This article was originally published in Northern Ontario Business in the December, 2009 issue. Established in 1980, Northern Ontario Business provides Canadians and international investors with relevant, current and insightful editorial content and business news information about Ontario’s vibrant and resource-rich North.

The next generation of mining employees will include many First Nations participants

Building a home-grown workforce has always been an important to Henry Wetelainen, president of Bending Lake Iron Group.

The Thunder Bay-based junior miner is partnering with Confederation College to run a prospectors course at the company’s iron ore deposit near Ignace in northwestern Ontario.

For his Aboriginally-owned, family-run company, Wetelainen said it’s always been a driving interest in his family to get First Nation youth interested in the grass roots end of the mining cycle.

“This is important to us as a company,” said Wetelainen, who has students from remote First Nation communities such as Gull Bay, Kasabonika and Big Trout Lake. “What’s an agreement with the First Nations worth if you can’t live up to it?” Read the rest of this entry »

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.

 Ontario Mining Association member De Beers Canada’s Victor diamond mine is a sparkling example of promoting Aboriginal employment.  The Victor diamond mine, which is located about 90 kilometres west of Attawapiskat in the James Bay lowlands, currently has 226 employees from First Nations, or 43% of its workforce.

More than 90 employees from this group are from Attawapiskat with large representation from Fort Albany, Moosonee and Moose Factory and Kashechewan and 40 are from First Nations outside the James Bay area.  In Canada, mining is the largest private sector employer of Aboriginals.  This group comprises 7.5% of the mining workforce, which is up from 3.6% of the country’s total mineral sector workforce in 2006.

The Victor Mine operates with three different impact-benefit agreements – one each with Attawapiskat, Fort Albany/Kashechewan and Moose Factory/Moosonee.  “Negotiating the impact-benefit agreement is the relatively easy bit, implementing it is the tough part and making sure everyone understands their role is more difficult,” said Jonathan Fowler, De Beers Canada Vice President Aboriginal Affairs and Sustainability. 

“One of our strengths is in striving to build a culture of diversity,” he added.  “We don’t believe in a having a specific percentage of First Nation employment.  We want to provide opportunities for people to grow and develop and the real target is to maximize First Nation employment.” 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.

One the news releases that landed in my inbox last week made me wonder about the advancement of mineral processing technology. Is it going forward … or back?

The item in question came from a Canadian company testing a South American property for its zinc potential. The company and project shall remain nameless. What caught my eye was that the favourable results were obtained in a kiln. That made me wonder why hydrometallurgical methods were not being tested.

Anytime an ore is subjected to heating it gives off gases. The worst case scenario is the burning of sulphide ores and resulting clouds of SO2 and NOx responsible for widespread environmental damage. Such was the case in the early days of smelting nickel and copper ores from the mines near Sudbury, ON.

Fortunately today we have gas containment units, acid plants and various means of controlling particulate and other emissions. These technologies help protect the environment, but they come with certain costs and limitations.

Hydrometallurgical means of metal recovery does not produce such deleterious emissions. Methods have been adapted in recent history to leach almost every kind of ore imaginable and to create the purest metals. Hydrometallurgy is considered far cleaner than roasting ores. Read the rest of this entry »

Juan Carlos Reyes is the organizer of the annual Learning Together conference and an aboriginal consultant with Efficiency.ca. He is passionate about human rights and works tirelessly to help improve the lives of Canadian aboriginal people. This column was originally published in May 2010.

There still may be a few among you who have yet to see James Cameron’s epic blockbuster Avatar.  My advice: Go see it! The movie offers an interesting vision of colonial mentality — something to which many Aboriginal people will relate. Here’s my take on it: White Americans travel to a distant planet to mine an invaluable mineral.

They hire researchers and scientists to placate the indigenous population (called the Na’vi) by socially infiltrating the community and attempting to convince them to move to more “suitable” locations. When the ruse fails, the mining company gets fed up and redefines the term “explosive climax.” The hero of the story, a white American military recruit, switches sides and helps lead the Na’vi to victory.

James Cameron has received a lot of heat over this movie. But I think that Avatar was developed brilliantly. Some reviews claim that Cameron’s idea was to portray the Black or Muslim or indigenous experience. Regardless of his motivation, the movie succeeds in its depiction of the way industrialized nations have “taken over” in many developing countries.

Read the rest of this entry »

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.

Barrick’s Hemlo operations organized a series of educational and celebratory events to mark the 25th anniversary of gold production in the Hemlo gold camp in Northwestern Ontario, near Marathon.  The Ontario Mining Association was pleased to participate in the activities.  Lesley Hymers, OMA Environment and Education Specialist, was on hand with an interactive display booth promoting careers in mining and the OMA high school video competition So You Think You Know Mining.

