March 8, 2011 – Republic of Mining

(L to R) Garry Clark, Executive Director of the Ontario Prospectors Association; Phil Vinet, Mayor of Red Lake; Alan Spacek, Mayor of Kapuskasing and President of FENOM; Honourable Michael Gravelle, Minister of Northern Development, Mines and Forestry; Chris Hodgson, President of Ontario Mining Association; Glenn Nolan, Vice-President, Aboriginal Affairs and the PDAC’s first Vice-President

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Thank you, for your kind introduction. And welcome everyone to PDAC 2011!

I’d like to begin by extending a warm welcome to Glen Nolan, First-Vice President of the Prospectors and Developers Association of Canada, Garry Clark, Executive Director of Ontario Prospectors Association and Chris Hodgson, President of the Ontario Mining Association, who have joined us here today for the official opening of the Ontario Pavilion.

We’re all looking forward to participating in the greatest mining show on earth here in Toronto!

This year I’m very excited to report a new record for delegations this year – 25,000! Over the next few days we will be telling these delegations from all over the world about Ontario!

I’m very happy to report that this year for the first time; more than 800 active mining exploration projects have been recorded across the province.

As well, we’ll be telling the world that we’ve set a new record in exploration spending – in 2011 we are expected to hit $951 million!

Founded in 2006 by James Murray, NetNewsledger.com offers news, information, opinions and positive ideas for Thunder Bay, Ontario, and for Northwestern Ontario. This column was originally posted on March 4, 2011. newsroom@netnewsledger.com

THUNDER BAY – “The McGuinty Liberals’ Northern Growth Plan is yet another hypocrisy perpetrated by a party which has failed Northerners time and time again”, stated Randy Hillier, PC Party critic for Northern Development, Mines and Forestry. “A ‘northern’ document originally penned by George Smitherman, the growth plan will do nothing to stem the tide of a Northern recession that the Liberals have created”.

The PC critic for Northern Development, Mines and Forestry pulled no punches in his critical look at the plan. “With scores of damaging Liberal policies already put in place by the government over the past two years, it’s tough to see how the addition of a Northern think-tank is going to help create prosperity in Northern Ontario,” stated Hillier, “Dalton McGuinty’s liberals raised energy prices, flubbed the Mining Act reforms, cut off 50% of the North from all development with Bill 191 and decimated the forestry industry. What’s left for a policy institute to do?”

Michael Gravelle, Ontario Minister of Northern Development, Mines and Forestry: Official Opening Ontario Pavilion (PDAC) Speech (March 7, 2011)

Ontario P.C. Randy Hillier – “Liberals have turned Northern Ontario into a have-not region of a have-not province”