Northern Ontario municipal leaders had continued to express their fears regarding the divestment. The route would provide service from Toronto to Timmins or Cochrane and would be available between four and seven days a week, based on seasonal travel demands. In May 2021, the provincial government announced plans for Ontario Northland and Metrolinx to resume rail operations between Toronto and northeastern Ontario with a 13-stop route to begin service by the mid-2020s. Passenger train service between Toronto and Cochrane (the Northlander) was terminated and replaced with additional bus service, and all assets of the corporation were to be sold off. On March 23, 2012, the Ontario Government announced that it would begin to wind down the ONTC, citing increased costs to the government and stagnant ridership. It formerly operated a regional airline named NorOntair and a telecommunications company named Ontera. Marie-White River-Hearst route along Highway 17. In 2018, motor coach service was expanded between Manitoulin Island and Sudbury as well as a new Sudbury-Sault Ste. In 2016 Motor Coach started operating between Sudbury and Ottawa. The railway is still operated today by the commission, which also operates other transport modes, including bus motor coach services along the Toronto- North Bay- Timmins- Hearst and Toronto- Sudbury- Timmins highway corridors. It was spun off in 2002 as a separate operational enterprise agency. In 1974 ONTC acquired Owen Sound Transportation Company and their ferry operations. In 1960 it purchased a trucking firm, Star Transfer. The use of the word 'transportation' instead of 'railway' in the commission's new name reflected an expanded mandate for the organization.Д®nabling legislation in 1946 allowed the ONTC to acquire, construct, and operate boats, as well as hotels, tourist resorts, and restaurants. The railway changed its name in 1946 to the present Ontario Northland Transportation Commission. In 1945, the Commission acquired the Temagami and the Nipissing Navigation Companies. By 1938 the Commission had acquired 11 buses. In 1937, the Temiskaming and Northern Ontario Railway Act was amended, enabling the TNORC to operate buses, trucks, and aircraft in order to transport passengers and freight.

The Commission also worked closely with sister provincial Crown agency, the Ontario Hydro-Electric Commission, in developing hydroelectric generating stations on rivers in the region, such as at Island Falls and Fraserdale. In subsequent years, the TNORC authorized extending the railway first into western Quebec's gold and copper fields at Rouyn-Noranda and, following World War I, in 1921, the TONRC began extending the T&NO northward from Cochrane to the shores of James Bay at Moosonee, where the T&NO 'Last Spike' was driven by the Honourable Justice Francis Robert Latchford in 1932. Six years after construction started, the federal government's National Transcontinental Railway (NTR) main line from Winnipeg, Manitoba to Moncton, New Brunswick crossed the T&NO at Cochrane. Д«uilding the 253 mile T&NO main line from North Bay to Cochrane was instrumental in opening this region of the province for development and settlement, with its construction being cited as the reason for the discovery of a massive silver deposit at Cobalt, as well as gold at Porcupine and Kirkland Lake. The sod was turned less than two months later by Ontario's Commissioner of Public Works, the Honourable Francis Robert Latchford, at Trout Lake on the outskirts of North Bay North Bay also being the site of the 'first spike' driven in construction of the Canadian Pacific Railway (CPR) 20 years previous. The Temiskaming and Northern Ontario Railway Commission (TNORC) would oversee the construction and operation of the Temiskaming and Northern Ontario Railway (T&NO). ONTC traces its history to 1902 with the passage of the Temiskaming and Northern Ontario Railway Act, which received Royal Assent on March 17.

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