The ONTC has weathered some storms over the past few years, with the Northlander passenger rail service being axed, and now Ontera to be sold off to Bell Aliant. Successive governments have bemoaned the costs associated with the ONTC, saying that it is too expensive to continue running. However, it seems expansion has never been pondered, but rather the only foreseeable option is continuing with the status quo. Perhaps there in-lies the problem: the business model is too small in scope, not reaching enough customers. Resources and communities are spread wide across Northern Ontario, nothing is compact, nothing is easy. The ONTC is touted as serving Northern Ontario when really it serves a narrow band of Northeastern Ontario chiefly along the Hwy 11 corridor, leaving Northwestern Ontario completely out of its purview.
Sault Ste. Marie while being in Northeastern Ontario and a gateway to trade and commerce in the Midwestern United States lies outside the realm of ONTC rail freight. ONTC rail therefore primary serves to ship raw materials to Southern Ontario to bolster the economy there, feeding their struggling manufacturing sector. So that raises multiple questions; can southern manufacturing sustain northern resources?; would northern resources be better served with multiple avenues of export? why are northern resources only shipped south?
Since all things in Ontario are controlled by the south, it is only logical to conclude that politicians there have pigeon holed the ONTC to feeding their ridings with resources for their constituents to process. Southern Ontario's manufacturing decline has had a trickle down effect on northern resources. With fewer dollars to purchase raw materials, fewer materials are extracted, demand goes down, therefore fewer dollars to spend of payroll, and so northern unemployment goes up. But what if the ONTC shipped elsewhere? What if materials extracted in the north were shipped to neighbouring Quebec (for starters; however no less better off than Southern Ontario)? Or to manufacturing markets in the United States? Or even Europe for that matter? I am not ignoring that some materials from the north are shipped elsewhere, but the ONTC is not doing the major shipping of those goods as all lines lead south.
Cliffs Natural Resources recently backed out of its plans regarding the Ring of Fire. In my opinion that's not in all a bad thing. I've always been at odds transporting goods twice: once from the mine, and again from where it is processed. Cliffs proposed to locate it's chromite smelter in Sudbury, hundreds upon hundreds of kilometres away from the extraction site. Sure the workforce is there, the industry already existing live and vibrant, the infrastructure, etc. It was a good fail-safe plan, money invested wouldn't be lost if the venture wasn't a boom. However, shipping alone seems to be a bit on the excessive. And why put all of your eggs in one basket? Why would a smelter for a raw material have to be processed in Sudbury if it is extracted hundreds of kilometres away? Situating a smelter and processing plant, which has to be built from ground-up anyway, doesn't necessarily need to be supplanted in a city for say. Why not build a processing facility in Nakina? It has great east-west rail links both by highway and rail, and would do wonders for the local economy (Of course there would be strains of the local infrastructure; housing, hospitals, schools, accommodations, retail, etc., but those would be addressed just like any other town has when it has grown).
In the big picture Nakina lies a stones-throw from Hearst which is the current terminus of the ONTC rail line. Renewing the rail link that once existed between these two communities on the remaining rail-bed would be not only cost effective but fuel future and expected growth. It is inevitable that the Ring of Fire will move ahead from its current stalemate, it is only a matter of time. In order for it to move ahead however, there are necessary steps that need to be taken before anything can get going. It would not be prudent to rely on commercial trucking to do the hauling of chromite from the Ring of Fire to the smelter, wherever it be located. The only real solution to haul the volumes of raw material to make the venture profitable is rail.
A rail line extending from Nakina (currently a rail town on the Canadian National Railway [CNR]) to the Ring of Fire is the best avenue to get the raw materials to market. That rail line wouldn't have to stop at the Ring of Fire, it could turn east passing by the Victor Diamond Mine on way to Attawapiskat. Why Attawapiskat? A seasonal port exists in Churchill, Manitoba operating in the summer months when Hudson Bay is free of ice, shipping grain and other commodities to European markets. In my opinion this model could be replicated by shipping chromite by rail to Attawapiskat, loading it onto sea-going vessels and off to markets in Europe and elsewhere. Not only would a rail line give Attawapiskat another transportation link, it would provide an additional marine link as well. The job creation this would create for an otherwise isolated fly-in only community would be monumental. Goods would not only flow outwards, but would be imported at a new port of entry, opening up Ontario's Far North. Victor Diamond Mine would be able to ship in and out heavy equipment via the new rail line, and would be open to larger shipments arriving from sea. This would serve identical purposes and benefits for the Ring of Fire.
