Marilyn Scales is a field editor for the Canadian Mining Journal, Canada’s first mining publication. She is one of Canada’s most senior mining commentators.

The MINING ASSOCIATION OF CANADA (MAC) released its latest “Facts and Figures 2008″ publication at the recent Mines Ministers Conference in Saskatoon. In it are details about the production, reserves, exploration, trade and investment, innovation, tax and human resource aspects of our industry. That’s a lot of ground to cover in 65 pages, but MAC is once again the most comprehensive source of such numbers.

Here are a few of them:

VALUE: The contribution that the metals and minerals industry makes to Canada’s economy by value is relatively stable at 3.5% to 4.5%. Meanwhile, the gross domestic product (GDP) grew to $1.2 trillion in 2007. Of that amount, mineral extraction contributed $9.68 billion and mineral manufacturing $32.22 billion.

TOP TEN: Canada’s top ten minerals by value in 2007 were nickel ($9.90 billion), copper ($4.53 billion), potash ($3.14 billion), coal ($3.14 billion), uranium ($2.76 billion), iron ore ($2.51 billion), gold ($2.38 billion), zinc ($2.09 billion), cement ($1.80 billion) and diamonds ($1.45 billion). The biggest money is to be had in the oil sands. The value of synthetic crude oil last year was $14.80 billion.

RESERVES: Canadian reserves continue to decline as they have for the past 25 years. Years of rising commodity prices led to a “modest” increase in 2006 and 2007, but without exploration spending in this country, production will also decline.

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Northern Life, Greater Sudbury’s community newspaper, gave Republic of Mining.com permission to post Bill Bradley’s article. www.northernlife.ca

Campaigning federal politicians are getting an earful from city residents.

As they canvas door-to-door, they are hearing similar complaints from the electorate — poor roads, lack
of health care facilities and services for themselves and their loved ones, lack of affordable housing, and high gas prices.

City councillors hear the same concerns every day.

Behind all these complaints lies an unfortunate truth — northern Ontario is not getting its fair share of resource revenues. Northern Life in this election has been alerting candidates to a report entitled A Refined Argument: Report of the Advisory Panel On Municipal Mining Revenue presented to and adopted by city council February 27.

Prepared by a citizens committee, chaired by retired former Inco vice-president Jose Bianco, the report presents some stark facts. On page 29, in a graph entitled Growth in Tax Revenue Generated By The Ontario Mining Industry in Ontario (2001 to 2005), is shown the following: federal revenues from the mining sector increased 77.6 per cent, and provincial revenues from the mining sector increased 109.8 per cent.

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Marilyn Scales is a field editor for the Canadian Mining Journal, Canada’s first mining publication. She is one of Canada’s most senior mining commentators.

Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s call for a federal election on Oct. 14 was hardly a surprise. His Conservative party began running election-style ads at the beginning of September. Now, with the nation’s eyes and ears alert to campaign promises and mud-slinging, the recent meeting of Canada’s mines ministers has been largely overlooked.

Energy and mine ministers from the federal, provincial and territorial governments met in Saskatoon Sept. 7-9. On the agenda were issues related to the industry’s social licence.

“Key to our discussions was the recognition that the mining and industry sectors along with governments need to encourage and engage Aboriginal peoples and communities in a manner that is inclusive, transparent and characterized by mutual respect,” host and Saskatchewan Energy and Resources Minister Bill Boyd said in the warp-up press release.

The ministers recognized that the long-term prosperity of the mining and
energy sectors depends on addressing labour shortages and working with industry and other partners to address these issues on a priority and ongoing basis.

The ministers underscored the importance of continued collaboration between regulatory agencies to ensure high-quality and timely environmental assessments to promote sustainability. They also noted the importance of increasing collaboration on research and innovation with industry, governments and academic institutions to support industry competitiveness.

Finally, ministers discussed the importance of Canadian companies working to secure a social license for mineral development, at home and abroad, by building their capacity to meet the social, economic and environmental expectations of their host communities.

Seems the press release is using all the right words when it comes to creating a responsible and growing mining industry. But they are only words.

In the excitement of the coming federal election, watch for candidates to promise cash and policy support for mining. I’ll bet you won’t find much. If you do, drop me a line, MScales@CanadianMiningJournal.com.

Inco World War Two Poster

In 1941 the Allied governments asked the company to increase production. International Nickel complied by committing $35 million to expand nickel output by 50 million pounds above 1940 production levels, reaching this goal by 1943 without any government subsidies. However, the Canadian government did allow the company to amortize within a five-year period, instead of ten or twenty years, $25 million worth of expansion expenditures.

That enormous task fell to American-born Ralph Parker, who at the time was the general superintendent of the mining and smelting division at Sudbury. It was one of Mr. Parker’s greatest achievements to organize the enormous program of enlarging the Sudbury mining and plant facilities without any loss of production.

To increase production of extraordinary war-time demands, Mr. Parker had to resort to “high-grading” which entails using above average ore grades and leaving behind lower grades that would have normally contributed to a longer, more profitable mine life. There was a real fear that the company would use up most of its reserves and have little to mine after the war.

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