Back in the 1980s, Hemlo was the industry newsmaker and headline driver in Ontario.  It was the most exciting and largest mineral development in the province since the Kidd Mine in Timmins in the 1960s.  The Hemlo orebody supported three mines originally. Good old fashioned prospecting smarts, innovative geological thinking and interpretations and perseverance led to the discovery and development of this gold mining complex.  At the time, it was improbable to think that three headframes not more than two kilometres apart located within snowball throwing distance of the Trans Canada Highway were producing gold on previously explored ground.

The mine in the middle – Golden Giant Mine – began production in 1985 and it closed in 2006.  The mine in the east – David Bell – and the mine in the west – Williams – are still in operation today and part of Barrick’s fleet of global gold mines.  The Williams and David Bell mines share milling, processing and tailings facilities and the ores are co-mingled for the extraction process.  In 2009, these mines produced 275,000 ounces of gold.  Estimated proven and probable ore reserves contain more than 1.3 million ounces of gold.

Read the rest of this entry »

This speech by Anglo American Chairman Sir Mark Moody-Stuart is an excellent example of the mining sector’s corporate social responsibility initiatives throughout Africa – Stan Sudol

Anglo American is one of the world’s largest mining companies focusing on platinum group metals, diamonds, copper, nickel, iron ore, metallurgical and thermal coal. For more info about their corporate social responsibility initiatives, go to: http://www.angloamerican.co.uk/aal/siteware/docs/sd-report-2009.pdf

Anglo American Chairman Sir Mark Moody-Stuart

Mining companies don’t normally get much publicity and when we do, it tends not to be particularly positive. Nor are our products well-known
brands – for good reason. We don’t sell at JC Penney or Wal-Mart. Unlike our colleagues in the oil and gas sector, we don’t sell at the gas station. We produce commodities that are vital for modern society in a whole host of ways. But I confess I’ve never heard a dinner-table conversation revolve around whether someone’s home electrics are built with Anglo American copper, or their car’s catalytic converter with Anglo American platinum.

Both are possible: indeed the latter is quite likely, since Anglo American is the world’s leading primary producer of platinum, and platinum is a key element in cleaning exhaust emissions. Our other core businesses include base metals – copper, nickel, zinc; iron ore; coal; and diamonds – we are the largest shareholder in De Beers.

We are present in about 45 countries around the world, and employ some 190,000 people. Speaking here in New York, I guess I owe you a word of explanation about our name. We do not have major operations in America. But the United States did play a vital part in our history, alongside the United Kingdom, as these two countries were the source of the original capital that was raised by our founder Sir Ernest Oppenheimer to establish the company, over 90 years ago now, in 1917 in South Africa.

Despite being one of the largest mining companies in the world, with operations in so many countries, the reality of our business is that we sell
into bulk commodity markets. Commodity markets care a great deal about quality of the product; but quality aside, they don’t really care who
produces the metals. The result? We are not known as a brand by the general public. Read the rest of this entry »

Anglo American CEO Cynthia Carrol

Mining Indaba is the world’s largest gathering of mining’s most influential stakeholders and decision-makers vested in African mining.

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“Making a Real Difference”

Minister Shabangu, fellow delegates… Good morning, everybody. Once again, it’s a great pleasure to address the Mining Indaba……one of the foremost events in the mining calendar.

This morning I’d like to talk to you on three main topics:

•First Anglo American itself and how we’ve restructured the business to drive sustainable long-term performance and how we’re positioned optimally for economic recovery.
•Second some of the great challenges our industry is facing energy, water, sustainability and climate change.
•Third the continued good progress that Africa is making on both the political and economic fronts.
•And, finally, a few words on the outlook for the mining industry.

Let me start with the excellent progress we have made at Anglo American. Anglo American is a leading global mining company, and the biggest mining company on the African continent. Our roots were planted here in South Africa more than 90 years ago, and we have grown now to market capitalisation of around 370 billion rand or $50 billion.

Anglo American’s mining focus is on those commodities with the most attractive longterm through-the-cycle returns. Read the rest of this entry »

Gregory Reynolds - Timmins Columnist

This column was originally published in the Autumn, 2009 issue of Highgrader Magazine which is committed to serve the interests of northerners by bringing the issues, concerns and culture of the north to the world through the writings and art of award-winning journalists as well as talented freelance artists, writers and photographers.

Gregory Reynolds is a Timmins, Canada-based columnist who writes extensively about mining and northern Ontario issues. He can be contacted at poker@ntl.sympatico.ca

The Vanishing Canadian may sound like the title for a suspense novel but it is really a realistic description of the fate of the prospector. It has been a career in twilight for many decades but a proposed change to the Ontario Mining Act will turn into a final nail in its coffin.

Canadian’s mining and mineral industries owe their existence to the men – and a few women – who abandoned the comforts of civilization for the hardships of life in the bush.

Home was a tent or a crude cabin with the isolation of living alone usually tempered only by the comfort of a dog.

