**CITY OF TIMMINS NEWS RELEASE**

Sault Ste. Marie, ON– Mayor Christian Provenzano hosted the mayors and chief administrative officers of North Bay, Sudbury, Thunder Bay and Timmins at a Northern Ontario Large Urban Mayors (NOLUM) meeting on Thursday, April 12, 2018 at the Sault Ste. Marie Civic Centre.

Agenda items for the meeting featured presentations from the Ministry of Northern Development and Mines, Ontario’s Opioid Emergency Task Force and FedNor. The meeting included discussion on topics of shared concern; such as population projections/immigration and government funding for northern communities.

“The meeting was a chance for Northern Ontario municipal leaders to discuss issues relevant to our communities and determine collaborative action we can take as a group,” said Mayor Provenzano. “With a provincial election approaching, the timing is ideal for NOLUM members to highlight issues that need to be addressed. We recognize that we will need to work together to improve our entire region and we all commit to doing so.”

Several areas in need of provincial action were discussed during the NOLUM meeting. In particular, NOLUM members are looking for commitments from the party leaders with regards to the following: reducing industrial energy costs to under 6 cents/kWh, uploading EMS and Social Services to the province, no further downloading of provincial services to municipalities and Ring of Fire Infrastructure such as a road and hydro corridor.