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Day: May 6, 2010

Adelle Larmour’s Sudbury Labour History Book About Jean Gagnon – by Bill Bradley

This article originally appeared in Northern Life, Greater Sudbury’s community newspaper on April 8, 2010 www.northernlife.ca

To order a copy of the book, contact Northern Ontario Business journalist Adelle Larmour at untiltheend.larmour@gmail.com

The ups and downs of working in the Inco Sinter Plant have been documented in a new book, Until The End, written by local author and Northern Ontario Business journalist Adelle Larmour.

In Larmour’s first book, she tells the story of Jean Gagnon, a Sinter Plant veteran of more than 11 years. The plant, which separated sulphur from the nickel rich ore, operated from 1947 to 1963 in Copper Cliff.

Gagnon, who was originally from Quebec, had been working at the paper mill in Espanola for five years, before he decided to come to Sudbury for higher wages. Twenty-three years old at the time, Gagnon said his first day on the job in 1951, made him realize the working conditions at the Sinter Plant left a lot to be desired.

“You could be talking to someone 20 feet away (in the plant) and you could not see them for the dust,” Gagnon said. He noticed the other workers tended to cough a lot, which prompted him to wear a dust mask from day one, and to refrain from smoking for fear of driving nickel-laden dust deeper into his lungs with the inhalation of tobacco smoke.

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McGuinty’s Forestry Policies Lost in the Northern Ontario Woods – by David Robinson

Dave Robinson is an economist with the Institute for Northern Ontario Research at Laurentian University. robinson@laurentian.ca This column was originally published in the May, 2010 edition of Northern Ontario Business

The Growth Plan for Northern Ontario is based on a simple prediction. The majority of communities in Northern Ontario will continue to decline. Behind that prediction is an economic analysis that says the forests of Northern Ontario will provide fewer and fewer good jobs.

The analysis is convincing. The forest industry must cut costs to compete. There will be fewer mills. Mills will be more automated. Jobs will vanish. The wood industry is trying to respond. It has created organizations to develop new technologies, new products and new markets. FPInnovations, which was created in 2007, now claims to be “the world’s largest private not-for-profit forest-sector research institute.

” Wood WORKS!”, a program led by the Canadian Wood Council is campaigning to make wood the main building material for all types of construction.

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Northern Ontario Heritage Party Wants a Separate Province for the North-by Michael Atkins

Michael Atkins is the president of Laurentian Media Group matkins@laurentianmedia.com This column was originally published in the May, 2010 edition of Northern Ontario Business

Somewhere out there, just ahead of the blackflies is a small group of people across Northern Ontario knocking on doors looking to sign up enough people to bring the Northern Ontario Heritage Party (NOHP) back to life.

If you have any gray hair at all you will remember Ed Deibel tried to win some seats with the same party and many of the same ideas some 35 years ago. His effort brought no seats, but it did have an impact. Back then the objective was to separate provincial status. The current objective seems less clear.

It is no accident the province currently administers a $100-million investment fund called the Northern Ontario Heritage Fund Corporation (NOHFC). You can thank Ed. It is no accident the province of Ontario set up the original Ministry of Northern Affairs and Development in the shadow of the Heritage Party so many years ago and appointed the first minster, Leo Bernier, from Hudson, just down the road from Sioux Lookout. Leo was a staple on the rubber chicken circuit in Northern Ontario for years. He had a great passion for the North, but was ineffective when it came to actually getting anything done. He had no clout.

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