Mike

Very good article. The part that caught me attention:

"The proposal includes transferring ownership of the provincial Crown corporation to a new ports authority under the federal Canada Marine Act.

The first step in that process was recently completed with the creation of the James Bay and Lowlands Ports Trustee Corp., which would become a port authority if approved by the federal government. The corporation has already had discussions regarding the proposal with First Nations in the James Bay Lowlands, ONTC unions and Ring of Fire claim holder Canada Chrome Corp."

It would be a good idea for the ONTC folks to link up with the Fed. which seems to be a better proponent of business development of the northern communities than the Prov., which seems to be in limbo with the resignation of the Premier. The current Prov. gov. may want to jump at this opportunity to claim some brownie points before a provincial election (which is expected soon, IMO).

If the Prov. Cobservative party won the next election then "funding synergy" from the Prov. and the Fed. would be expected (Hudak may include this point in his election platform). The cost of the RR (and a service road, initially for transport equipment and material to build the road and the RR) is not that expensive. Some $2B plus a bit for the RR. Some money could be available from

- Fed. PPP program, plus extra money that may be magically available from the Fed. to build the RR. (about $0.5 - 1.0 B)

- Prov. contribution for building the road ($600M, so that CLF can use the $600M, assigned for the trucking road, to contribute to the RR project.

- Private money raised under the "Ports Trustee"

- Private money raised under CCC for the RR, say another $600M for the RR.

- Contributions from other companies in the RoF, e.g. NOT

- The "union" may even contribute some money (through wage restraints, or monthly contributions?) for a stake in the corporation.

- Contributions from the FNs?

Just my speculation to provide a very rough estimate for a potential pool of money for the road ($600M, may need more from both governments and other companies such as telecom and power companies for laying fiber optic cables, building of cell phone towers, and power transmission lines) and the RR (= about $1.7B - 2.2B, so far). Fine tuning and extra fund raising are can be done by financial experts (and politicians) using their creativity talents.

goldhunter