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Year: 2010

Sherritt International Corporation Chairman and CEO, Ian W. Delaney on Corporate Social Responsibility

Sherritt International Corp. Chairman and CEO Ian W. Delaney (photo-Sherritt)

Ian W. Delaney’s message to stakeholders came from the Sherritt International Corporation 2009 Corporate Social Responsibility Report

In 2009, Sherritt continued to maintain an enviable record in successfully managing the environmental, health and safety aspects of its business. We recognize that as a diversified natural resource company, our business by its very nature impacts both the natural and social environments of the countries and communities in which we operate.

The nature of our business also demands that we enter into and honour many long-term commitments in multiple jurisdictions in order to cultivate and maintain the social license we must rely upon to successfully conduct business over the long term. We work closely with governments, communities and many other stakeholders on an ongoing basis to demonstrate our commitment to social responsibility. We also demonstrate this long-term commitment through donations and other forms of community investment as well as active engagement of employees in many local initiatives.

Sherritt has always been a safe place to work. We regard this fact not only as being the ethical way to operate, but also as an integral part of operating efficiency. Operating efficiency means doing things right and that includes doing them safely. Cutting corners in environmental, health and safety matters is bad business. It can lead to human loss, reputational loss and ultimately financial loss. We best serve our investors and other stakeholders by conscientiously managing a safe workplace and maintaining our stewardship of the environment.

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Castro’s Favourite Capitalist- by Rachel Pulfer (Walrus Magazine, December, 2009)

The Walrus is a Canadian general interest magazine which publishes long form journalism on Canadian and international affairs, along with fiction and poetry by Canadian writers. It launched in September 2003, as an attempt to create a Canadian equivalent to American magazines such as Harper’s, The Atlantic Monthly or The New Yorker.

Will Sherritt International come to regret dealing with Communist Cuba? CEO Ian Delaney doesn’t think so.

The sun is rising over Old Havana, but the man standing at the balcony rail is in the shade. He gazes out over the city’s crumbling rooftops but seems oblivious to the sun-washed beauty of the harbour. His stare is blank, disengaged. He will give only his first name, Rodolfo. He is the operator of the camera obscura. One of many curiosities in the old port, the centuries-old technology uses a system of mirrors to project a 360-degree view of the exterior onto a bowl-shaped interior screen. Fidel Castro reportedly had the camera installed to ensure that he could see all parts of Havana from a protected vantage point. It’s now a tourist attraction.

“I was a teacher,” says Rodolfo. “I was earning less than 20 convertible pesos [around $25] a month. Then, last summer, I got on with Sherritt. With a bonus, my salary bumped up to 50 convertible pesos a month.” Unfortunately, his prosperity was short lived. Earlier this year, the project was cut. “If you know anyone at Sherritt, please talk to them,” he says. “Get them to start it back up.”

The camera obscura is now Rodolfo’s principal source of income. With a monthly salary of 16 convertible pesos, he is one of millions of Cubans who are barely hanging on. Last year, the country’s agricultural sector was knocked out, due to a particularly fierce hurricane season. That, and collapsing markets for Cuban commodities — primarily nickel, oil, and gas — plunged the island into its toughest economic crisis in a generation. With deficits soaring and cash reserves low, the government is delaying payments on profit-sharing agreements with foreign investors, even going so far as to cancel the one to which Rodolfo alludes. This has forced a difficult balancing act on Ian Delaney — Cuba’s biggest outside investor, Rodolfo’s former employer, and the man known on Bay Street as Fidel Castro’s favourite capitalist.

Delaney is CEO and chairman of Sherritt International, a multi-billion-dollar commodities conglomerate based in Toronto. Eighteen years ago, he made a deal with the Cuban Communist leader.

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Ontario Mining Association Helps Create a Safer Mining Workplace Through Better Training

This article was provided by the Ontario Mining Association (OMA), an organization that was established in 1920 to represent the mining industry of the province.
 
 This posting came from the Ontario Mining Association’s 90th Anniversary Publication (October/2010): http://www.oma.on.ca/en/resources/OMAat90three.pdf

 

The Safety and Training Advisory Committee was formed in 2001 to provide the industry with a single voice concerning safety and training recommendations to the Ontario Mining Association’s board of directors and various safety associations, and to provide a sounding board for the Ministry of Training, Colleges and Universities’ (MTCU) Mining Tripartite Committee. The tripartite committee consists of labour, management and government, and meets at least four times a year to discuss changes to the common core training program.
 
The mandate of the committee is to provide advice and recommendations to the OMA board of directors and industry employers on issues related to health and safety and employee training. When new legislation is proposed or there are changes to Canadian Standards Association (CSA) standards that affect the mining industry the committee discusses these changes.