But why stop there? Rebuilding the rail line that once ran from Hillsport (on the CNR) to the Canadian Pacific Railway (CPR) line adjacent to Hwy 17 via Manitouwadge would open up an entirely new avenue for the export of goods. Where the advantage of renewing this line lies is in the building of a port in Marathon. Marathon has been devastated by the closing of the pulp mill there that once sustained much of the employment of that town. The facilities exist on the waterfront to construct a port, rail lines already lead directly to the defunct mill's docks. Transforming this site into a port for the loading of not only chromite but other goods would have a lasting and positive economic effect on the town. Once loaded on vessels at Marathon, goods could be shipped to the Twin Ports of Duluth, Minnesota and Superior, Wisconsin, and other ports on the Great Lakes like Chicago, Illinois, Cleveland, Ohio, and even Toronto, or onto wherever else there is a demand for chromite and other northern materials.
Of course these plans would take in collaboration with both CN and CP, multiple municipalities, all levels of government, First Nations (which already have an MOU with the Government of Ontario regarding the Ring of Fire), and the private sector. In order for bring economic prosperity to Northern Ontario, new avenues of export have to be established. Materials do not have to be sent to Southern Ontario just to keep it afloat, Ontario's economy does not and should not be expected to hinge on the struggling manufacturing sector of the Lower Great Lakes. Exposing northern materials to multiple markets is only going to drive up demand for them. More countries and more corporations are going to want a piece of that pie when it becomes available, but it has to be made available. That will take the right amount of investment, which will be in the billions of dollars and which is unfortunately somewhat at a shortage of right now in Ontario. However, the money spent to get the materials out of northern Ontario be they processed or not, will be more than payed off in the returns. I am not only speaking of the royalties that Ontario will earn from the private sector extracting chromite in the Ring of Fire, but from the dividends that come from prosperous communities.
Infrastructure is at the heart of successful communities. Communities served by well connected transportation links benefit substantially from the freight and cargo shipped through their jurisdictions by providing jobs and opportunities for local businesses. Job creation means more kids in schools, means more disposable income to be spent at local stores, and an all around higher quality of life. The economic spin-offs from job creation that would come from expanding the ONTC would be enormous and would forever change the landscape of Northern Ontario. It would start with the construction industry laying track from Attawapiskat to Marathon, from Nakina to Hearst, and continue on with the building of ports at the both aforementioned locales. Then would come the building of a smelter in, hopefully, Nakina, located closer to the source, located closer to transportation routes so goods could be shipped in all directions (and contrary to my opinion of shipping goods twice, if processed chromite were to be shipped to Europe via Attawapiskat). The thousands of jobs that would be created would not only be in the Ring of Fire, but in Attawapiskat and Marathon at the new ports, the jobs would be with ONTC servicing and maintaining the new rail lines, they would be found in Manitouwadge loading gold and lumber onto rail cars, as would be the same in other communities served by the new lines.
The extraction of northern commodities whether they be raw materials or not, would greatly benefit from being shipped to new avenues of trade and export. The ONTC needs to play a central role in this, not only to survive but to grow, which is the goal of all successful business plans. Instead of being virtually a one line railway, the ONTC can transform Northern Ontario by taking a leading role in the shipment of goods not only to Southern Ontario, but to other markets abroad. Not only would the expansion of ONTC lines be beneficial to freight, but a relaunch of passenger rail could be explored too. Just this year CNR announced the planned closure of the passenger service between Hearst and Sault Ste. Marie. If the ONTC were to buy that line and revamp the Northlander it could create at a minimum a Northeastern loop, with service between all Northeastern cities with a line built from North Bay to Sault Ste. Marie via Sudbury. This loop would be interconnected with VIA Rail at Sudbury and Oba (south of Hearst) and from there onward to the rest of Canada. And who knows, perhaps a future line to connect to Northwestern Ontario, tying in Thunder Bay, Dryden, and Kenora, not only for passenger rail, but for the movement of freight as well.
Instead of trying to save a government entity that only services a fraction of Northern Ontario's potential, expand the service to reach all of the north. The provincial government needs to invest in the north, the opportunities already exist, the commitment just needs to follow.
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