Northern Asymmetry: Comparisons Between Ontario and Quebec Attitudes to Northern Development – by Livio Di Matteo (June 28, 2011)

Livio Di Matteo is Professor of Economics at Lakehead University in Thunder Bay, Ontario.  Visit his new Economics Blog “Northern Economist” at http://ldimatte.shawwebspace.ca/  

The most recent point of comparison between Ontario’s Northern Growth Plan and Quebec’s Plan Nord lies in the difference in marketing.  Quebec’s Premier Jean Charest is in Europe promoting Quebec’s economic development as well as Quebec’s Plan Nord.  He will be visiting England, Belgium and Germany during the course of this week promoting Quebec but more importantly promoting northern economic development in the mining and resource sectors.

Of course, Quebec”s plan is quite easy to market given the dynamic and assertive nature of its language and content.  Charest says that the Plan Nord could lead to 11 new mining projects during the next few years as well as 80 billion dollars in public and private investment.  Charest is also planning to visit China and Japan this month to promote the Plan Nord.

On the other hand, Ontario is not promoting its northern development and its Northern Growth Plan in as engaged a fashion as Quebec.  Why?  Well, Ontario’s plan for the most part is a rather bland collection of plans to engage in further planning.  It is difficult to market boring platitudes in a manner that does not put your audience to sleep.  While Northern Ontario politicians have to sit through provincial government summits and seminars that endlessly repeat the same empty statements in order to demonstrate their fealty to Queen’s Park, international financiers and politicians would simply leave the room.

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Dumas Contracting and Goldcorp graduate more First Nations miners

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 members Dumas Contracting and Goldcorp facilitated the training and graduation of eight First Nations residents from a four month training program recently.  All graduates will be starting work with either Dumas or Goldcorp.  The ceremony in Timmins followed the recent mining academy graduation of six students at the Young-Davidson mine near Kirkland Lake involving Dumas and Northgate Minerals.

The training in Timmins was carried out by Dumas in a partnership program with Wabun Tribal Council, the Matachewan Aboriginal Access to Mine Jobs Training Strategy (MAATS) and Goldcorp.  Steve LaRocque (Matachewan First Nation) graduated as a heavy duty mechanic apprentice and Natasha Lefebre (Metis affiliation) completed her orientation as a human resources assistant.

The other six graduates completed training in basic underground mining – Courtney Batisse and Paul Denomme (Matachewan First Nation), Steve Denomme (Matachewan First Nation affiliate), Jean Loiselle (Mattagami First Nation), Paul Minarik (Mattagami First Nation affiliate) and David Tookate (Attawapiskat First Nation).

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Brain drain in Canada threatens mining’s future – by Agence France-Presse (Montreal Gazette – June 29, 2011)

http://www.montrealgazette.com/index.html

MONTREAL — A shortage of mining specialists in Canada is hobbling the industry at a time when emerging giants India and China are pushing demand for ores and precious metals to record highs, experts say.

“You can’t find good geologists,” Rene Marion, chief executive of AuRico Gold, a Canadian company with mining operations in Mexico, told AFP.

“Hiring is a major, major problem,” echoed Jean-Marc Lulin, head of junior mining company Azimut Exploration. Canada is home to several major multinational mining firms, including Barrick, the world’s largest gold producer, with operations on five continents.

Companies are desperate for geologists, mining engineers and workers with metallurgical, chemical, electrical and environmental expertise, as well as good managers, according to McGill University’s Hani Mitri.

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OMA member Barrick Gold makes multi-million dollar contribution to global health

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 Barrick Gold and the Family of the late Greg Wilkins, former company president, have donated $5.5 million to advance global health.  Toronto General and Western Hospital Foundation will be using this gift to combat brain diseases and improve medical training for surgeons and nurses in developing countries.

Mr. Wilkins was President and Chief Executive Officer at Barrick from 2003 to 2008.  He started with the company in 1981 and helped transform it into the world’s largest gold producer.  Mr. Wilkins held an executive position with another corporation for several years in the late 1990s up until 2003.  He passed away in December 2009 at the age of 53 after losing his battle with cancer. 

The donation, which was first announced earlier this year, has several components.  They include the Greg Wilkins Chair in International Surgery, which will oversee research and training for doctors and nurses in developing countries.  Dr. Mark Bernstein, a neurosurgeon at Toronto Western Hospital, who performed brain surgery on Mr. Wilkins as part of his care team, was appointed to this position last week.  Dr. Bernstein has described Mr. Wilkins as “extremely courageous.”  Toronto Western Hospital is a world leader in the treatment of and research on diseases of the brain and spinal cord.

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Asbestos hypocrisy sticking to PM – by Tim Harper (Toronto Star – June 29, 2011)

The Toronto Star, which has the largest broadsheet circulation in Canada,  has an enormous impact on Canada’s federal and provincial politics as well as shaping public opinion.

It takes a special kind of resilience to get knocked down, get up, dust yourself off and declare that you are winning. But that was Kathleen Ruff’s position, communicated forcefully and frenetically, from the West Coast on Tuesday. Ruff continues her battle over Canadian asbestos exports, even as Prime Minister Stephen Harper again confounds the world.