Fred St. Jean is chair of the OMA’s Safety and Training Advisory Committee. He is currently superintendent of safety for Vale, Ontario Operations. His technical background is in mines engineering and he has worked underground in various capacities including supervisor, safety supervisor and general foreman operations.

St. Jean is proud of the fact that many of the committee members are active on other provincial health and safety fronts including the Mining Legislative Review Committee and its subcommit¬tees, the Mining Tripartite Committee and the Safety Association Advisory Committee. He acknowledges that he has “a very talented committee with a very experienced, enthusiastic, and very well-connected group of people on health and safety matters in the province.”

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Business News Network Reporter Andrew Bell Interviews Barrick CEO Aaron Regent – (December 14, 2010)

Toronto-based Business News Network (BNN) is a Canadian cable television specialty channel owned by CTVglobalmedia. BNN airs business and financial programming and analysis. BNN reporter Andrew Bell hosts the Commodities program. From aluminum to zinc and everything in between, every Tuesday through Thursday, BNN highlights the hot world of commodities and the companies that produce …

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Responsible Mining at Barrick – Barrick Gold CEO Aaron Regent’s Viewpoint

Barrick Gold Corporation [Barrick] is a leading international gold producer, with a portfolio of 26 operating mines and nine advanced exploration and development projects located on five continents, and large land positions on many prospective mineral trends.

The following viewpoint came from the Barrick Gold Corporation 2009 Responsibility Report

In 2010, Barrick is focused on meeting production and cost targets, completing projects on budget and on time, and maintaining our strong financial position. These are all very important priorities; however, how we achieve these goals will be just as important as reaching them.

Over the past year since joining Barrick, I have met with a host of stakeholders – investors, government officials, our own employees, non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and suppliers. Listening to them has provided great insight into many of the broader trends that are affecting the mining industry.

We are seeing increasingly high public expectations of how companies should conduct themselves. There is also greater scrutiny of the mining sector by critics, NGOs, communities, governments, and other stakeholders, especially in developing countries. This is coupled with calls for more reporting, accountability, and legislative oversight of the mining sector. We see similar trends in project financing, where a major part of the discussion now focuses on social and environmental issues.

Mining, as an extractive industry, has a significant impact on the communities and environments where we operate. In order to mine, we must disturb land and use both energy and water. Our operations can also have a social impact on local communities, for example through resettlement or shifting social dynamics. I believe our efforts and innovative approaches in managing and mitigating these impacts are making all the difference, as we generate meaningful benefits for our host communities.

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[Barrick Gold’s]Aaron Regent: A New-generation CEO – by Globe and Mail Reporter Brenda Bouw (Originally Published December 18, 2010)

Brenda Bouw is the mining reporter for the Globe and Mail, Canada’s national newspaper with the second largest broadsheet circulation in the country. It has enormous impact and influence on Canada’s political and business elite as well as the rest of the country’s print, radio and television media. This article was orginally published December 18, 2010.
When Aaron Regent walks into Ki, a modern Japanese restaurant in the heart of Bay Street, amid a cluster of other dark-suited businessmen during a recent lunch hour rush, his presence is immediately noted.

Within seconds, the hostess greets him as “Mr. Regent” and whisks him and his party to his usual table, a quiet corner booth located alongside a calming rock and marble water feature.

Ki is a regular lunch spot for Mr. Regent, in part because it’s located inside Brookfield Place, the same downtown Toronto office tower that is home to the head office of Barrick, where he celebrates his two-year anniversary as president and chief executive officer next month. The Irish-born executive has spent much of his career around this particular square mile of prime real estate, working either at Brookfield Asset Management (where he was, most recently, co-head of its vast infrastructure group) or within the nexus of companies affiliated with it.

So when he was offered the Barrick job by legendary founder Peter Munk, the physical move was easy – he merely had to change floors. That is where the simple part ended, however.

Barrick is a complicated beast with interests in 25 mines scattered across five continents, each with its own challenges.

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Why Sudbury is An Unlikely Magnet for Global Education – by Globe and Mail Columnist Adam Radwanski (Originally Published August 21, 2010)

Adam Radwanski is the Queen’s Park columnist for the Globe and Mail, Canada’s national newspaper with the second largest broadsheet circulation in the country. It has enormous impact and influence on Canada’s political and business elite as well as the rest of the country’s print, radio and television media. This article was orginally published August 21, 2010.

International students are increasingly attracted to the Big Nickel to study, but the real problem is getting them to stay after graduation

Peter Luk admits it’s not an easy sell.

