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 »