Ring of Fire requires greater co-operation

By: Thomas Perry
The Daily Press (Timmins)
Friday, January 23, 2015

TIMMINS - Everyone agrees the Ring of Fire has the potential to have a huge impact on our region, the province and the country.

Unfortunately, that seams to be as far as the parties involved in this mineral-rich project can go in terms of agreeing on anything.

The parties, for anyone unfamiliar with the Ring of Fire, are the federal government, the provincial government, a number of private-sector companies (including KWG Resources, Noront Resources and Cliff’s Natural Resources) and area First Nations.

Instead of working together to see this project developed, they appear more interested in playing the blame game.

Federal Natural Resources Minister Greg Rickford, speaking in Timmins this week, for example, suggested the private sector is not willing to move forward on the development at this time.

“The market has had trouble getting to the point where any company can justify moving ahead very quickly with an extractive exercise,” he said.

“We are hopeful that the province is coming on board and turning its mind to specific projects that have the value-added, if you will, of connecting First Nation communities and smaller towns and cities in and around the Ring Of Fire, to be involved in and accessible to the Ring Of Fire.”

Back in April, when the provincial government announced it was earmarking $1 billion for development of the Ring of Fire, Ontario Northern Development and Mines Minister Michael Gravelle couldn’t resist taking a shot at the federal Conservative government.

“We’ve certainly spoken on a number of occasions about the significant investment the province was prepared to make and today we put that figure on the table,” he said.

“We’re calling on the federal government in very strong terms to match that amount. We know the infrastructure needs are very significant. It is absolutely crucial the feds accept their responsibilities and become part of the vision for the Ring of Fire.”

If we are going to see development of the Ring of Fire in our lifetime, and hopefully we will, the federal Conservatives and the provincial Liberals will have to set party politics aside and work with each other, the mining companies and area First Nations.


Fred Brown • 36 minutes ago

It seems that way.

Rickford suggesting "that the private sector is not willing to move forward on the development at this time" is highly inaccurate. Let's remember it was his government's that created the whole mess.

In 2012, it's Canadian Environmental Assessment Agency's (CEAA) accepted a [less] Comprehensive Study Environmental Assessment (EA) process, instead of a full Joint Review Panel (EA) for both Cliffs Natural Resources Inc.’s Chromite Project and the proposed nickel project by Noront Resources, in the Ring of Fire of northern Ontario.

The CEAA completely ignored Environment Canada Rob Dobos' recommendation that a regional environmental assessment process "that considers the inter-connectivity and the cumulative impact of currently proposed and anticipated future developments within and connecting to the Ring of Fire."

At the time CEAA spokesperson Celine Legault said that the agency also determined there was no need for the Noront project to be subjected to a more intensive Joint Review Panel (JRP) assessment.

Exactly who, within the federal government, directed the CEAA to accept the lesser Comprehensive Study Environmental Assessment (EA) process remains a mystery. So do the details of this decision not to refer the "legacy" regional Ring of Fire projects to a Joint Panel Review, even though it met key conditions of "likely, significant adverse effects" and "major public concerns".

Meanwhile, Cliffs never had a good business model for it's $3.5B chromite project. Using one hundred (ninety tonne) trucks to move heavy chromite concentrate back and forth each day on a 350 kilometre private all-season road, electricity to both concentrate and reduce the chromite to concentrate then ferrochrome is way too costly. Today, chromite concentrate sells for $200 per tonne but Cliffs calculated $390 per tonne.

It would have cost $180 million a year to maintain the road while the equivalent costs for rail were pegged at $31 million per year. A north-south road would cost $60.78 to transport a tonne of ore, while a rail line would cost $10.50, a chromite slurry pipeline even less.

Both KWG Resources and Noront "can justify moving ahead very quickly with an extractive exercise" but the federal and provincial government need to take the lead on regional infrastructure, participate in 3P loan guarantees and have more transparent dealings with First Nations. Private corporations don't do regional infrastructure, they develop mines.

Ontario's Ring of Fire Development Corporation has no clear business plan on it's proposed $1B investment, no structure or goals, no time-lines nor guiding principles, nor any consensus on its next steps by transparent participation from First Nations, mining companies, provincial government agencies and the ONTC. Ontario has not unified resource sharing nor the rules of memorandum of understandings, (MOU's) for all First Nations for large scale regional resources development, like it's done in Quebec.

Ontario has not produced the Deloitte report's recommendation on the best infrastructure to get the $50B worth of chromite and $10B nickel to market at a world competitive prices, while giving First Nations service roads, affordable energy, and communications.

From the beginning, the province of Ontario supported Cliffs Natural Resources application for an easement to build a private corporate toll road over the KWG Resources Ltd. north south mining claims for a rail road while attempting to close down the ONTC. Ontario Mining minister Rick Bartolucci had said Cliffs Natural Resources will take the lead on figuring how the road to the Ring of Fire was to be built and financed. Sudbury MPP Rick Bartolucci, Minister of Northern Development and Mines, resigned and was replaced by Thunder Bay MPP Michael Gravelle, who defended Cliffs chromite marketing plan saying "if more than half the chromite mined in the Ring of Fire is processed in Ontario, that's a lot better than none!"

Ontario should have taken the advise of it's own Northern Policy Institute plan for Ring of Fire's infrastructure to be developed under a port authority model and transfer the ONR as a going concern to a James Bay & Lowlands Ports Authority.

An agency under Mushkegowuk and Matawa First Nations with NAN leadership could have been created under the banner of the James Bay & Lowlands Ports Authority to take control of the ONTC and KWG Resources would have transferred it's claims to the Ports Authority. Instead, it's in the Appeals Court.

Things aren't always the way it seems.