I hope the Deloitte report is released soon, as it almost certainly endorses a railway as most cost effective for bulk ore transport. There should be some decision soon about actually building roads for the people up there, as well as hydro lines. Those two parts of the infrastructure will come before any railway. Also a pipeline might be built and operating long before bridges can be built across the main rivers. Pipelines can go under river crossings and may be underground for a good part of the distance. There would have to be a dewatering or pelletising plant somewhere around Nakina for that, and rail from there either to an export port, a reduction furnace, or a steel plant.

Certainly the KWG gas reduction process makes the building of a new conventional electric smelter in Sudbury less likely. Thunder Bay (Gravelle's riding) is in line as a location for a gas smelter, as is Sault Ste Marie with a steel works already. Economically a chromite reduction plant that feeds directly into a steel maker seems a no-brainer. Ontario as a stainless steel producer & exporter is a distinct possibility.

With an NDP mpp in Sudbury now, the Liberals are less inclined to feed economic benefits to that region, and more likely to favour areas with mpps from their own party.