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.

The contributions of Ontario’s mining sector to society and the economy were celebrated yesterday at Queen’s Park by politicians of all stripes and industry officials at the Ontario Mining Association’s Meet the Miners event.  The industry can’t take the legislature to the mines but it can take the mines to the legislature at least one day a year.   Meet the Miners is an OMA initiative at Queen’s Park involving member companies and their employees, which helps shine the spotlight on the industry in government circles. 

At an evening reception, OMA Chairman and President of mining contractor JS Redpath George Flumerfelt welcomed guests and encouraged them to celebrate the 90th anniversary of the OMA, which has been representing mineral producers in the province since 1920.  He noted that the importance of mining to the future prosperity of the province was highlighted in the Throne Speech to open this session of the Legislature on March 8, 2010.  Read the rest of this entry »

Michael Atkins is president of Northern Life

I remember chairing a meeting of an economic self-help group in Sudbury 30 years ago called Sudbury 2001. We were at the Cambrian College boardroom and a group of union members and politicians burst into the room to bust up the meeting. We were in about month eight of the last debilitating, vengeful, violent, desperate conflict between Inco and its union, and Sudbury was not only suffering through the strike, they were suffering through the knowledge of massive layoffs on the way. In those days there were 20,000 or so Steelworkers, not 3,000.

The interlopers were livid that David Patterson, president of the Steelworkers Local 6500, would sit at the same table as an Inco executive during the strike. You see, Sudbury 2001 was a community group. We all swore to leave our politics at the door, no matter how dismaying the conflict. David stood up; pushing and shoving, screaming and yelling ensued. When David came back in, and the uninvited guests retreated, the meeting reconvened. Read the rest of this entry »