Locked and loaded: Chamber lobbies for Ring of Fire

By Carol Mulligan, Sudbury Star

Tuesday, September 27, 2016 12:24:35 EDT AM

Camp Esker, in the Ring of Fire, is pictured in this file photo.

Lobbyists for the Canadian Chamber of Commerce have a powerful new tool to use to persuade the Government of Canada that developing the Ring of Fire should be high on the national agenda.

A resolution regarding the vast chromite deposits, submitted by the Greater Sudbury Chamber of Commerce, received 94.9 per cent support from more than 400 delegates at the Canadian chamber's annual general meeting this month.

The resolution calls on the federal government to treat the Ring of Fire as a national priority, to work with governments, industry and community partners to forge agreements and build capacity with indigenous peoples, and to actively promote the Ring globally as a trade and investment opportunity.

Tracy Nutt, chair of the board of the Greater Sudbury Chamber of Commerce, attended the Canadian meeting along with Sudbury chamber president and chief executive officer Debbi Nicholson, chamber policy and public relations manager Joyce Mankarios and chamber vice-chair Michael MacNamara.

"We had a bit of work to do to get there," said Nutt of her team's efforts to convince about 150 Alberta business people the Ring of Fire is more than a local project.

"Alberta was very clear, right from the get-go, they found it far too regional and that it only was going to benefit Northern Ontario and they would not be supporting it," said Nutt this week.

Her group had a few minutes to make its case to the Alberta caucus that the Ring of Fire is "not unlike the oil sands or the forestry industry in B.C.," said Nutt. While the minerals are in the ground in Northern Ontario, "we feel it has the potential to have a vast national impact."

With a little tweaking of the language of the resolution, Albertans were ready to endorse it.

"Without their vote, this would not have passed," said Nutt.

That resolution is now part of the Canadian chamber's official lobbying policy, and will be presented to cabinet ministers in federal departments such as Innovation, Natural Resources, Finance, Transportation, Indigenous Affairs "or all the above," said Nutt.

Nutt hopes it will go "underneath the noses of all of those ministers because there's so many ... players in this game, potentially."

The resolution is in line with the federal Liberals' mandate to "push forward with research and development," to support innovation and to "go forward" in healing rifts between the government and first nations and among first nations themselves.

"It's endless, it's endless who would benefit from this project going forth," said Nutt.

The Government of Ontario is "keen" on the Ring of Fire, but the federal government needs to show interest before anything will happen, said Nutt.

Canadian chamber lobbyists, who are generally well received on Parliament Hill, will talk up the Ring of Fire in cafeterias, board rooms and elsewhere in the nation's capital.

The first thing the federal government should do is acknowledge there's value in getting the Ring of Fire off the ground, said Nutt. "The juice has to be worth the squeeze. We all realize that, and I think there's enough juice with this. I really do, we all do."

Cabinet ministers also realize the Canadian chamber is the voice of business in Canada, she said.

The resolution builds on the work that has been done for two years by the Sudbury chamber task force on the Ring of Fire. While there hasn't been a great deal of measurable progress to develop the Ring, "nobody seems to have lost their taste for it "¦

"Everybody is eager to keep pushing and keep sticking this information and these papers and these resolutions under the appropriate noses at the federal level," said Nutt, who owns ServiceMaster of Sudbury and Build North Construction.

The chamber has agreed to extend the task force for a third year and most members have agreed to stay on it. The Canadian chamber approval of the Sudbury resolution will bolster the spirits of task force members who have been meeting monthly.

Nutt said her personal belief, which doesn't necessarily represent the Sudbury chamber's, is that work on infrastructure, training and capacity building should be done during the current slump in commodity prices. When those prices eventually rise, "everybody will have what they need to start to pull these minerals out of the ground."

Her attitude is, why wait? "Why wait to connect the native communities together? Why wait to educate them? Why wait to get them ready to roll?"

To read the resolution in its entirety, go to http://sudburychamber.ca/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/CCC-Policy-Resolution-2016_Ring-of-Fire_PASSED.pdf

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