Tim Hudak is the opposition leader of the Ontario PC Party
Ontario once enjoyed bountiful supplies of affordable energy — and used it over more than a century to build our province into an industrial powerhouse and resource development dynamo. But times have changed.
You may have seen a news article a week ago, for example, about how high electricity prices, along with a burdensome approvals process, add up to obstacles to investment in Northern Ontario’s Ring of Fire region. My caucus colleague, and Ontario PC energy critic, Vic Fedeli used a recent provincial parliamentary committee meeting to press the government for some answers about this critical issue.
Because it’s been in the news lately, I want to use the Ring of Fire to illustrate a broader point, to show how heavily energy costs can weigh on economic sectors like mining, forestry and manufacturing — where Ontario most urgently needs to kick-start job creation with more than half a million people unemployed.
The Ring of Fire should be a cause for optimism with the ongoing jobs crisis in Ontario. According to Richard Nemis, the entrepreneur who gave the Ring of Fire its name, the “economic impact of this discovery on the Ontario economy will probably run into the hundreds of billions of dollars over time.” Read the rest of this entry »
The National Post is Canada’s second largest national paper.
Canadian Pacific Railway Ltd. ratcheted up the pressure in its dispute with the union representing 4,800 of its striking engineers, conductors, and traffic controllers Wednesday by saying it would be forced to lay off thousands of their colleagues until freight service resumes at the railway.
The striking employees, who are represented by the Teamsters Canada Rail Conference, walked off the job shortly after midnight Wednesday morning after failing to reach a new labour agreement by their strike deadline. Talks continued throughout the day, but CP’s freight service in Canada ground to a halt shortly after the workers walked off the job.
As a result, CP said it would lay off 2,000 workers, and if the strike were to continue into next week another 1,400 employees would follow.
The layoffs would be in addition to the striking workers, the company said, and from areas not needed while the trains were not running, including yard workers and mechanics. 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.
LONDON, ONT.— The impacts of reversing the flow of an Enbridge oil pipeline between Sarnia and Hamilton are “minimal and manageable,” the company’s lawyer told a National Energy Board hearing Wednesday.
But aboriginal groups disagreed – both inside and outside the hearings at a London hotel.
Traditionalist members of the Six Nations reserve near Brantford forced the hearings to adjourn for several hours just as they got going Wednesday morning, as they complained the hearings were illegitimate and undemocratic.
Once the hearings had resumed in the afternoon, Chief Christopher Plain of the Aamjiwnaang First Nation near Sarnia complained that his members “have not been consulted in a meaningful way” in the energy board process. Read the rest of this entry »
Minnesota environmental special interests say their latest initiative aims to engage all Minnesotans, including miners, “in a respectful, open, fact based dialogue” about sulfide mining.
RENO (MINEWEB) - A coalition of three environmental organizations Wednesday announced it has launched a statewide sulfide mining initiative in Minnesota. Two mining companies, PolyMet and Twin Metals, are developing two mines in Minnesota’s lake country.
“Today, there is little awareness about sulfide mining-it’s very different from the iron ore mining that is more familiar to Minnesotans,” said Paul Danicic, executive director of Friends of the Boundary Waters Wilderness and founding member of the initiative Mining Truth. “This is a complex issue with long-term economic and environmental implications. We need a broad conversation about this.”
“The evidence shows there is reason to be cautious about effects on our lakes, rivers and groundwater, but we also recognize that the immediate need for jobs in Northern Minnesota is real,” said Paul Austin, executive director of Conservation Minnesota and founding member of Mining Truth. Read the rest of this entry »
Michael Gravelle has tested the waters to see if Northern First Nation communities wanted to join forces to manage areas covered in the Far North Act.
The Minister of Natural Resources met with representatives from Northern First Nation communities at the Travelodge Hotel on Wednesday. The group spent the day discussing a potential joint body in regards to the Far North Act where First Nation communities would have more input on policies.
The Far North Act, which was passed in 2010, represents 42 per cent of Ontario or 450,000 square kilometres and applies to public lands in the Far North but not to First Nation communities or to federal, private or municipal lands.
