‘Misunderstood’

The province isn’t favouring Sudbury over Thunder Bay, and Mayor Keith Hobbs likely misunderstood Ontario’s energy plans, the energy minister said Tuesday.

After a meeting with Energy Minister Brad Duguid Monday, Hobbs said the Ontario government’s plan to build 300 megawatts of power to Sudbury for a proposed ferrochrome processor was favouring that municipality over others in Northern Ontario.

But Duguid said Hobbs got it wrong. The minister was meeting with northern mayors when he discussed the province’s $1 billion investment in energy in the North. He then mentioned that Sudbury currently has the capacity for 300 megawatts.

After reading Hobbs’ comments to the media, Duguid said Hobbs simply misunderstood that to mean something else.

"I think the mayor somehow misunderstood that to mean we were going to make some investments to build 300 more megawatts of capacity in Sudbury, Duguid said.  “That simply wasn’t the case.”

While Cliff’s Natural Resources has outlined Sudbury as the base-case for a processing site, Duguid said the province has given no preference for a location except Ontario.

Duguid said mining companies have been clear about what they need and the provincial government’s plan is to maximize the benefits that come with the Ring of Fire development.

"We’re going to do what we need to do to make sure that we attract the jobs, the investment and develop the ring of fire in a way that’s going to maximize economic development opportunities for the North," he said.

Duguid said the province and municipalities have to work hand-in-hand to ensure that happens. And with the Ontario Good Roads Conference going on in Toronto this week, he said he has been seeing that happen.

"I think that certainly after our meetings the last few days there’s no question we’re all on the same page when it comes to that objective," said Duguid.

Hobbs said even though he and NOMA president Ron Nelson wrote down the comments in their notes, Duguid spoke with him Monday night and is happy with the explanation that it was a misunderstanding.

"I wrote down what I thought he said," Hobbs said. "I feel a lot better today than I did yesterday about it."

Still, Hobbs said he has shown the province that Thunder Bay intends to fight hard to bring the 500 jobs expected from the processor to the city.

"I just want to reiterate to them that we’re all in the hunt for that processor," Hobbs said.

Hobbs added that the city has been in 13 meetings over the past two days to discuss policy with various provincial ministers. He said the meetings, even ones with Duguid besides the misunderstanding, have been great.

The city hopes to meet with Toronto mayor Rob Ford Wednesday morning to discuss his plans for Toronto’s light rail system and Thunder Bay.

Hobbs said even though it’s hard to get a meeting with Ford, he’s pretty positive the meeting will happen.