting Ontario needs help building roads, electricity lines and training local First Nations peoples for the thousands of jobs that would be available in mining and related fields.

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[Ring of Fire] Industry game-changer – by Julie Gordon and Bhaswati Mukhopadhyay (Sudbury Star – May 25, 2012)

 The Sudbury Star is the City of Greater Sudbury’s daily newspaper.

A $3.3-billion plan to build North America’s first major chromite mine deep in the Canadian wi lderness promises to usher in an era of prosperity for the region’s aboriginals and generate millions of tax dollars over its lifetime.

Tucked deep into Northern Ontario, the Ring of Fire contains rich mineral deposits that could transform the region, much as the oilsands have transformed Alberta. Much like the oilsands, it has raised deep environmental and social concerns.

But the Ring of Fire stands apart from other resource mega-developments around the world in one important respect. Rather than oil, gold or iron ore, its main attraction is a relatively minor ore — chromite — which is refined into ferrochrome to make stainless steel.

The region contains North America’s only known large-scale chromite deposit. If Cleveland-based Cliffs Natural Resources Inc. develops the Black Thor project, it will likely revolutionize the stainless steel industry on the continent, which now relies on imports from South Africa and Kazakhstan. It would make Canada the world’s four thlargest chromite producer.

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Ontario’s Ring of Fire Will Fuel Our Economy – by Tim Hudak (May 22, 2012)

Tim Hudak is the opposition leader of the Ontario PC Party

Ontario once enjoyed bountiful supplies of affordable energy — and used it over more than a century to build our province into an industrial powerhouse and resource development dynamo. But times have changed.

You may have seen a news article a week ago, for example, about how high electricity prices, along with a burdensome approvals process, add up to obstacles to investment in Northern Ontario’s Ring of Fire region. My caucus colleague, and Ontario PC energy critic, Vic Fedeli used a recent provincial parliamentary committee meeting to press the government for some answers about this critical issue.

Because it’s been in the news lately, I want to use the Ring of Fire to illustrate a broader point, to show how heavily energy costs can weigh on economic sectors like mining, forestry and manufacturing — where Ontario most urgently needs to kick-start job creation with more than half a million people unemployed.

The Ring of Fire should be a cause for optimism with the ongoing jobs crisis in Ontario. According to Richard Nemis, the entrepreneur who gave the Ring of Fire its name, the “economic impact of this discovery on the Ontario economy will probably run into the hundreds of billions of dollars over time.”

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Neskantaga chief demands real consultation on Ring of Fire – by Rick Garrick (Wawatay News – May 22, 2012)

 http://www.wawataynews.ca/

Neskantaga Chief Peter Moonias has raised further issues over the Cliffs Natural Resources chromite mine project in the Ring of Fire.
 
Moonias sent a letter to Michael Gravelle, minister of Natural Resources, on May 17 stating he has learned that Cliffs and/or its wholly owned subsidiary Cliffs Chromite Ontario Inc. has applied for land use and other permits on provincial crown land to begin mobilizing for infrastructure development and commencement of construction, including the north-south access corridor to the Ring of Fire.
 
Moonias stated in the letter that Ontario cannot lawfully consider these applications without fulfilling its constitutional duty of consultation. The chief said that the granting of an easement, issuance of any kind of land use or other permits to Cliffs in support of its proposed developments would be a further breach of Ontario’s duty to consult.
 
Moonias had earlier stated in a May 11 letter to Rick Bartolucci, minister of Northern Development and Mines, that Ontario is in breach of its constitutional duty to consult with Neskantaga and other Aboriginal peoples regarding the Cliffs mine and infrastructure development in and to the Ring of Fire.

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[Ring of Fire] Ontario needs better energy infrastructure – by George Smitherman (Sudbury Star – May 23, 2012)

 The Sudbury Star is the City of Greater Sudbury’s daily newspaper.

George Smitherman former deputy premier and Energy minister of Ontario

By the sounds of the name it’s been given, the Ring of Fire is the last place on Earth where you’d think you have to worry about how to supply power. However, when you are proposing mining activity 300 km north of any paved road, things get complicated quickly.

Maybe that’s why Ontario is actually allowing a giant American mining company, and at least one smaller Canadian one, to propose that diesel generation be used to provide electricity. Problem is, their needs are projected to start at 30 mw and grow to 70 mw. That would take about 10 million litres of diesel fuel each month. Diesel fuel that would presumably be trucked 300 km along a road that will be carved out of environmentally sensitive lands.

This Ring of Fire mining activity will be taking place in the James Bay Lowlands on the traditional territories of several First Nation communities. It’s ironic that a pressing need of these same communities is a more reliable, healthy and cost effective means of generating electricity than the small diesel generators they currently use.

First Nations communities have experienced the limitations of electricity from diesel for far too long.

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‘We are listening’[Ontario government to First Nations] – by Jeff Labine (tbnewswatch.com – May 20, 2012)

http://www.tbnewswatch.com/

The Ministry of Natural Resources won’t approve any land us applications from Cliffs Natural Resources applications until an environmental assessment has been completed.