In order to manage development plans better, the province implemented a community based land use initiative with the intent to have direct input from First Nation communities. 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 influence on Canada’s political and business elite.
Efforts by Argentina to fine-tune its economy are forcing miners to reassess investment plans in the Andean country that is home to massive gold, copper and other resource deposits.
Argentina, Latin America’s third-largest economy, has moved aggressively in recent months to stem capital outflows and bolster the market with measures including forced repatriation of export revenue on local markets and requirements for companies to source equipment locally.
The measures could hinder access to cash flow in one of the world’s most capital-intensive industries, and cause operational delays in terms of getting equipment to remote sites in a timely manner. Read the rest of this entry »
OTTAWA, May 23, 2012 /CNW/ - The Mining Association of Canada (MAC) expressed grave concern regarding the significant economic impact that the CP rail strike will have on mining communities and urged the Government of Canada to take immediate action to resolve the labour dispute.
The impact is felt strongly by mining companies dependent on rail to either transport fuel in, or transport products and by-products from operations. “A strike by CP workers will have a serious effect on the industry,” said Pierre Gratton, MAC’s President and CEO. “The shipment of fuel and other supplies to mine sites will be compromised as is the transport of mineral products.”
The CP rail strike will cause a shortfall of essential fuel and supply shipments to mines across Canada. It will also prevent mines from delivering their products to their end-point destinations, thus seriously and adversely affecting their ability to operate at any functional capacity. In this time of post-recession economic recovery, a threat to the stability of the natural resource sector is a threat to the stability of a stalwart of the Canadian economy. Read the rest of this entry »
Neskantaga Chief Peter Moonias has raised further issues over the Cliffs Natural Resources chromite mine project in the Ring of Fire.
Moonias sent a letter to Michael Gravelle, minister of Natural Resources, on May 17 stating he has learned that Cliffs and/or its wholly owned subsidiary Cliffs Chromite Ontario Inc. has applied for land use and other permits on provincial crown land to begin mobilizing for infrastructure development and commencement of construction, including the north-south access corridor to the Ring of Fire.
Moonias stated in the letter that Ontario cannot lawfully consider these applications without fulfilling its constitutional duty of consultation. The chief said that the granting of an easement, issuance of any kind of land use or other permits to Cliffs in support of its proposed developments would be a further breach of Ontario’s duty to consult.
Moonias had earlier stated in a May 11 letter to Rick Bartolucci, minister of Northern Development and Mines, that Ontario is in breach of its constitutional duty to consult with Neskantaga and other Aboriginal peoples regarding the Cliffs mine and infrastructure development in and to the Ring of Fire. Read the rest of this entry »
The Sudbury Star is the City of Greater Sudbury’s daily newspaper.
George Smitherman former deputy premier and Energy minister of Ontario
By the sounds of the name it’s been given, the Ring of Fire is the last place on Earth where you’d think you have to worry about how to supply power. However, when you are proposing mining activity 300 km north of any paved road, things get complicated quickly.
Maybe that’s why Ontario is actually allowing a giant American mining company, and at least one smaller Canadian one, to propose that diesel generation be used to provide electricity. Problem is, their needs are projected to start at 30 mw and grow to 70 mw. That would take about 10 million litres of diesel fuel each month. Diesel fuel that would presumably be trucked 300 km along a road that will be carved out of environmentally sensitive lands.
This Ring of Fire mining activity will be taking place in the James Bay Lowlands on the traditional territories of several First Nation communities. It’s ironic that a pressing need of these same communities is a more reliable, healthy and cost effective means of generating electricity than the small diesel generators they currently use.
First Nations communities have experienced the limitations of electricity from diesel for far too long. 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.
The Ontario Mining Association and the Canadian Land Reclamation Association (CLRA) are joining forces to hold the fifth annual Ontario Mine Reclamation Symposium and Field Trip. This event is scheduled for June 20 and 21, 2012 at Lakehead University in Thunder Bay.
