Industrial Road Updates From Province/Municipality + Andrew Foulds “not familiar” w/Ind.Rd

Written by admin on 10 June 2014

Hwy 625 (a.k.a. Industrial Rd) NOT INTENDED for use as travel guide.

NORTHWESTERN, ON – The Industrial Rd, a.k.a. Hwy 625 or Caramat Road, has been the subject of much lobbying, debate and buck passing since the Ontario Ministry of Natural Resources quietly ended it’s maintenance of the Road in Spring of 2013 eventually resulting in the road becoming impassable after heavy rainfall caused a number of washouts.

Municipal representatives from both Maniouwadge (including Town Clerk Cecile Kerster, Mayor MacEachern and Council members) and Greenstone (including Mayor Beaulieu and Councillor Armand Giguere) as well as concerned residents from both communities have done significant lobbying to various provincial ministries, to their MPP’s Michael Mantha (Algoma-Manitoulin) and Michael Gravelle (Thunder Bay-Superior North and the Minister of Northern Development and Mines when the issue first arose) both from home and at meetings in Toronto (during AMO’s AGM) and Thunder Bay (during NOMA & FONOM conferences) and via interviews with a long list of local, regional and national media outlets. In spite of all this a commitment from the Ontario Ministry of Transportation, and Minister Glen Murray, were only at long last received officially this Spring since which municipal representatives have renewed efforts for timely repairs concerned that should there be a change in government resulting from this Thursday’s election all work could halt.

Unfortunately though Thunder Bay-Superior North NDP Candidate Andrew Foulds described significant travels in the Municipality of Greenstone and on the Northshore, as he campaigned, over the course of the past 18 months, he admitted to being completely unaware of the Industrial Road concerns an issue which, as previously explained, has been of great concern to Greenstone residents (particularly those in Caramat located on Highway 625 it relies on the connection to Manitouwadge for many things, including an emergency exist should the Greenstone portion of the road become impassable for any reason [fire, flood, etc]. Whether he has since researched the subject and efforts by his constituents to save the vital link is unknown by OntarioNewsNorth.com however, his complete, unedited interview is below (skip ahead to 07:14 for his comments on the subject of the Industrial Rd).

MPP’s Michael Mantha and Michael Gravelle, and most recently Mayor John MacEachern, each provided OntarioNewsNorth.com with the most current information they had as can be heard in their interviews below.