The purchase at Capreol a year ago may have just been hedging their bets, not an intent to deceive the other communities being examined. Seriously, if that property was available for a pittance, and Cliffs knew about it, why not buy it then? It's possible that they could have bought cheap properties in a couple of the communities leading for contention, just to be more "ready to go" once the final decision was made. In a project of this scope, you want to have many things happening in parallel, rather than sequentially. Even if the paperwork on the sale only took two weeks, if it was initiated after the decision was made, that might slow the entire project down by two weeks eventually.

I'm no fan of Cliffs, but I don't necessarily think this is definitive evidence that they were trying to deceive other communities. Make no mistake ... if there were compelling economic/financial reasons to set up the smelter in a different community, they would have abandoned Capreol, regardless of the property they held.

And yes, very good news that some processing will take place in Ontario.