The seminar includes sessions on the geology and mining history of the Thunder Bay area along with understanding the chemical properties of peat bogs and blueberry soils on Northwestern Ontario. An update on the development of restoration protocols at De Beers Canada’s Victor diamond Mine, located 90 kilometres west of Attawapiskat, will be presented. These studies are expanding knowledge for reclamation activities in the Ring of Fire area, which is under development.
Another case study will centre on the evolution of closure planning and consultation at Barrick Hemlo Mines Williams gold property near Marathon. Roger Souckey from Barrick Hemlo Mines and Shane Hayes of the Pic Mobert First Nation will be making this presentation. Also, the decommissioning of Vale’s (Inco’s) Shebandowan nickel mine near Thunder Bay will be reviewed. Read the rest of this entry »
The Ministry of Natural Resources won’t approve any land us applications from Cliffs Natural Resources applications until an environmental assessment has been completed.
Neskantaga First Nation Chief Peter Moonias wrote a letter to Minister of Natural Resources Michael Gravelle last week after he learned that Cliffs had requested land use and other permits to allow the company to start developing the area for construction. These construction projects included roads leading into the Ring of Fire site.
This application request followed the announcement that the company planned to build a chromite smelter near Sudbury causing outcry from First Nation communities that Ontario did not pursue proper consultation before making the decision.
Moonias, who earlier this week declared he was willing to die to stop the Ring of Fire development, said the MNR couldn’t go ahead with this application. Read the rest of this entry »
A backroom political ban on investing in companies deemed impure by environmental NGOs is unfairly depressing the prices of some of the leading gold mining stocks, and hurting pension funds, Coxe says.
RENO (MINEWEB) - Why would a pension fund not invest in a highly profitable long-duration mine (such as BHP’s Olympic Dam copper-gold-uranium deposit in Australia with a 40-year lifespan)?
In the May edition of Basic Points, respected global commodities analyst Don Coxe says pension funds are succumbing to political pressure, resulting in “more and more corporate pension funds…being impaled on their own funding swords due to inadequate investment returns.”
Coxe suggests that commodity stocks are “victims of a new form of persecution from two groups-those with contempt for capitalism, along with those who resent what mining, and oil and gas companies do for a living.”
“The original Luddites smashed the machines of the Industrial Revolution,” he observed. 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.
CALGARY—NDP Leader Thomas Mulcair might as well have declared war on the West. That’s the way it sounded from this end of the country when a couple of weeks ago he told a CBC radio program that something needs to be done about rapid oilsands development.
According to Mulcair, it has artificially inflated the Canadian dollar and thereby delivered a bruising blow to central Canada’s export-dependent manufacturing sector.
Mulcair might as well have said that the western resource-based economy is the enemy of the eastern-based manufacturing sector and must be stamped out at all costs.
Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s team and the western premiers were quick to defend the West’s right to profit from its resource wealth. But the ensuing war of words created such a fog it obscured much more fundamental issues. Read the rest of this entry »
Noront Resource’s (NOT-V:TSX) full-length corporate presentation at the 2012 CPM Group Precious Metals Mining Investment Seminar, as presented by Wes Hanson, President & CEO. Kitco News, May 21, 2012.
According to the Saskatchewan Mining Association, the province currently has more than 25 operating mines producing minerals such as potash, uranium, coal and gold. During the next two decades, mining companies in Saskatchewan will invest more than $50 billion in new projects. To ensure the continued success of the mining sector and its contribution to the economic growth of the province, the Ministry of Energy and Resources has taken several steps to encourage further investment. Energy and Resources Minister Bill Boyd was recently questioned about the Ministry’s endeavours.
Q: In last 4½ years, how has your ministry encouraged investment in Saskatchewan’s mining sector?
A: The ministry has been very active in promoting our rich and diverse mineral resources and encouraging investment in our mineral sector.
Key aspects include: the provision of high quality geoscience information; meeting regularly with companies that are active or interested in becoming active in Saskatchewan’s mineral sector; and participation in national and international conferences and mineral investment attraction missions in partnership with other government agencies such as Enterprise Saskatchewan. Read the rest of this entry »