Last week, in Geneva, Harper’s government refused to put chrysotile asbestos on a United Nations list of hazardous exports. It was the third time Canada has stepped in to prevent placing asbestos on a list of exports that would have to include warnings of health hazards to recipient countries.

Those countries could then refuse the asbestos imports if they believed they were unable to handle the product safely on their soil. The cost of protecting Quebec mining jobs has been high.

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[Ring of Fire] A Market For Chrome – by Brian Sylvester (Mining Markets – September, 2009)

Please note this article was originally published in Mining Markets in September 2009. Much has changed in the Ring of Fire since then and this article is posted here for archival reasons. – Stan Sudol 

Noront Resources (NOT-V) president and CEO Wes Hanson says the global ferrochrome market is somewhere around 17 million tonnes, while his predecessor and Noront director, Joe Hamilton, believes it’s closer to 12 million.

German firm Heinz Pariser Research is forecasting an average ferrochrome price of US$0.79 per lb. and US$1,600 per tonne until 2017. Raw chromite fetches US$200 per tonne.

With global demand of 14.5 million tonnes (the average of the earlier estimates), the global ferrochrome market is worth about US$23.2 billion. A 5% share of that market would be worth US$1.16 billion annually.

Some rough estimates put the chromite tonnage in the Ring of Fire well into the billions but it takes 2.5 tonnes of chromite to make 1 tonne of ferrochrome. And if you saturate the market with too much production early on, prices will sink and the financial models used to finance development would be rendered useless.

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[Ring of Fire] When In Chrome: A Brief Histroy – by Brian Sylvester (Mining Markets – September, 2009)

Please note this article was originally published in Mining Markets in September 2009. Much has changed in the Ring of Fire since then and this article is posted here for archival reasons. – Stan Sudol

The ‘Ring of Fire’ contains vast gobs of black ore known as chromite. Some wild-eyed folks are speculating that there is enough ‘black gold’ for 100 years worth of production at current demand levels. No junior in the camp really knows how much chromite it has but they are all racing to find out.

Somewhere beneath the labyrinth of peat bogs, meandering streams and shallow lakes, there is a hole in an Archean-aged greenstone belt that started everything.

Two men are largely responsible for drilling that hole and finding Canada’s biggest chromite deposits (as well as others): Spider president and chief operating officer, Neil Novak, who until June was the vice-president of exploration of — you guessed it — Noront Resources; and Richard Nemis, Noront’s former president and CEO, and current chairman emeritus.

Spider was seeking diamond-bearing kimberlites in the McFauld’s Lake area, since dubbed the ‘Ring of Fire’ in the late 1990s when it engineered a joint venture with De Beers Canada. It was a good fit: De Beers had cash and, Spider, prospective concessions.

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[Ring of Fire] Chrome – Brian Sylvester (Mining Markets – September, 2009)

Please note this article was originally published in Mining Markets in September 2009. Much has changed in the Ring of Fire since then and this article is posted for archival reasons. – Stan Sudol

If Las Vegas odds makers were handicapping the field to determine who will be first past the post in the ‘Ring of Fire’ Chromite Derby, Noront Resources (NOT-T) would be the surefire front-runner; Freewest Resources (FWR-V), the dark horse; KWG Resources (KWG-V) and Spider Resources (SPQ-V), the long shots; while Probe Mines (PRB-V) would be the pretender — at least for now.

The winner will publish Canada’s first National Instrument 43-101-compliant resource estimate for a chromite deposit — a feat that could be worth millions.

“I have got the first resource estimate, for sure,” claims Wes Hanson, president and CEO of Noront. “Certainly some of the other players in the camp have very interesting chromite discoveries. Unlike Noront, they are probably about two years behind us in terms of getting it drilled off to a level sufficient enough to allow them to do a 43-101 resource estimate.” While that may or may not be true, Noront’s leader-of-the-pack status did not happen without a plan.

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Peat Resources hopes to fuel the Ring of Fire – Resource World Magazine – (May 2010)

http://www.peatresources.com/

http://www.resourceworld.com/

Dr. Peter Telford, President/CEO of Peat Resources Ltd. [PET-TSXV] has a question. How can Ontario meet its political commitments and achieve northern economic development, specifically, how to meet the need of the Ring of Fire proponents for reasonably priced power?

His company may have the answer. Peat Resources has identified over 200 million tonnes of fuel-grade peat in northwest Ontario, representing about 22 million tonnes of pellets, enough to supply Ontario Power Generation’s northern generating stations for over 20 years. Peat is considered biomass and is used in electricity generating stations requiring a long-term, assured supply of environmentally friendly, economically competitive and consistently stable, quality fuel.

“Before going into production, we need to do some feasibility work and scale up our pilot plant operations to a full-scale production facility at Upsala, located 130 kilometres northwest of Thunder Bay, Ontario,” explained Telford. “Right now we can process about 25 tonnes per day. The plant was set up to prove up the technology that we are using and provide us with material for marketing and testing purposes.”

