Pete,

It's nice to receive a reply from Minister Gravelle who repeated what the Premier has said "...$1B committed with or without Feds help". This is tough talk which is not really a good thing, since she would need the Feds to make things happen. There is noway she can pull this alone. Let's face it, $1B over 10 years (fine prints which nobody from the government want to focus on), i.e. $100M/yr on the average for the RoF infrastructure (including other things, not just the roads...forget about RR for now) is a drop in a bucket, unless the Liberals spell out the details on the projects and spending (e.g. a lot more initially to kick start the project, and tappering off?). Anything, over 10 years for the development of the RoF is just too long, even a 5-year priod is still too long, at least for me (we will all get old by then, or walk away for being too impatient waiting for politicians to "do it right").

Back to $100M/yr, this can not do much, except perhaps to spuce up part of the E-W road proposed by NOT and/or the alternate E-W road on KWG map. The NOT route has the support of 4 FN communities, if my recollection is correct, while the KWG alternate route has the support of two vocal FN leaders, one of them is Chief Moonias (Marten Falls), the other is the Chief of Eabametoong FN. My guess would be both routes will need to be done initially, may be sharing 50-50 with NOT and just cut across with the alternate E-W (leaving the northern section (cost $18M, see KWG map) to the RoF until later. This would be done only for political purposes. Who knows, but the Prov may even attempt to drag the Feds into this venture, since this is FN issues.

The statement "wrong emphasis" in my post was made in the context of governement spending for the region. Quite a bit of money, hundreds of milions, have been promissed for expanding the highway from Thunder Bay to Hwy 11 and 17 junction, and essentially extending the 400 right up to Sudbury. This money should have been used for development of the RoF infrastructure (while waiting for the Feds contribution, keeping in mind that you would need to be nice to get the Feds money). It's quite obvious that these two developments (around the rim of the RoF, actually more than 300km away from the centre of action) are rewards for (and help them to keep their seats) the two Ministers for Thunder Bay and Sudbury ridings. The emphasis here is to retain the seats.

It's kind of funny to hear Horwath saying something similar (big chunks of money for roads in the north, these are for regular roads and highways. Again, the NDP wants to get more seats in Northern Ontario. Note: The PC has only one seat, Fedeli's for North Bay. To get additional seats Hudak will need to come out with a "killer proposal" for the RoF, something that would make the northerners sit up and take notice.

In summary, all the anouncements about $1B and more than $1.B from the Lib and the NPD will need supporting details, e.g. breakdown for specific project, timeline, etc... before they can be considered credible. One thing for sure, if we have another Lib minority then the expansion of the highways to Sudbury and Thunder Bay will be carried out regardless, but not too sure about the development of the infrastructure of the RoF. "To do it right" will take time, you know. Ten years???

At the risk of sounding like a broken record, but one thing Ms Kitty needs to realized is the fact that Feds money is required. Talking tough would not help.

goldhunter