Historic Meeting Held Behind Closed Doors
THUNDER BAY – News – “Enough is enough!”, that was the message from leaders across Northwestern Ontario late Monday night. An emergency meeting of Mayors, Reeves and Councillors from Nipigon to Kenora has decided to proclaim a new province of Nortario. This was the reason there was no regularly scheduled City Council Meeting Monday night.
The boundary is yet to be decided, and will come after the Nortario Group meets with First Nations leaders in Thunder Bay later this morning. That meeting should be over by noon, and there will be an announcement afterward.
Citing concerns over provincial government engagement with the region, the group headed by the Mayor of Red Lake Road, Irving Smith, the decision came after an announcement that Premier Kathleen Wynne was headed for a tour of Northern Ontario.
NetNewsledger would like to thank you for enjoying our annual April 1st / April Fools Day story. Each year we have published a piece on April 1st, from wind turbines on the Sleeping Giant, draining Lake Nipigon into Lake Superior, Thunder Bay Superior North MP Bruce Hyer joining the Conservative Party, or the “Sleeping Giant View Tax”.
Frustration Fuels Nortario Movement
“The Premier’s Northern Tour ended at Sault Ste Marie,” stated Smith. “That is, as far as I am concerned, ‘south’. It is time that Nortario flexed our muscles”.
Forming a new province will have implications for the Ontario Government as Nortario will assume full responsibility for the Ring of Fire, and the diamond mine royalties from the Debeers Mine near Attawaspisat.
“The south simply does not understand the north,” Smith told reporters after the historic meeting of Mayors held behind closed doors at the Valhalla Inn in Thunder Bay.
Provincial MPPs were not allowed to address the gathering.
Proponents of Nortario are asking Mayors and Reeves in all of their communities to add a ballot question to this fall’s civic election to get voter approval of the decision.
