The Daily Press is the city of Timmins broadsheet newspaper
Tony Clement says high energy costs in Ontario forces industry to take processing elsewhere
As the federal minister for Northern Economic Development, Tony Clement says he would like to see processing of minerals from the Ring of Fire done in Northern Ontario.
However, Clement says it is up to the provincial government to make that happen. Officials with Cliffs Natural Resources, a Cleveland-based company looking to develop a chromite mine within the James Bay lowlands, have publicly expressed interest in doing some of the processing in Asia.
“We’d like to see more of the processing here but one of the major impediments are energy costs,” Clement said during a stopover in Timmins on Monday. “That’s Mr. (Dalton) McGuinty’s bailiwick. He’s got to do his job as premier of this province to get energy costs more in line.”
Making reference Xstrata Copper’s shutdown of its Timmins smelter 20 months ago, Clement added, “Here in Timmins you know better than most, the jobs don’t (always) disappear to Indonesia or Brazil, they disappear to Quebec, which is a real indicator that the issue is not one that affects all of Canada but affects Ontario in particular.”
Timmins has been vying to be the site for a ferrochrome production facility connected with the chromite mine.
However, Capreol has already been identified by Cliffs as the preferred location.
Timmins is one of the three communities Cliffs has listed as a potential alternative — Thunder Bay and Greenstone being the other two.
“I know that Timmins, Sudbury, Thunder Bay, they all have proposals” to provide a site for the processing, said Clement. “I think it’s too soon to conclude it won’t happen here. We’ve just got to continue to create the environment where that’s the best choice.”
He said the federal government has done what it can to keep these jobs in Canada.
“We’re keeping business taxes low, we cut another one-and-a-half percent off the business tax rate as of Jan. 1 … We’re going to continue to cut red tape for businesses as well. These are the kinds of things that will make … Canada the best place to do business in the world.”