The article says: "In Queen's Park Thursday Ontario Northern Development and Mines Minister Michael Gravelle (Lib., Thunder Bay-Superior North) said the province is absolutely committed to the project despite the absence of the federal government."

- First underlined portion: I take this as "absolutely committed to the $1B for the RoF", noting that the Minister should remind people that it's $1B over 10 years, or $0.1B/year on the average. The way it's going, the spending for the first year would probably be ZERO dollars. For this kind of development project, it should be big spending for the first few years, e.g. 1st year: $0.4B; 2nd year $0.3B; 3rd year $0.2B and the rest , $0.1B, is for the subsequent 7 years. If the province is really committed to the project then it can throw in some more $ to the pot, consdering the subsidies it was willing to give to CLF, $0.6B for CLF private road on somebody else's (KWG) claims, and electricity rate subsidy (for the electric arc furnace) of the order $1B for about the same 10 years period.

- Second underlined portion: The budget document says "the $1B is contigent on Fed matching funding, since the total cost for the RoF infrastructure would be over $2B".

The Fed position is that bring over a detailed proposal with cost estimate then we'll match the fund. If the Prov says we propose a $0.4B phase for the first year the it's highly likely that the Fed can find $0.4B, after all, the Fed Minister responsible for the RoF is Greg Rickford whose riding is in the Northern Ontario neighbourhood. He took the seat from the Liberal party (as I recall), and bet that he want to keep that seat in the next election by spending some money for good cause (~1 year to go). This would help the Conservative candidates in the neighbourhood as well. Other parties, especially NDP, better watch out...Fed money (they have ~$11B sitting there) will come gushing out, with or without the Prov spending proposal.

goldhunter