Meet Greg Rickford, Ontario’s Minister of Indigenous Affairs (and the guy basically running point on Ring of Fire economic and community partnerships). If ever a politician was custom-built for the job, it’s Greg — he’s like the Swiss Army knife of northern development. Check out this resume: He starts out as a nurse in Brantford, Ont., and heads north to deliver frontline healthcare in remote First Nations communities. Last December, Prime Minister Mark Carney and Premier Doug Ford inked a co-operation deal to get approvals moving with a “one project, one process, one decision” approach. “I never believed that the previous (provincial) government had any real substantive designs or intention to develop that region,” Greg reports.