Bears, mosquitoes, black flies and no see’ems were part of the wildlife that made the hunt for precious and base metals dangerous, not forgetting the distance from medical attention and even further travel to reach a hospital.

When the provincial legislature makes map staking legal in Ontario, there will no longer be a need for prospectors. Individuals and companies will be able to stake claims by looking at a map and informing – and paying – the government electronically.

“The elimination of ground staking is singly the biggest threat to the individual prospector and will result in
an extensive cull and possible extinction of the independent prospector throughout Ontario.”

The present system is called “ground staking” because a person holding an Ontario prospector’s licence is required to physically walk the boundary of a mining claim, marking trees and erecting four corner posts to which his claim tag and other information must be affixed.

After a claim has been staked and then explored, sometimes something of value is discovered. That sets off what is known as a “staking rush.” Read the rest of this entry »

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 Ontario Mining Association is participating in a Teacher’s Mining Tour at the Canadian Ecology Centre near Mattawa.  Thirty teachers will participate in the sold-out course, which is being run from August 9 to 13.  The goal is to help educators learn more about the realities of modern, high tech, environmentally responsible mining in Ontario.

The Teacher’s Mining Tour is a professional development program for Ontario teachers and teachers in training.  Teachers taking the course will be able to earn a component of their Environmental Science Additional Qualification through Nipissing University and the Ontario College of Teachers.

Lesley Hymers, OMA Environment and Education Specialist, will be representing the Association at the event.  The themes for the conference include modern mining, environmental stewardship and sustainability, occupational health and safety and career opportunities within the industry.   

Read the rest of this entry »

Dr. David Robinson drobinson@laurentian.ca is an economist at Laurentian University in Sudbury, Canada. His column was originally published in July issue of Northern Ontario Business. Established in 1980, Northern Ontario Business provides Canadians and international investors with relevant, current and insightful editorial content and business news information about Ontario’s vibrant and resource-rich North.

I genuinely like politicians. The ones I know are all smart people with good people skills. Some of them even buy me lunch.

It bothers me when a politician I like pushes a policy that I know is dumb. I absolutely cringe when the provincial conservative leader Tim Hudak and provincial NDP leader Andrea Horwath talk about the Harmonized Sales Tax (HST).

As an economist, I know that the HST is a good idea. The Provincial Sales Tax (PST) is out of date, costly to operate, badly designed and it penalizes jobs in Ontario. The PST has all the virtues of a car engine with a ruptured head-gasket, a broken valve and cracked exhaust manifold. It might still run, but it is noisy, stinky and inefficient.

Let me be clear about this: the vast majority of economists support combining the federal and provincial sales taxes. We are so sure that a bunch of Canada’s most respected economists produced an open letter saying they “strongly support implementation of the HST,” because “it will promote investment, jobs, and higher wages.” One leading tax analyst showed harmonization in B.C. will create 113,000 new jobs by the end of the decade; Ontario is three times as big and has relatively more manufacturing. Read the rest of this entry »

Chris Hodgson is President of the Ontario Mining Association (OMA), an organization that was established in 1920 to represent the mining industry of the province. This column was provided by the OMA.

The Ontario Mining Association held a conference in June “The future of mining in Ontario: Is it golden?” in North Bay, which celebrated the Association’s 90th anniversary. There was the appropriate cake on hand and other touches to mark the occasion along with a commemorative plaque, which was presented by Mines Minister Michael Gravelle on behalf of Premier Dalton McGuinty.

This plaque reads “Since its founding in 1920, the OMA has excelled in representing the interests of companies engaged in the exploration, production and processing of our province’s mineral resources. As the voice for the mining industry in Ontario, the OMA plays a crucial role in securing the sector’s prosperity and competitiveness, while ensuring that Ontario’s mining potential is developed in a sustainable way.”

Perhaps after 90 years, it is time to reflect on how the industry has changed over those decades. After all, the OMA has been open for business longer than all national mining organizations except the Canadian Institute of Mining. In order to put things in a historical perspective, since 1920, Canada has had 15 different people serve as Prime Ministers while Ontario has had 17 different premiers and 32 different mines ministers.

When the OMA first hung out its shingle, Sir Robert Borden was Canada’s leader in Ottawa and Ernest Drury of the United Farmers of Ontario was running things at Queen’s Park. The list of people who have served as Chairmen of the OMA -and there have been 77 of them -reads like a Who’s Who of Canadian corporate history.

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 and visited Baker Lake, Nunavut to file this article.

A true partnership has been forged by Agnico-Eagle Mines and the Inuit of Baker Lake, Nunavut, one that treats the land with respect and provides a modern future for young members of the community. The elders have embraced Agnico’s vision of gold mining. They know mining will provide education, training and well-paying jobs for many years. And most importantly, they trust Agnico to be a responsible steward of their land.