Neskantaga First Nation Chief Peter Moonias wrote a letter to Minister of Natural Resources Michael Gravelle last week after he learned that Cliffs had requested land use and other permits to allow the company to start developing the area for construction. These construction projects included roads leading into the Ring of Fire site.

This application request followed the announcement that the company planned to build a chromite smelter near Sudbury causing outcry from First Nation communities that Ontario did not pursue proper consultation before making the decision.

Moonias, who earlier this week declared he was willing to die to stop the Ring of Fire development, said the MNR couldn’t go ahead with this application.

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[Paul Reid] The man who saved Cliffs – by Darren MacDonald – (Sudbury Northern Life – May 16, 2012)

This article came from Northern Life, Sudbury’s biweekly newspaper.

City staffer played key role in Cliffs decision

Just call him the man who saved Cliffs. Paul Reid, a business development officer with the City of Greater Sudbury, was credited May 15 with playing a key role in convincing Cliffs Natural Resources to build its ferrochrome smelter in Sudbury.

Ward 7 Coun. Dave Kilgour, whose ward includes Capreol, said Cliffs came to Sudbury in January or February 2010 to look at another site in the region. “They were on a search across the province for a suitable site, and one of the areas they wanted to look at was in Sudbury,” Kilgour said, following the May 15 city council meeting.

So, Reid and other city staff went with them to tour the site, but Cliffs was disappointed. There wasn’t enough land for the project, and it was too close to residential areas.

“They came in and took a look at it, and for a few reasons, found it wasn’t suitable,” Kilgour, who declined to name the original location, said. “And they asked Paul Reid, since they were here already, whether or not there were any other areas they could take a look at, and he suggested an old mine site north of Capreol.

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‘We weren’t even listened to'[Ring of Fire First Nations ignored] – by Carol Mulligan (Sudbury Star – May 19, 2012)

The Sudbury Star is the City of Greater Sudbury’s daily newspaper.

Chief Sonny Gagnon of Aroland First Nation visited Sudbury on Thursday to begin what he says will be a process of educating other First Nations about developments related to the Ring of Fire and his community’s involvement in them.

Gagnon met with leaders from Atikameksheng Anishnawbek or Whitefish Lake First Nation, but would not say what was discussed at the two-hour session.

“There are a lot of dark areas where we have to enlighten ourselves,” the chief said Friday in a telephone interview from northwestern Ontario. “I think they know what happened in the past with Sudbury,” he said of the First Nation located 20 kilometres west of the city.

Gagnon says his community is not anti-development, but he doesn’t like the way the decision was made on the location of the ferrochrome smelter that Cliffs Natural Resources plans to build near Capreol.

The chief is “ticked off ” about the fact Northern Development and Mines Minister Rick Bartolucci, who is Sudbury’s Liberal MPP, did not consult with his community before the decision about the smelter was announced last Wednesday.

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Most Cliffs jobs will be in the Northwest – by Michael Gravelle (Thunder Bay Chronicle-Journal – May 19, 2012)

The Thunder Bay Chronicle-Journal is the daily newspaper of Northwestern Ontario.

Michael Gravelle, MPP for Thunder Bay-Superior North, is Ontario’s Minister of Natural Resources.

There is very good reason for everyone in Northwestern Ontario to be excited about the growth of the mining sector in our part of the province. Mineral exploration investments are at an all-time high and we can expect the opening of several new mines in the region to employ hundreds, if not thousands of people, which will drive the economy forward to levels we have not seen before. These opportunities are being embraced by First Nations and municipal governments all across the region as they seek to seize the long-term benefits this renaissance in mining will provide.

There is no question that the project that has captured the most attention is the Ring of Fire, where an unprecedented level of investment is poised to bring economic benefits and jobs to thousands of people for many years to come.

While there are a number of companies making significant investments in this resource-rich part of the Northwest, most of the public attention over the past year or so has been focused on Cliffs Natural Resources, a U.S.-based firm that is eager to take the next major step forward in the development of a huge project; one that, if managed properly, will bring extraordinary long-term economic benefits to many First Nations communities and municipalities across our region.

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Selective outrage [in Ring of Fire First Nations] – Thunder Bay Chronicle-Journal Editorial (May 17, 2012)

The Thunder Bay Chronicle-Journal is the daily newspaper of Northwestern Ontario.

THE CHIEF of a First Nation near the Ring of Fire mineral deposit has said he’ll die before he allows a mining company to cross a river near his community to access its property. Neskantaga Chief Peter Moonias said Cliffs Natural Resources’ chromite development at the headwaters of the Attawapiskat River could destroy his community.

Moonias wrote to Northern Development and Mines Minister Rick Bartolucci to express disappointment with Ontario’s decision to support Cliffs’ multi-billion dollar plan including a north-south all-season road linking the mine with a rail line near Aroland First Nation and the nearby town of Nakina.

“These decisions will have significant adverse effects on our lands, environment and way of life,” Moonias wrote. “Your government has made these decisions without adequate consultation with Neskantaga, in breach of your legal duties . . . .”

Moonias threatened to “use every lawful means at our disposal” to oppose the Cliffs project — the largest single component of the biggest economic development opportunity to hit Northern Ontario in a lifetime.

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