I feel like I'm the only person who has positive thoughts about the DevCo at the moment. Not glaringly positive, but I'm trying to envision what is happening behind-the-scenes.

The rest of the five remaining weeks that they had should have been spent by those directors to put meat onto the Devco.

I think the biggest problem here is that every stakeholder in the ROF is impatient. Having been a shareholder of various ROF companies for about seven years, I'm guilty of the same. But let me try to take a step back and see if I can take a view of things without any personal bias.

Who needs to be on the committee? FN's, government interests (municipal, provincial, and federal), industry, and maybe a smattering of third-party experts. If the board of a major corporation is well-served by having advocates from outside of industry (ie. lawyers, financial experts, and political experts, as a few examples) then why shouldn't the DevCo also include some seemingly "random" appointments also?

I tried to put myself in the shoes of Minister Gravelle, in deciding who is going to be on the DevCo's board or governing body. What a nightmare! Who gets picked? The simple truth is that no matter who gets picked, some people are going to be offended that they weren't included!

Government: Let's assume that at least one provincial and one federal representative will be on the board, albeit possibly in an ex-officio (non-voting) capacity. But what about municipal representatives? An official from Thunder Bay and/or Sudbury? Sure. Officials from smaller communities? Greenstone should maybe have representation. Any other municipalities? Incidentally, for those of you who are from outside of Ontario, like myself, a few geographic notes: Nakina and Greenstone are the same thing. Greenstone is an area which includes the former Nakina and another community. And we've all heard Capreol mentioned? It's part of Sudbury.

Industry: Well, Noront should obviously have a position on the Board. What about KWG? Probably, because of their partial ownership of various chromite bodies, and because of the mess with their claims staked along the esker route, and because of their potential for revolutionizing chromite reduction via natural gas. What about Bold? Well, I guess maybe, because they're actively working on defining a significant chromite deposit. What about Cliffs? That's a tough question. It's hard to ignore the $3b gorilla in the middle of the room, although easier to ignore than when they were a $12b gorilla. But should a foreign entity have representation on a committee deciding the future of a significant Canadian resource? Especially an entity which has already said that they're pulling out of the region? And what about the majors who are operating behind-the-scenes. Does a company such as Xstrata or Teck or Glencore need representation, or would their public involvement "show their hand" prematurely?

FN's: There is no doubt that various First Nations need to have membership of the Board. But how many? Which ones? Should we also include Bob Rae? And on that note, what about Frank Iacobucci? He seems to be an important stakeholder in the process.

External Experts: Throw in a few lawyers, finance experts, and environmental specialists, just for good measure.

Oh, and don't forget representatives from the Ministry of the Environment, MNDM, etc.

At this point, we've got a Board of roughly twenty to forty members. In other words, an unmanageable mess. But if we cut the numbers, we risk alienating key stakeholders.

My thought is that right now, the problem is trying to determine the final membership of the DevCo Board. Gravelle couldn't make those decisions, because then the liberals would catch all sorts of heat based upon the composition of the governing body of the DevCo. The only logical solution was to set up a temporary governing body of four members and let THEM determine the final composition of the governing body. Despite all of the negativity surrounding their appointment, they are public servants who are smart enough to realize what a knife edge they're walking on. They have to be the group which takes credit for picking the right participants for the governing body, or for taking the fall if things don't work out. Make no mistake, they probably realize this.

I'd be willing to bet that hundreds of person-hours have been spent in telephone conversations and meetings between these four and some of the dozens of potential members of the DevCo's final board, trying to determine exactly how to govern this new entity.

If you think there's some frustration now based upon the choice of these four as a temporary decision-making body, just wait until you see the perceived injustice professed by those who don't get invited to the final party, once the DevCo's final composition is announced.

It's going to be an interesting fall and winter ...

PS: Also, remember that some of these four might step aside as members once the composition of the DevCo is finalized. Or maybe not. Maybe they'll all remain entrenched so the province has more say in governance.