A northern Ontario MPP believes the next session of legislature will be a great one for this region.
The Ontario Legislature will resume sitting August 8 for a rare summer session.
Vic Fedeli believes this is the right move.
“I think it’s important that we get into the Legislature so we hear the Speech from Throne. In the premier’s inaugural address at Queen’s Park he spoke a lot about Northern Ontario. In the Northwest he talked about the processing of lithium.”
Fedeli adds, “I was really pleased to hear so much talk from the premier in his inaugural speech about the Ring of Fire. They’ve made a separate Ministry of Mines now, that’s exciting. I think for Northern Ontario it’s our time to seize the moment right now.”
The updated speech isn’t expected to be any different from the one made prior to the provincial election.
Fedeli notes, “We have a lot of electric vehicle files underway. I was hoping the premier would return me to that portfolio so that we can finish up. We’ve got, I think, some good announcements coming.”
The Nipissing MPP has returned as Minister of Economic Development, Job Creation and Trade, a position he’s held since 2019.
He goes on to say, “With Northern Ontario, with our critical minerals that we have, we are really, really well poised now to capitalize on the electric vehicle revolution by continuing to mine and hopefully in the future process these critical minerals for the electric vehicle batteries that are being made here in Ontario and hopefully more to be made here in Ontario.”
Premier Doug Ford has stated that MPP’s will sit for about five weeks.
One of the first priorities will be approval of the budget, announced back in May, just before the election call.
