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.

Business commentator and author Diane Francis presented her views on mining as Canada’s hidden success story in her keynote address at a recent Ontario Mining Association conference. The National Post editor at large helped to kick off the OMA “The future of mining in Ontario: Is it golden?” conference June 14 in North Bay.

“Mining built Canada and mining still runs Canada,” said the Ms Francis, who has been a media fellow at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, and at the Kennedy School of Government in the United States. “It should not be politically incorrect in Canada to support mining. We have nothing to be ashamed of. The only industry that is truly wealth creating is mining and in this country one in 10 First Nations people are employed in mining.”

“Mining is what Canada is all about and we in this country are riding a commodities rocket ship,” she said. “Four hundred million people are going to be born in the next decade providing a demographics of demand.” Read the rest of this entry »

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.

Vale and the 3,000-plus striking members of Steelworkers Local 6500 have finally hammered out a deal that may end a 51-week-long strike in Sudbury, ON. Union members are voting today and tomorrow (July 7-8) on a new five-year contract, and observers are optimistic.

The strike fuelled strong rhetoric from both sides. There were charges of not negotiating in good faith. There were arguments over picket line protocol. There were allegations of strikers being injured on the picket line. There were calls for government ministers to intercede. Vale replaced strikers with other workers on its payroll so that partial production could resume. There were suspicions that the company was out to bust the union. Negotiations broke off for lengthy periods. Both parties took their complaints to the courts. It took a mediator to reach the new deal.

The cost to the community was great. With over 3,000 workers on the picket line, Sudbury Mayor John Rodriguez was quoted as saying the city missed the spending power represented by a $4 million payroll for each week the strike continued.

Families broke up, homes were forfeit and a spike in suicides was reported. Read the rest of this entry »

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.

We in the mineral industry often speak of “direct jobs” generated at mines and mills and “indirect employment”, those jobs as suppliers, manufacturers and consultants that spring up to serve the needs of the industry. We know that for every person directly employed by the mining industry there are several others indirectly employed.

Those numbers and others aspects of mining’s importance have been pinned down in a new survey prepared for the Sudbury Area Mining Service and Supply Association (SAMSSA). The Northern Ontario Mining Supply and Services Study looks at about 500 separate firms and organizations in what might arguably be called the “heart” of the mining sector.

The study found approximately 23,000 people are employed in the supply sector. That is a more generous number than the Ontario Mining Association came up with. But the OMA estimate of 480 direct mine jobs and 2,280 supply and services jobs in the province sounds too low by a factor of 10. The difference is probably due to differing definitions of what is a “mine” job or an “indirect” job. Either way, keep the multiplier effect in mind.

The SAMSSA study put a value of $5.6 billion on the supply and services sector in Northern Ontario. Read the rest of this entry »