Twice a year, the dean of Laurentian University’s management program travels to China in an attempt to persuade students and their families that Sudbury is the place for them. For most, Canada ranks below several other countries as their choice of where to study abroad. A small northern Ontario city known for nickel mining isn’t even on the radar.

And yet, with students drawn by everything from smaller class sizes to the prospect of a more “Canadian” experience than they’d get in a multicultural metropolis such as Toronto, Mr. Luk is finding takers. In 2008, his first year at Laurentian after nearly three decades at Toronto’s Ryerson University, he recruited four Chinese students. The next year, it was eight. This year, it was 25.

The trend is reflected across campus. With an aggressive recruitment strategy driven by an ambitious new administration, Laurentian reports that it received 952 international applications in 2010, more than double the total from three years earlier.

All this should warm the heart of Dalton McGuinty, who has said he wants to increase international enrolment at the province’s universities by 50 per cent. But it will also test just what the Ontario Premier’s push for foreign students really means, and what its legacy will be.

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The Northern Miner 2010 “Mining Persons of the Year” Shawn Ryan and Cathy Wood Renew Yukon Gold Rush – by Gwen Preston (December 16, 2010)

The Northern Miner, first published in 1915, during the Cobalt Silver Rush, is considered Canada’s leading authority on the mining industry. This article is reproduced with permission of The Northern Miner and was first posted on their website on December 16, 2010.

Fourteen years ago Shawn Ryan and Cathy Wood were tromping around British Columbia, picking wild mushrooms. They loved the lifestyle, in large part because of its gold rush-style mentality: “You’d have a thousand people in the bush and half of them would migrate, overnight, on a rumour of a sweet spot,” says Ryan.

But the couple were expecting their first child. Ryan tried to make the line of work more stable by convincing the Yukon government to endorse mushroom picking as an agricultural program, but was turned down. Devastated, he turned back to an old skill – staking mineral claims in Ontario – and he made $10,000 in a week.

“So I said to Cathy, ‘Let’s go back into exploration,'” Ryan recalls. They decided to focus on the Yukon.

Ten years later, the couple optioned a piece of ground in the Dawson Range to Underworld Resources. Two years after that, Kinross Gold swept in and bought Underworld for $138 million. The deal triggered a staking rush around the White Gold gold project that is still going strong.

Ryan and Wood are most famous for the Underworld discovery but their prospecting efforts and successes in the Yukon go far beyond one deal.

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Copper’s big comeback [Quadra FNX Derek White Interview] by Toronto Star Business Reporter Lisa Wright (Originally published December 19, 2010)

Lisa Wright is a business reporter with the Toronto Star, which has the largest circulation in Canada. The paper has an enormous impact on Canada’s federal and provincial politics as well as shaping public opinion. This article was originally published December 19, 2010.

 “Underneath the nickel contact zone [in Sudbury] are these amazing copper deposits. And
when I say amazing, I mean three times the grade of the Congo. These are high, high grades.
Generally speaking in copper mining, a big open pit mine with 1 per cent would be a world
class, great type of deposit. We’re mining on average 9 per cent but sometimes up
to 20 per cent.” (Quadra FNX Derek White – Dec/19/10)

With prices soaring, Canadian miners like Quadra FNX are back on the radar

There’s an old saw that over every bull market is a copper roof – and beneath every bear market is a copper trough.

In other words, the price of copper is a reliable barometer of market strength.

The industrial metal is considered one of the best signals of economic activity since it’s the bloodline of electrical conductivity and a key component in all construction.

Copper is soaring to the rooftop again with the red-hot base metal hitting a record $4.18 (U.S.) a pound in New York last week. The last time it came this close to a record high was just before the economy hit the skids in 2008, which then promptly dragged it down to a lowly $1 a pound.

The high price is not great news for big buyers like China. Nor is it nice for churches, cemeteries and cars, which have become targets lately for their scrap copper content, which thieves sell on the Asian black market as a substitute for the expensive stuff.

But it bodes well for copper mining companies like Quadra FNX Mining Ltd., which formed after the merger of Vancouver’s Quadra and Toronto’s FNX last May to become a leading producer of the rusty red metal.

The Toronto miner hopes to capitalize on continuing high copper prices with its coveted Sierra Gorda site in northern Chile, which will cost an estimated $2.5 billion to build into a mine. The growing firm has many suitors knocking on its door to get a piece of this potentially large copper development, which could be up and running by early 2014.

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Ring of Fire’s Noront Resources Brings Santa and Hockey Stars to First Nation Community of Webequie

Todd Hlushko with Webequie youth during Noront hockey clinic - photo by Kaitlyn Ferris
 
This article was provided by the Ontario Mining Association (OMA), an organization that was established in 1920 to represent the mining industry of the province.
 
