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Day: March 13, 2011

[Northern Ontario] Forest fight is electric – by Christina Blizzard (Toronto Sun)

Christina Blizzard is the Queen’s Park columnist for the Toronto Sun, the city’s daily tabloid newspaper. This column was originally published March 10, 2011. christina.blizzard@sunmedia.ca

Is the industry dead or is government a killer by implementing high hydro rates?

When it comes to electricity prices, New Democrats say Thunder Bay-Atikokan MPP Bill Mauro can’t see the forest for the trees. A sure sign that the Liberals are under pressure from the NDP in northern ridings is a spat that’s erupted over forestry.

Mauro, a Liberal, slammed the NDP in the Legislature on Monday, saying it’s wrong to blame high electricity prices for the demise of forestry in northern Ontario.

And he blamed the NDP’s campaign to lower industrial hydro rates for misleading northerners to believe that if rates were lower, jobs will come back. They’re deferring decisions to move to the oil patch or to go back to school, he said.

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Another plan for the North [Ontario] – by Livio Di Matteo (Thunder Bay Chronicle-Journal, March 12, 2011)

The Thunder Bay Chronicle-Journal  is the daily newspaper of Northwestern Ontario. This opinion piece was originally published on March 12, 2011.

Livio Di Matteo is a professor of economics at Lakehead University. Visit his Northern Economist Blog at ldimatte.shawwebspace.ca.

“What is more telling of this plan is what is not specifically mentioned: nothing on tax
incentive zones, nothing on a regional energy grid, nothing on regional government,
nothing on ever completely four-laning the Trans-Canada Highway.”
(Livio Di Matteo, March 12, 2011)

The release of the Northern Growth Plan is the latest installment in a long list of plans for Northern Ontario’s economic development stretching back now almost half-a-century.

The Northern Growth Plan joins an esteemed list of contributions that include the Rosehart Report (2008), Embracing the Future (2002) and my personal favourite — Design for Development — which was released in the 1970s — and confused many people about what the provincial government actually had in mind for the North given its designation of Thunder Bay and Sudbury as “primate” growth centers.

The current plan is again the result of many years of work and consultation and is “a call to action and a roadmap for change” organized to provide policy direction for growth around six principles:
• a globally competitive economy,
• education and skills for a knowledge economy,
• aboriginal partnership,
• networks of social, transport and communications infrastructure,
• sustainable environment, and
• innovative partnerships to maximize resource potential.

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Uranium: Political Baby’s Growing Pains [Elliot Lake History] – by R. M. Baiden (April 29, 1961)

This article was orginally published in Saturday Night (a Canadian general interest magazine that ceased publication in 2005) on April 29, 1961.

Uranium: Political Baby’s Growing Pains

Who is hiding what?

Canada’s uranium industry was fathered by the military necessity and mothered by politics. Deserted by its father in childhood, it now faces adolescence with only a mother  – at least until mother can find a new husband among the world’s nuclear power stations, most of which are not yet built.

But until this happy union, estimated at perhaps a decade away, the future of this ailing child is tied by political apron strings. More than that, both the form and the fact of its very existence depend upon political decisions to be made soon in Ottawa: How to allocate among the various producing mines the recently publicized agreement to sell 24,000,000 pounds of uranium to Britain.

At current shipping rates, this represents 13 months additional production for the three Canadian mining areas of Elliot Lake, Bancroft and Beaverlodge. Upon wise allocation of this order depends not only the ability of some mines to stay in business, but also the ability of the industry as a whole to take quick advantage of developing civilian demand in the 1970s.

It was undoubtedly, in recognition of the critical importance of this order that the federal government decided that allocation would be a political decision and not a decision by its agent, the Eldorado Mining and Refining Co. In short, allocations of this order, and possibly some reshuffling of existing contacts, must be based upon the national interest, not on strictly economic factors.

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Honourable Norman Moore MLC, Western Australia Minister for Mines and Petroleum, Vancouver Speech (March 3, 2011)

This speech was given at the Canada-Australia-New Zealand Business Association Luncheon, Sutton Place Hotel, Vancouver, Canada on March 3, 2011.

“Despite the global financial crisis, Western Australia has enjoyed
a decade of average annual economic growth of about 14 per cent,
which is an outstanding result by any measure.”
(Western Australia Minister Mines and
Petroleum, Norman Moore, Mar/3/2011)

Good afternoon ladies and gentlemen.

I would like to thank Nerella Campigotto, President of the Canada-Australia-New Zealand Business Association, for inviting me here today. I always enjoy the opportunity to talk about Western Australia’s resources industry.

I have been a member of the Western Australian Parliament since 1977 am currently the longest serving sitting member. I serve the state government proudly and have seen many changes to the economy over the past thirty-four years. Nonetheless, I remain focused on the future.

Both the Australian and Western Australian governments place great importance on ensuring their economies reach their full potential. Far from simply enjoying the short-term material benefits of increased employment and wealth, we aim to build a sustainable long-term industry, with all the benefits this brings.

Western Australia is blessed with geology that makes it highly prospective for most mineral commodities and we have a highly skilled exploration sector seeking to exploit that prospectivity.

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Problems With Woodland Caribou Habitat Regulations – Roger Sigouin, Town of Hearst Mayor (February 23, 2011)

 

Hearst is a small community of approximately 5,600 people, located in northern Ontario, 935 kilometers north of Toronto http://www.hearst.ca/. The community is primarily dependent on the forestry sector. For a short history of the community, click: http://www.scierieshearst.com/indexEn.html.

•Despite previous concerns voiced by municipalities and their associations that point out weaknesses and omissions in Ontario’s Woodland Caribou conservation strategy, and despite our numerous collective attempts at dialogue and at becoming involved as partners in the formation of this recovery strategy, it is evident that nothing has changed in government policy or in Ontario’s direction towards regulation that to will ensure the survival of Northern Ontario communities alongside this threatened species

•Forest-based industries and/or mining are the lifeblood of the vast majority of Northern Ontario communities, but no socio-economic analysis has been undertaken to determine the potential impact of the caribou conservation strategy on such industries and Northern communities – yet Ontario is intent on forging ahead with habitat protection regulations 

•Regulations will be based on the conservation plan and recovery strategy, even though parts of both plan and strategy remain in dispute and the science has yet to be completed

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