ONTARIO CONSERVATIVE PARTY NEWS RELEASE: TIME TO LIGHT THE FUSE ON THE RING OF FIRE

This news release was issued by Ontario Conservative Vic Fedeli who is the MPP for Nipissing.

January 27, 2012

Government Coordinator Never Been to Site

NORTH BAY – Nipissing MPP Vic Fedeli chastised the McGuinty government Friday for mismanaging the vital Ring of Fire mining development in Northern Ontario and causing unnecessary delays.

The development schedule for the major companies has already been pushed back a year to 2016. Today, Dalton McGuinty’s Ring of Fire coordinator, Dr. Christine Kaszycki, admitted to Fedeli at a conference in North Bay that she has NEVER stepped foot on the site.

“I was shocked to learn that she has never set foot in the Ring of Fire. No wonder this project is stalled!” exclaimed Fedeli, who toured the site himself last summer and is working to arrange a sales trip for local firms there this spring.

“The government says one thing, but doesn’t actually do anything. All they’ve done is hire people, built a bureaucracy, and not actually done any work. That’s why the projects are delayed another year.”

The Ring of Fire may prove to be the largest mining discovery of the last 100 years. This massive deposit of chromite located west of James Bay could create prosperity for the North for decades to come.

“This dithering is unacceptable at a time when we’re desperate for good-paying private-sector jobs in Ontario and need to create prosperity to dig ourselves out from the $16-billion deficit hole Dalton McGuinty has dug for us,” said PC Northern Development and Mines Critic and Parry Sound-
Muskoka MPP Norm Miller.

“It’s time for real leadership on this issue.”

Miller, who’s also toured the site, added that since the October election, the Ministry of Northern Development and Mines hasn’t issued a single news release focused on The Ring of Fire, and Minister Rick Bartolucci only seems to talk about it when pressed by the media.

In a speech in Timmins this week, Ontario PC Leader Tim Hudak pledged the PC party would move swiftly to turn the Ring of Fire into a job-creating reality. As part of the PC platform, Hudak would appoint the Minister of Northern Development and Mines as the Ring of Fire coordinator.

For more information, or to arrange an interview, contact

Clint Thomas
Executive Assistant
(705) 474-8340