The Sudbury Star is the City of Greater Sudbury’s daily newspaper.
The Ontario Liberals may have won a majority in the June 12 election, but they don’t have a monopoly, says Andrea Horwath.
Ontario Liberals have failed Northern Ontarians time and time again — especially in their slowness to develop the Ring of Fire — and the Ontario New Democrats can capitalize on that, said the NDP leader.
Horwath spoke Sunday morning at NDP Northern Council 2014, a gathering of 60 or more MPPs, NDP candidates and party faithful.
New Democrats, herself included, made mistakes in the last election, but have four years to make up for them, especially if they focus on the values for which the party stands.
Ontario saw the “sad result” of Liberal inaction recently when Cliffs Natural Resources indicated it was looking to sell its assets in the Ring of Fire, Horwath told delegates.
“Instead of pulling out all the stops to build infrastructure, instead of getting revenue sharing agreements on track, instead of working with northerners, First Nations and industry partners to develop resources in the Ring of Fire, Premier Wynne’s government has taken a wait-and-see approach.”
But the North has waited too long already and seen too many of its youth leave the area to find work while the Liberals watched opportunities “pass them by, with no plan and no way to grow the North.”
Speaking to reporters after her speech, Horwath said after seven years of talk about the Ring of Fire, all the Liberals have done is appoint a board of four bureaucrats to work on infrastructure.
Horwath was referencing Premier Kathleen Wynne’s election campaign promise to establish a development corporation to plan and build infrastructure for the Ring of Fire within 60 days of her throne speech.
“There’s really been nothing done,” Horwath told reporters. “We should already be seeing some mining camps being developed, we should already be seeing some minerals coming out of the ground.”
She recalled the day in May 2012 when the Liberals announced Cleveland-based Cliffs was planning to build a $1.8-billion ferrochrome processing plant in Capreol to smelt ore from the Ring of Fire.
“And here we are seeing the exact opposite, seeing Cliffs walk away quite possibly from their commitment in the Ring of Fire.”
When asked to comment on Wynne’s remark last week there are other companies in the Ring moving ahead with projects, Horwath said: “Companies might be ready to start investing, but if they see no commitment from the provincial government to be a partner in the huge infrastructure needs an undertaking like the Ring of Fire requires, they’re not going to stick around.”
Wynne held a cabinet meeting in Sudbury last week, after which she said the initial development corporation board, comprised of civil servants, is laying the groundwork for a permanent board of representatives from mining companies, First Nations and government that will decide how to spend the $1 billion the province has earmarked for infrastructure.
Had her party been elected, the NDP would have put $250 million “on the table right away to start getting that infrastructure up and running,” said Horwath.
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