 
For video footage of the Noront Reources Christmas trip to Webequie: http://www.mikawaa.com/christmascard2010/

 

For an extensive list of articles on this mineral discovery, please go to: Ontario’s Ring of Fire Mineral Discovery

Ontario Mining Association member Noront Resources employed a little magic to fly in Santa bearing gifts and two former National Hockey League stars to Webequie last week.  Webequie, which has no year round road connections and a population of 800, is located 540 kilometres north of Thunder Bay.

“This is the second year for the Noront Christmas Cheer Event in which every child in the community under the age of 12 receives a gift,” said Leanne Hall, Vice President Human Resources and “special assistant” to Noront’s Santa.  “We started in 2009 giving gifts to children instead of sending cards to help make the children feel special and this year we provided 200 gifts in Webequie.”

It is estimated that $155 million have been invested in mineral exploration in
the Ring of Fire area. In Canada, mining is the largest private sector employer
of Aboriginals, who comprise 7.5% of the mining workforce — up from 3.6% in 2006.
– Ontario Mining Association – December 22, 2010

Former NHL players Todd Harvey and Todd Hlushko came with Santa on the flight from Thunder Bay.  They spoke with students and stressed the “stay in school and believe in yourself” message, signed autographs and showed evidence of their sporting success.  Mr. Harvey, who was born in Hamilton, won gold medals in 1994 and 1995 at the World Junior Hockey championships and Mr. Hlushko, who was born in Guelph, won the Olympic silver medal in hockey in 1994.  As well as playing for different NHL teams, Mr. Hlushko played for a number of years for teams in Germany.

Todd Hlushko and Todd Harvey with Webequie child - Photo by Engage Learning

 

“I had never visited a community like Webequie before,” said Mr. Harvey.  “It was an outdoor rink and we had to shovel off the snow before skating.  It was old school, like pond hockey, and through the day we probably had a couple of hundred kids on the ice.  We ran clinics concentrating on skating, stick handling and shooting and also had a community skate.”

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On The Brink – How the Recession of 2009 Will Affect [Canadian] Post-Secondary Education – Executive Summary (February/2009 Policy Paper)

The Educational Policy Institute is an international, non-profit think tank dedicated to the study of educational opportunity. It is based in Virginia Beach, Virginia, with offices in Winnipeg, Canada, and Melbourne, Australia. The mission of the Educational Policy Institute is to “expand educational opportunity for low-income and other historically-underrepresented students through high-level research and analysis.”

The Report is available here: On the Brink: How the Recession of 2009 Will Affect Post-Secondary Education

The institutions that will prosper will be ones that can fundamentally
restructure their costs and develop major new revenue streams, such as overseas
education (that is, not just bringing students to Canada, but the much tougher job of
bringing Canadian education abroad). The challenges of such an environment are great,
and institutions need to consider their responses to it as soon as possible.

Executive Summary

With the global recession in full effect, post‐secondary education in Canada is about to face some very significant challenges. The purpose of this report is to outline the likely main effects of this global recession on the Canadian post‐secondary education (PSE) sector, as well as suggest a series of measures that governments can take to help institutions survive the worst of the crisis.

The most immediate challenges facing the system over the coming years include:

• Decreasing Institutional Revenues – In the short‐term, with global markets in decline, university endowments will produce lower levels of revenues in the foreseeable future. The lack of endowment revenue will impact discretionary income at institutions and force institutions to allocate resources more strategically. In the medium‐term, as governments inevitably try to bring their budgets back into balance, PSE institutions will be hard‐pressed to maintain their current funding levels to post‐secondary institutions. Cuts – possibly quite significant ones – are highly likely starting in 2011.

• Increasing Institutional Costs – Institutional defined‐benefit pension plans have also been greatly affected by the financial crisis; PSE institutions will have to spend more to cover their deficits. Faculty and staff who have seen significant losses in their RRSPs will also be less likely to retire; this means that institutions will have to pay more for older, more expensive staff instead of replacing them (as they do on a regular cycle) with younger, less expensive labour.

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News Release: Educational Policy Institute Releases Report on the Recession’s Impact on [Canadian] Post-Secondary Education (February 25, 2009)

The Educational Policy Institute is an international, non-profit think tank dedicated to the study of educational opportunity. It is based in Virginia Beach, Virginia, with offices in Winnipeg, Canada, and Melbourne, Australia. The mission of the Educational Policy Institute is to “expand educational opportunity for low-income and other historically-underrepresented students through high-level research and analysis.”