The Meadowbank project offered many firsts for all involved. It is the first project Agnico has pursued in the Arctic. It is the first gold mine in Nunavut (and currently the only mine). It is the first to be developed on Inuit land. It is the first mine to be covered by a water compensation agreement, signed in April 2008 with the Kivalliq Inuit Association.

The Inuit elders have embraced Agnico’s vision of gold mining.
They know mining will  provide  education, training and well-paying jobs for many years.

Agnico gained control of the Meadowbank deposit when it purchased Cumberland Resources in 2007. Cumberland had great success exploring the deposit in the previous decade. A pre-feasibility report was completed in 2000 and updated five years later. The takeover of Cumberland cost $710 million, but it increased Agnico’s gold reserves by 23%.

The acquisition brought with it 10 Crown mining leases and three Nunavut Tunngavik exploration licences in the Kivalliq District, 70 km west of Baker Lake. Three deposits -Portage, Goose Island and Vault -dot the property along a 25-km-long trend. The gold deposits are of Archean age and hosted within volcanic and sedimentary rocks. Read the rest of this entry »

Originally published August 2, 2010

Last week, Newfoundland and Labrador – and scores of our working families – were saddled with a dubious Canadian distinction, the result of a foreign corporation’s aggressive and unprecedented anti-labour agenda.

The mining strike at Voisey’s Bay, provoked last summer by Brazil-based corporate giant Vale, entered its second year on Sunday, Aug. 1. The strike has become the longest-ever labour dispute in the century-long history of former Inco Ltd. mining operations in Canada.

Perhaps most disturbing is the fact this dispute is being prolonged by Vale’s second-class treatment of Newfoundland and Labrador workers compared to Vale employees elsewhere in Canada.

Our union, United Steelworkers Local 9508, has offered to settle the Voisey’s Bay strike by accepting the same deal Vale reached last month with its employees in Ontario. But Vale is attempting to dictate that workers in our province — including many aboriginal employees — accept a lesser contract, with inferior bonuses and benefits, compared to the Ontario settlement. Read the rest of this entry »

(L to R) Marc Boissonneault, Xstrata Nickel, VP Sudbury Operations; David DeLong; George Burns, Goldcorp, VP Canada and U.S. Operations; Alan DeLong

View DeLong Brothers’ video

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. To view all the winners of the So You Think You Know Mining competition, please go to OMA 2010 Video Winners.

A parent’s journalistic interview for a magazine article about the inaugural Ontario Mining Association’s So You Think You Know Mining (SYTYKM) high school video competition in 2009 provided a spark for a Sudbury student who won the Best Overall Video prize in 2010.  Adelle Larmour, a reporter with Sudbury Mining Solutions Journal, produced an article on the genesis of the SYTYKM contest in the June 2009 edition of SMSJ.

“Inspired by famous Canadian scholar Marshall McLuhan’s observation that the medium is the message, the OMA launched a video contest late last year to educate an unlikely audience about the mining industry,” said Ms. DeLong in the article, “Video contest introduces students to mining.”  “The SYTYKM video contest was a way to reach high school students who are interested in video making, music, or script writing, but who may know very little about where the components of their computer come from or about the different mined resources that make up the materials for many of the fundamental tools used in daily living.”

She shared her enthusiasm for her article with her youngest son, David DeLong, a grade nine student at St. Benedict Catholic Secondary School.  David clearly took his Mother’s suggestion to enter SYTYKM and her encouragement to heart.  He recruited the assistance of his elder brother Alan DeLong, a grade 12 student at St. Benedict, and work on the production Lego Mining began.  Read the rest of this entry »

Katrina Malinski from Sudbury won the best writing award. She attends Lockerby Composite school.

View Katrina Malinski’s video

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. To view all the winners of the So You Think You Know Mining competition, please go to OMA 2010 Video Winners.

The winning videos in the Ontario Mining Association’s high school video competition So You Think You Know Mining (SYTYM) provide clear evidence that an abundance of creativity and artistic talent is possessed by teenagers.  Go to the OMA website www.oma.on.ca and click on the SYTYKM panel, watch the 2010 award winning videos, which are now available for viewing and we are sure you will agree.

Along with all the winning entries, you can experience the flavour of the SYTYKM awards gala in a production by Amanda Ceniti, a runner up in the competition, from Georgetown District High School.  The SYTYKM trophies were presented at an OMA conference held in North Bay.  Ms. Ceniti’s production captures the bright lights, the inspiration of the winners, the upbeat music and buzz of the ceremony.

Congratulations to the SYTYKM 2010 winners.  While individual names are attached to each award, most were team efforts involving one or more classmates and in some cases relatives.  The Best Overall Video was captured by David DeLong from St. Benedict Catholic Secondary School in Sudbury, for his production Lego Mining.  Read the rest of this entry »