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Day: June 27, 2011

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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First nations, corporate leaders meet to map out partnership blueprints – by Shawn McCarthy (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.

Armed with new clout over development on their traditional lands, Canada’s aboriginal people are increasingly looking to be partners in energy and mining development.

At the same time, first nations groups are insisting on their right to reject projects that fail to provide real benefits or are too damaging to the environment – even if Canadian law does not give them a formal veto.

In Niagara Falls this week, Shawn Atleo, National Chief of the Assembly of First Nations, is co-hosting the first International Indigenous Summit on Energy and Mining, with his U.S. counterpart, Jefferson Keel, president of the national Congress of American Indians. The summit is a chance for corporate leaders from the energy and mining sectors – as well as financial institutions – to talk with native leaders and government officials about the opportunities for and challenges with first nations project partnerships.

The stakes are enormous, with virtually every major energy and mining project in Canada requiring consultations with native communities.

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