Nickel Belt MPP Gelinas Slams MP Clement for Funding U of T Mining Research – by Bill Bradley

Northern Life, Greater Sudbury’s community newspaper, gave Republic of Mining.com permission to post Bill Bradley’s article. www.northernlife.ca

Nickel Belt MPP France Gelinas has joined a chorus of those who are slamming the federal government for funding mining innovation research in Toronto instead of Greater Sudbury.

“This is wrong. To me it shows how little they consider us. Mining takes place in Sudbury, not Toronto,” said Gelinas. “This is an insult. It is not acceptable.

She said while she supports students who wish to pursue careers in mining, there was no room for two centres of mining innovation. Gelinas dismissed affirmations by Industry Minister Tony Clement Friday that the University of Toronto had been involved in mining programs for over 100 years and that the infrastructure money granted was to renew a portion of a campus building.

Clement also said Laurentian University had not applied to this infrastructure program for funding for the Centre for Excellence in Mining Innovation (CEMI).

“At the end of the day, the federal government is creating a centre of excellence there… This jeopardizes Sudbury for being recognized as being the centre of excellence for mining,” said Gelinas.

She has consulted with Ontario Energy and Infrastructure Minister George Smitherman about the issue last week.

“He was sympathetic and said to keep on fighting for CEMI and to be optimistic.”

Gelinas said Smitherman noted there would be more infrastructure announcements coming but could not be more specific about the prospects for CEMI or for the city.
“I thought we would hear more last Friday.”

She did say College Boreal did receive $5 million from the province for 10 trades related programs last week.

“That was provincial money. Once again the federal government did not contribute a cent. College Boreal was hoping for a total of $24 million in funding from both levels of government.”