The Report is available here: On the Brink: How the Recession of 2009 Will Affect Post-Secondary Education

TORONTO, ON, February 25, 2009 — Warning that post-secondary education (PSE) in Canada is about to head back towards conditions last seen in the mid-1990s, the newest publication from the Educational Policy Institute (EPI), On the Brink: How the Recession of 2009 Will Affect Post-Secondary Education, takes an in-depth look at the profound affects the recession will have on both revenues and expenditures in the PSE sector. The report’s authors suggest how governments and institutions might respond in order to not only survive this crisis, but perhaps even be in a position to thrive once the recovery arrives.

“It is clear that post-secondary education is facing difficult times as a result of this recession,” said report co-author and EPI Vice-President Alex Usher. “There is, however, still time to save the system from decline if university and college presidents and premiers react quickly and make wise choices on policy and budgeting.”

The report briefly outlines the key effects of the recession on Canada’s system of post-secondary education:

-The collapse in equities affects institutions’ endowments and pension liabilities thus reducing income and increasing expenditure in the short-term;

-The real-economy recession will create new patterns of post-secondary attendance (rising college and graduate school enrolment; falling apprenticeship registrations) which will both raise institutional costs;

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Ontario Report: The Benefits of Greater Differentiation of Ontario’s University Sector – Executive Summary and Preamble

About the Higher Education Quality Council of Ontario

The Higher Education Quality Council of Ontario is an arm’s-length agency of the Government of Ontario dedicated to ensuring the continued improvement of the postsecondary education system in Ontario.  The Council was created through the Higher Education Quality Council of Ontario Act, 2005. It is mandated to conduct research, evaluate the postsecondary education system, and provide policy recommendations to the Minister of Training, Colleges and Universities with a view to enhance the quality, access, and accountability of Ontario’s higher education system.

The report is available here: The Benefits of Greater Differentiation of Ontario’s University Sector

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

The Ontario university sector is already somewhat differentiated. A policy decision to increase the differentiation of the postsecondary system brings the following benefits:

• Higher quality teaching and research programs
• More student choice with easier inter‐institution transfer and mobility
• Greater institutional accountability
• A more globally competitive system
• A more financially sustainable system

Ontario’s postsecondary system can transition seamlessly and incrementally to greater differentiation with the judicious and strategic use of funding strategies already familiar to government. This transition to a more differentiated university sector is guided by principles including:

• Equal value on the teaching and research functions of universities
• Forging a contemporary relationship between Ontario’s colleges and universities
• Linking the differentiation policy to funding decisions
• More effective use of multi‐year accountability agreements and performance indicators to evaluate whether universities are meeting expected goals and targets

A roadmap is provided indicating how the government can advance the current university system to a more differentiated one. The cornerstone of this transition is a comprehensive agreement between each university and MTCU identifying the expectations and accountabilities of each institution including its expected enrolment and student mix, its priority teaching and research programs and areas for future growth and development.

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Time for Ontario Universities to Specialize in Programs They Do Best: [Ontario Provincial] Report – by Ciara Byrne (October 26, 2010)

About the Higher Education Quality Council of Ontario

The Higher Education Quality Council of Ontario is an arm’s-length agency of the Government of Ontario dedicated to ensuring the continued improvement of the postsecondary education system in Ontario.  The Council was created through the Higher Education Quality Council of Ontario Act, 2005. It is mandated to conduct research, evaluate the postsecondary education system, and provide policy recommendations to the Minister of Training, Colleges and Universities with a view to enhance the quality, access, and accountability of Ontario’s higher education system.

The report is available here: TheThe Benefits of Greater Differentiation of Ontario’s University Sector

Ciara Byrne, The Canadian Press: Tuesday, October 26, 2010

TORONTO – Ontario universities should play to their strengths instead of trying to be everything to everyone, the head of an advisory body on higher learning said Tuesday, as he called for schools to focus on the programs they do best.

A report commissioned by Ontario’s deputy post-secondary education minister by the Higher Education Quality Council is calling on universities to pick a specialty and stick with it, meaning Specialty U could be the future in Ontario.

“You will have the institutions doing what they do best, not trying to do what everybody else is doing,” council president Harvey Weingarten said Tuesday.

Tough economic times and a crush of students pouring into universities has schools spreading themselves too thin, Weingarten said. They need to shift their focus if they hope to be competitive.

Weingarten said the government should coax universities to run specialized programs by offering additional funding for those who do it well.

He has recommended the Ontario government start the transformation by asking schools in Toronto to distinguish themselves from one another.

In July, Deborah Newman the deputy minister of Training, Colleges and Universities asked the council to explore whether a differentiated set of universities would improve the overall performance of the system.

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