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Early warnings for the [Ontario] North ignored – by Wayne Snider (Timmins Daily Press – June 28, 2011)

Wayne Snider is the city editor for The Daily Press, the city of Timmins newspaper. Contact the writer at news@thedailypress.ca.

OPINION: Report pushed highest growth in southern urban centres

Many people believe Northern Ontario is largely ignored, both at the provincial and federal levels. This isn’t a new phenomenon, nor is concept limited in terms of the political stripes of ruling governments.

For decades population growth in the south has resulted in a long line of provincial and federal riding boundary adjustments. Provincially, urban centres, particularly the GTA, has been getting more and more clout in Queen’s Park, while seats have been cut in rural and Northern areas.

The voice of the North and rural Ontario is becoming increasingly drowned out by urban centres. So it should not come as any huge shock that government planning has largely centred on southern urban centres. This is by design.

In February 2004, the report Investing in People: Creating a Human Capital Society for Ontario was presented to Premier Dalton McGuinty.

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[Sudbury’s Laurentian] Mine school offering MBAs – by Tony Muma (Sudbury Star – June 28, 2011)

The Sudbury Star, the City of Greater Sudbury’s daily newspaper.

Michael Lesher, director of mining initiatives at Laurentian University, said the new School of Mines, announced on June 23, will take the institution’s existing expertise in fields related to mining and put them under one umbrella.

“We’ve already been doing many of the things that mining schools have. We’ve got one of the top mineral exploration programs in the world, one of the best mining engineering programs in the world, and we do environmental restoration like nobody’s business,” he said.

“We (also) want to develop programs in mining-related occupational health and safety and offer programs on aboriginal consultation as it relates to potential new mining communities up north.” Asked whether or not the new school would have its own building, Lesher said it wouldn’t “right now.” “I don’t think a building is on the table.”

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Ring of Fire Conference (Thunder Bay Speech) – by the Honourable Michael Gravelle Minister of Northern Development, Mines and Forestry (June 23, 2011)

 

The Ring of Fire Conference in Thunder Bay on June 23, 2011 was by invitation only.

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 Good afternoon, everyone, it is a pleasure to be here. What an exciting day and a half it has been here at the Ring of Fire Conference. It certainly is living up to expectations by promoting insightful dialogue and innovative thinking.

I’ve been asked to join you this afternoon again to share with you my vision and aspirations for the future of the Ring of Fire.  I want to take it a step further by expressing my unequivocal conviction that the dream of sustainable and balanced mineral development can be achieved.

In doing so, I hope that I can inspire your creativity in coming up with innovative and strategic ideas that will help us create and manage the massive infrastructure development efforts required to foster growth in the Ring of Fire and beyond.

Yes, even though the Ring of Fire’s projected potential could mean production could go on for a century, it is important to think of the North’s continued prosperity even beyond the 100 years.

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Canadian mining firm threatens legal action against Peru- by Brenda Bouw (Globe and Mail – June 27, 2011)

The Globe and Mail is Canada’s national newspaper with the second largest broadsheet circulation in the country. It has enormous impact and influence on Canada’s political and business elite as well as the rest of the country’s print, radio and television media.

Canada’s Bear Creek Mining Corp. is threatening a legal challenge against Peru after its mining rights were revoked in a move that raises the risk for other resource companies doing business in the mineral-blessed South American country.

“We have done nothing wrong,” Bear Creek chief executive officer Andrew Swarthout said in a telephone interview on Sunday from Peru. The company has been working for more than a decade in Peru with some challenges, but Mr. Swarthout said this is the first time its mining rights have been pulled.

The Santa Ana mine was expected to produce about 47-million ounces of silver over its 11-year mine life and represented about 20 per cent of Bear Creek’s value, behind its flagship Corani project, also located in Peru.

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Peru revokes licence of Canadian mining firm Bear Creek – by William Lloyd George (Globe and Mail – June 27, 2011)

The Globe and Mail is Canada’s national newspaper with the second largest broadsheet circulation in the country. It has enormous impact and influence on Canada’s political and business elite as well as the rest of the country’s print, radio and television media.

As smoke rose from burning tires and torched security vehicles, heavily armed police confronted nearly a thousand angry anti-mining protesters walking the runaway of Juliaca’s airport in southern Peru, near Lake Titicaca. One protest leader called for the group to reclaim the airport. Others said it was too dangerous. Then a call came through from the protest leaders in the capital, Lima.

The government had given into their demands and agreed to revoke the licence for Canadian mining firm Bear Creek to open its Santa Ana silver mine in the area; as well, it halted all new mining concessions in Puno province for 36 months. The unrest ended with the agreement Saturday, narrowly averting a repeat of a bloody conflict the day before, when police killed at least five demonstrators at the airport.

While the breakthrough agreement stopped further bloodshed, it casts doubts on other resource operations in Peru, a nation that relies heavily on foreign investment and receives about 70 per cent of its GDP from the mining industry. Peru is South America’s fastest-growing economy, driven by surging commodity prices, but the rural poor have benefited little from mining and complain it contaminates their water and crops.

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