Northwest mayors, chiefs show solidarity

Northwestern Ontario community leaders and First Nation chiefs want Exton as the preferred site for a Ring of Fire ferrochrome refinery.

At the Northwestern Ontario Municipal Association (NOMA) annual conference in Kenora, the 200 members voted on April 26 calling for the construction and operation of the processor to be established at a site between the Aroland First Nation and the village of Nakina on the Canadian National Railway main line.

The furnace proponents, Cliffs Natural Resources, have sealed a land deal to establish the smelter at a former brownfield site north of the Sudbury suburb of Capreol, although no official announcement from the Ohio miner has been made.

But community and political leaders in the northwest haven't given up their lobbying efforts with Cliffs and the province.

Exton is located in the rural municipality of Greenstone, about 350 kilometres northeast of Thunder Bay.

The resolution favouring Exton was supported by Greenstone Mayor Renald Beaulieu and Thunder Bay Mayor Keith Hobbs, whose communities had been competing for the processor.

In mid-April, First Nation chiefs and mayors from the Lake Nipigon-James Bay region met in Greenstone and passed a resolution supporting Exton as the preferred site as well as a north-south access route to Marten Falls, an Aboriginal community close to the Ring of Fire chrome and nickel deposits.

At the Kenora meeting, the NOMA delegates set policy on 23 resolutions, including petitioning Queen's Park to reverse its decision to close tourist information centres in Fort Frances, Rainy River and Kenora, and keep them open for the summer.

NOMA further wants a provincial energy plan that funds any projects defined as 'public good' through general revenues rather than on a business case model, and that energy generated in northwestern Ontario be used first to create wealth and employment locally.