OTTAWA, Aug. 4, 2011 /CNW/ – The Mining Association of Canada (MAC) today released its annual report on the level of payments made by the mining industry to Canadian governments.  The report, prepared by ENTRANS Policy Research Group, details the direct revenues that accrue to government from the industry in the form of corporate taxes, royalties and employee income taxes.

“The mining industry makes a significant contribution to Canada’s economy each year,” noted MAC’s President and CEO Pierre Gratton, “ranging from capital investment, stock market activity, Aboriginal community jobs and training, and northern development.  The level of payments made to governments detailed in this study is another useful measure of this contribution, particularly valuable because these revenues are used to support health care, education and other critical government services.”

Highlights from the report include: Read the rest of this entry »

 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.

Globe and Mail -Facts and Arguments

When I was a child, I went to a Christmas party at the factory where my dad worked. There was a Santa and presents. My siblings and I went along with the other children on a tour of the factory.

I didn’t care about the machinery or how it worked. I only marvelled at the fairy dust in the air and how it seemed to sparkle when the light hit it. To me, it was magical, not something that would be a carrier of death.

Death has its own sound. It is the rattle of my mother’s lungs as she struggles for air. The purring sound she makes when the breath finally finds its way in. The rasp of her voice as she speaks.

My 79-year-old mother is dying. She’s dying just as my father did four years ago. There is no way to slow the process. No hope for a cure. There is no relief. Once mesothelioma is discovered, it is already too late. Read the rest of this entry »

The National Post is Canada’s second largest national paper.

Robert W. Service never witnessed the Klondike Gold Rush.

In 1898, thousands of goldseekers were sailing to Alaska by steamship, hiking over the Chilkoot Trail, paddling rickety rivercraft up the Yukon River and cramming into tent cities in Dawson City. Wild West-style gunfights were erupting in coastal Alaska. Red-coated Mounties were risking death and dismemberment in the harsh northern wilderness. Grizzled prospectors were striking it rich under the maddening midnight sun.

The Bard of the Yukon, meanwhile, was here in British Columbia’s Cowichan Valley – milking cows, shoveling manure and swatting at mosquitoes. “They say he was in plays, but he wasn’t very good,” says a clerk at the Cowichan Valley Museum in Duncan, B.C.

It was a far cry from the tobacco-chewing, pistol-packing cowboy life Service had expected. In 1896, the 22-yearold former Scottish bank clerk boarded a steamer to Canada with a pistol, a sombrero and visions of Buffalo Bill-style glory. A cringe-worthy photograph from the time shows Service striking a gangsterish pose with a clay pipe. Read the rest of this entry »

http://www.guardian.co.uk/

The rescue of 33 miners from Chile’s San José mine after 69 days trapped underground was a triumph shared with the whole world. But the transition back to normality is proving difficult for both the men and their families

‘They are not heroes. We are not heroes. We are all victims,” murmurs Lilly Ramírez, the uncompromising partner of Mario Gómez. At 63, he was the oldest of “the 33″ Chilean miners who were trapped half a mile under the Chilean desert on 5 August 2010, and whose rescue became a global event for a TV audience of an estimated 1 billion people.

Ever since they emerged 69 days later on the night of 12/13 October, I have been working on two BBC documentaries: about what happened while the men were down the mine – and what has happened to them and their families since. Now, as the first anniversary approaches, it is the tenacity and the suffering of the women – the wives and partners – that emerges. They and their men were certainly victims but I am not sure Lilly is right: there are certainly heroines – from Lilly herself to the many other women who have struggled ever since to keep their families together. For their men emerged famous, but changed.

For Lilly, the beginning of the story that August night comes straight from the nightmares of miners’ families the world over. She was preparing dinner as usual for Mario, one of their four daughters, Romina, and their one-year-old granddaughter Camila when there was the proverbial “knock on the door”. Read the rest of this entry »

The Toronto Star, has the largest circulation in Canada. The paper has an enormous impact on federal and Ontario politics as well as shaping public opinion.

Associated Press

SANTIAGO, CHILE—One of the myths surrounding the 33 miners who were rescued after being trapped for 69 days deep inside a Chilean copper mine is that they’re all millionaires and no longer need to work.

The truth: nearly half the men have been unemployed since their mine collapsed one year ago Friday, and just one, the flamboyant Mario Sepulveda, has managed to live well off the fame. Most have signed up to give motivational speeches. Four, so far, have gone back underground to pound rock for a living.

“Los 33” have filed negligence lawsuits demanding $10 million from the bankrupt mine’s owners and $17 million from the government for failing to enforce safety regulations, but years remain before any payout.

Despite rumours that miners got rich off media interviews, most got only paid trips, hotel stays and the kinds of gifts that don’t put food on tables. Read the rest of this entry »