Page 80 cabinet ministers Michael Gravelle of Thunder Bay and Rick Bartolucci of Sudbury both of whom had been advocating for the project but lar ge ly and understandably to the beneft of their own ridings Bartolucci has since retired from politics In March of this year the W ynne government s 3300word preelec tion speech from the throne omitted the mention of the Ring of Fire and northern Ontario altogether Nipissing Conservative MP V ic Fedeli criticized the speech as A total lack of regard for northern Ontario During a cam paign visit to T immins PC Leader Doug Ford promised to put the Ring of Fire project into high gear if he is elected premier this week In the interim KWG Resources another player in the Ring of Fire foated the idea over the past several months of establishing a smelter in Sault Ste Marie Michigan a concept that raised eyebrows and concerns from high profle politicians in Sault Ste Marie SSM Ontario Mayor Christian Provenzano and SSM T ory MPP Ross Romano downplayed that news at the time suggesting that ev ery political party in Ontario would likely be hesitant to support mine production in Ontario that would end up being smelted in the United States KWG has majority interest in the Black Horse Joint V enture a 1000hectare block of claims 280km north of Nakina Ontario KWG is advocating rail transport out of the area in addition to a partnership with Chinese interests who are ex pected to ink a longterm contract to secure access to a supply of chromite In April KWG President Moe Lavi gne was in Paris France along with Marten Falls First Nation Chief Bruce Achneepineskum to speak to the In ternational Chromium Development Association s annual meeting Partnerships and formal agreements meanwhile between Noront KWG and First Nations communities have been well established In April Noront announced that it had reached an agreement with the Marten Falls First Nation giving the Contd from pg 76 c o m m u n i t y 31 11 1 1 com mon shares of Noront If the Ontario government and its laby rinth of bu reaucrats stay committed to a 1 Billion road construc tion program slated to begin some time in 2019 Noront is planning to begin mine c o n st r u c t i o n in 2020 and production by 2022 FERROCHROME PROCESSING PLANT Proposed Plant Layout