The federal New Democrat for Algoma Manitoulin Kapuskasing says she hasn’t found any mention of the Ring of Fire in the budget. And Carol Hughes says this doesn’t surprise her. Hughes says the Ring of Fire requires a lot of infrastructure money and Wednesday’s budget drops the ball in that department. She says in total, the federal government added $1.3 billion dollars to the 2017-18 budget. She doesn’t believe that neither the federal nor provincial governments are committed to moving the chromite development forward.
However the MP from Nickel Belt disagrees. Liberal MP Marc Serre says the Trudeau government wants to see the Ring of Fire happen. Serre says what’s missing before the feds can do anything is important information from the province. “As of today I haven’t seen a road plan,” said Serre. “It’s hard to invest on a blank piece of paper. We need a plan.” The MP also say there’s still no consensus on a power grid distribution system. Serre believes the feds can help the province develop a plan and he’s been pushing for this. “The federal government has a role to play,” he said. The MP also points out that the federal government does not mention specific regional projects in the budget.
