TIMMINS - Ontario Premier Kathleen Wynne’s visit to Timmins for the first Northern Ontario Leaders' Forum included a commitment to quarterly meetings between her Northern ministry and municipal and regional leaders.

Michael Gravelle, the province’s Minister of Northern Development and Mines, explained he’d be at meetings approximately every three months with groups such as the Northwestern Ontario Municipal Association (NOMA), the Federation of Northern Ontario Municipalities (FONOM), the Northern Ontario Large Urban Mayors (NOLUM), and leaders of the First Nations and Métis Nation.

Wynne admitted there was a disconnect between Queen’s Park and the communities and people it services in the North that needs to be fixed.

“Where there are bottlenecks and where there are procedural issues that need to be addressed, having an opportunity to talk about those on a regular basis makes a lot of sense,” said Wynne. “We’re very supportive of Minister Gravelle’s suggestion that those (meetings) happen on a regular basis.”

Over the course of Friday morning, Wynne highlighted a panel of speakers which included most of the Liberal cabinet ministers relevant to Northern Ontario. These included Health Minister Deb Matthews, Minister of Natural Resources David Orazietti, Minister of Citizenship and Immigration Michael Coteau, Minister of Aboriginal Affairs David Zimmer, Minister of Economic Development Eric Hoskins and Minister of Infrastructure and Transportation Glen Murray.

In the afternoon, the ministers split into different groups, and mayors and other community executives were able to go over specific questions and issues. Leaders from almost every city, town, township or community across the North were in attendance for what was being coined a “Northern Summit.”

Organizations such as NOLUM have long wished to have a louder voice to policy affecting the North, such as the government’s recent Growth Plan for Northern Ontario.

Though Wynne was careful to state that no one project defined her government’s vision for the North, she said the Ring of Fire was clearly a big piece of the puzzle.

After a meeting on Thursday with Prime Minister Stephen Harper, Wynne had hoped to come to Timmins with news that the federal government had agreed to match provincial funding when it came to the potentially massive chromite mining projects in the undeveloped James Bay lowlands.

Wynne explained her original hopes didn’t exactly materialize after talks with Harper, but added she was more optimistic than she had been that the feds would eventually come on board with funding. She didn’t directly respond when asked whether the project could move ahead without it.

“I think it’s clear (Harper) recognizes how important the Ring of Fire is as an economic development opportunity,” said Wynne. “He has said he’s open to considering the development corporation, which is the mechanism we believe will get the infrastructure built. It was a good conversation and I’m very glad he was willing to engage with us.

“We’re not giving up on the Ring of Fire. We are carrying on.”

In Timmins, Mayor Tom Laughren has been predicting the worst for Hwy. 101, which passes through the city, since the Liberals cancelled the Connecting Link infrastructure program in 2011.

Massive sewer and water plant upgrades have also put the city in debt that will take decades to erase.

Murray said he realized municipalities in the North didn’t have the tax base to keep up with such costs. To help solve the problem, he said his ministry is working with municipal associations to develop a “hybrid system” of allocating funds based on both a formula “that is predictable and stable for the long term,” as well as “by merit”.

The province has already stated continually updated city-wide asset management plans will be important for municipalities competing for funding. Laughren has estimated costs to repair Hwy. 101 going through Timmins could be close to $100 million, which alone would equal the entire budget for the province’s Small, Rural and Northern Municipal Infrastructure Fund.

“For most municipalities, (set funding) won’t solve Connecting Link costs, in Sault Ste. Marie or in Timmins,” said Murray, who added he’s also been in discussion with Laughren about rising water and sewer costs. “You’re going to have to rotate budgets, because there’s a period of time we’re going to have to fix the roads in Sault Ste. Marie and fix the roads in Timmins, and that has to be done on merit, not on a formula.”

Wynne, a former Minister of Transportation, added, “The Connecting Link program didn’t work. It was very unpredictable; that’s what mayors and councillors said to me, they didn’t know what was coming to them at the end of the year. We need a more systematic process.”

A number of the questions fielded by Wynne on Friday morning came from representatives of many of the First Nations communities and organizations across the North.

Isadore Day, Chief of Serpent River First Nation and Lake Huron Regional Grand Chief, emphatically asked Wynne, as well as a Minister of Transportation and Infrastructure, Glen Murray, and Minister of Aboriginal Affairs, David Zimmer, to implement a “specific treaty relationships intergovernmental roundtable process.”

Day said “without something like that, we’re going to continue to end up at loggerheads with challenges and people feeling left out.” He added it was “the most responsible and most pragmatic move we can make,” and that “this plan won’t work for our people” without a commitment to treaty-specific discussions.

Wynne responded favourably, though stopped short of going into details of such a strategy.

“I have a strong belief that the treaty relationship is badly understood by the general population in this province, has been badly understood by previous governments,” said Wynne. “We are working very hard on some very specific projects ... to use the treaty relationship as the foundation for the discussion.

“I would suggest the discussions we’ve had around education, my hope is that you (Day) feel the treaty relationship has been expressed at those tables. It’s very important to me we behave in that way, that that’s the way we do business to each other.”

Murray asked Day and fellow First Nation representatives to, “Just give my colleagues, the Premier, and I, the time to build a new relationship with you and to do this in a different way, in a way that meets your expectations.”