The newest chapter of the Ring of Fire saga is being written.

In Thunder Bay, Ontario Premier Kathleen Wynne says they are moving ahead with building roads into the Ring of Fire region.

As recently as three months ago in Timmins, Wynne noted that plans were “weeks, not months” away from coming about. This was met with optimism by the members of NOLUM, including Mayor Steve Black.

Since the initial pledge of $1 billion dollars back in 2014, Wynne says they’ve been talking with the chiefs of the Matawa First Nations and insisted she wanted progress or she would move to bilateral talks with individual communities.

Wynne announced that Ontario will work with three of those nine First Nations—Webequie, Marten Falls and Nibinamik—to build year-round road access into a proposed mining development site being pursued by Noront Resources.

But even with this new pledge, Timmins-James Bay MPP Gilles Bisson remains skeptical.

“I’ve seen this movie before,” he told Rogers Media shortly after the announcement, noting the $1 billion dollar pledge came before the last election.

“It’s something that needs to be done, and yet, it remains to be seen if they’re actually going to follow through with it because this government has announced for two or three elections now, a number of throne speeches and budget speeches, that they were actually going to do this and they haven’t done it up until now.”

“Better late than never, but I got to tell you, these guys don’t have their heart in it.”

An east-west road connecting the Webequie and Nibinamik communities to the provincial highway network will be planned and built, providing all-season access to the communities and the Ring of Fire, as well as a road connecting Marten Falls First Nation to the existing provincial highway network.

Wynne says the communities are set to start environmental assessments by January, and plan to begin construction in 2019.

Bisson says that timeline is more of a “wish more than actually a decree.”

He says who knows what could happen with the environmental assessment, adding this is a file the Liberals have been sitting on for more than a decade.

“If they would have done what they were (supposed to do) from the beginning, Cliffs Resources and Noront both would have both built facilities in that area,” he says, “We’d have operating mines and we’d have smelting going on in Ontario.”

Bisson adds this is in the wake of another election.

“Let’s see if it’s going to be a re-run of the last time.”

(With files from The Canadian Press)

Filed under: Local News, Ring of Fire