The Sudbury Star, the City of Greater Sudbury’s daily newspaper. Brian MacLeod is the managing editor. brian.macleod@sunmedia.ca
When the Ontario Liberals unveiled the draft of their Growth Plan for Northern Ontario in 2010, some critics said it lacked plans for implementation, such as timing, funding and sufficient monitoring.
And they complained it didn’t protect resources, a sore point in the North, since two of the largest mining companies in the world — Inco and Falconbridge — were taken over by foreign companies.
Xstrata, which bought Falconbridge, shut down the Kidd Creek metallurgical plant in Timmins, and changes sought by Vale, which bought Inco, resulted in a year-long strike by the United Steelworkers.
Changebook North, the Progressive Conservatives’ attempt at showing love for Northern Ontario, whose 850,000 citizens have a hard time feeling amore from Queen’s Park, suffers from an even more glaring lack of details.
Of the two growth plans, the Liberals’, at 60 pages, is more complex and wide-ranging, but it’s not a blueprint — there’s too much wiggle room and too much left to interpretation.