Tuesday, Algoma-Manitoulin MPP and NDP critic for Northern Development and Mines Michael Mantha took the Liberal government to task for its failures on the Ring of Fire.

“In the seven years your government had to develop the Ring of Fire, it has failed to come up with a plan that will create jobs, build infrastructure, and reduce the high price of electricity,” Mantha said. “Your government’s promised a development board that was supposed to include partners in industry and First Nations but besides four bureaucrats sitting at a table playing Euchre, we see nothing. Will it be another seven years or more of us asking the same questions?”

Mantha said the Liberals are failing to work with First Nations and lost its most important investor.

“Your government’s Regional Framework Agreement with First Nations isn’t working when Matawa chiefs say the government is excluding them from the development corporation board and is not consulting them on mining permits in the Ring of Fire,” Mantha said.

“International mining giant Cliffs Natural Resources spent $550 million in the Ring of Fire, had a plan to create thousands of jobs, but can no longer do business with the Ontario Liberals. The CEO of Cliffs Natural Resources, made headlines last month saying that he had ‘zero hope’ for the Ring of Fire, and that the project was ‘beyond the point of no return’. Last week he said every investment made here was a ‘disaster’. Does the Minister concur with Cliffs CEO’s assessment that the $60 billion Ring of Fire project is dead?”