http://www.goldcorp.com/blog/default.aspx

Goldcorp’s Marlin Mine has been the source of much discussion amongst activist groups and others. Misinformation has surfaced on a number of internet sites recently, so we thought we’d take this opportunity to once again set the record straight. This is a long post, so grab a cup of coffee and get comfortable – we’ll be together for a while! 

MYTH: Marlin discharges contamination into the local water supply.

Routine water discharges have been approved by the Guatemalan Ministry of Environment and Natural Resources (MARN), and the Guatemalan Ministry of Energy and Mining (MEM). Unlike most discharge situations, at Marlin the water is drawn from the tailings impoundment, treated in the treatment plant, then discharged back to the tailings impoundment. This means that all the water in the tailings impoundment must meet the discharge standards before water is ever released from the tailings impoundment. It also means that Marlin can and does sample the water prior to discharge to ensure compliance before discharge even begins.

Water samples taken by MARN and analyzed in their own lab in Guatemala City concluded no negative results from any discharges to date. Read the rest of this entry »

http://rabble.ca/

Increasingly, over the past few years, information has been published about serious human rights violations and health and environmental harms being caused in Guatemala by (mainly) Canadian mining company operations: Goldcorp Inc, Radius Gold, Tahoe Resources, Hudbay Minerals, Skye Resources, etc.
 
It is not possible to understand how these violations and harms occur, and will continue to occur, without understanding the political context. In short, global mining companies profit financially and benefit directly from the fundamental lack of democracy and the rule of law in Guatemala, both historically and on-going today. (This is true, in varying degrees, about global businesses and investors operating in many countries around the world.)
 
Rhetoric aside about respecting the sovereign democratic will of the duly elected officials of Guatemala, about abiding by the laws and regulations that govern the country and the mining industry, impunity and corruption are the norm in Guatemala. The wealthy elites in Guatemala, including international companies and investors, act with a huge amount of impunity and have almost complete immunity from legal or political accountability. Read the rest of this entry »

Established in 1980, Northern Ontario Business provides Canadians and international investors with relevant, current and insightful editorial content and business news information about Ontario’s vibrant and resource-rich North.

Queenston Mining has been focused the last few years on making the transition from an exploration company to a mining one. Its flagship project – Upper Beaver – and surrounding properties are located east of Kirkland Lake near the small community of Dobie.
 
President and CEO Charles Page, one of the founding members of the company that was established 20 years ago, said he always knew “they had something valuable.”
 
“We have had this property a long time but when we first put it together, gold was $400 an ounce and then it went down to about $260. It didn’t make sense at those gold prices so we kept adding more ground and doing some exploration along the way.”
 
The company plans to sink a shaft at Upper Beaver next year and expects its first gold pour in 2016. In 2007, Queenston raised sufficient capital to allow it to move Upper Beaver to the next stage and to further explore the surrounding deposits. Read the rest of this entry »

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

The concept of fee-simple home ownership is so straightforward that most human beings – outside of North Korea and Cuba, at least – don’t even think of it as a “concept.” Yet it is the bedrock of our society’s wealth and economic stability.

Privately owned homes provide more than mere shelter. They provide a nest egg for retirement, and a source of mortgage credit for temporarily distressed families or seed capital for small business owners.

They also provide families with a bricks-and-mortar stake within a geographical community. This sense of ownership and belonging in turn leads to numerous sociological benefits. Academic studies show that, as compared with renters, homeowners move less frequently, have stronger social ties with their neighbours, participate more in elections, report higher lifesatisfaction, experience less crime, collect less welfare, and raise more stable, well-educated families.

If there is a community that cries out for all of these benefits, it is Canada’s native population, especially those living on poor, isolated reserves. Yet, perversely, these are the only communities in Canada where one is legally forbidden from owning a house and the land under it. Read the rest of this entry »

Founded in 1928, Canadian Business is the longest-publishing business magazine in Canada.

Two hundred and twenty five bucks. In April 2008, Jeff Rubin, chief economist at CIBC World Markets, predicted a barrel of oil would cost $225 by 2012. With oil at $118, it was a controversial call.

But Rubin, the best-known bank economist in Canada at the time, was no stranger to risky predictions. In 1989, he announced that the Toronto real estate market was about to crash. It did. In 1992, he said the Canadian economy was about to boom. It didn’t. In 1997, he tangled with manufacturers and fellow economists by declaring that the Canada-U.S. free trade agreement had not improved our productivity. As it happens, last month the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development reported that “Canada’s key long-term challenge is to boost productivity growth”—so chalk that up as a win for the provocative Rubin as well.

But back to oil. These days, it’s trading under $90 a barrel. So not only was Rubin off by a huge margin, he got the direction wrong. And for Rubin, the stakes couldn’t be higher.

In 2009, he famously quit CIBC to publish his first book, Why Your World Is About to Get a Whole Lot Smaller. It was a No. 1 bestseller and won the National Business Book Award. Rubin argued peak oil supply and rising prices would push up transportation costs and slam the brakes on globalization. Read the rest of this entry »

The Daily Press is the city of Timmins broadsheet newspaper.

TIMMINS – A crowd gathered at the feet of the three founders of Timmins on Monday morning, welcoming James Moore, the federal Minister of Heritage and Official Languages, whose presence confirmed the significance of the three men to his back and the city they founded.
 
Moore formally confirmed the federal funding that made the three statues possible, thanking the community and its people for their significance in the forming of the North and its continued prosperity.
 
Moore and the Canadian Heritage Fund provided the centennial committee along with the Porcupine Prospectors and Developers Association with $90,000 to immortalize Jack Wilson, Sandy McIntyre and Benny Hollinger.
 
“The $90,000 was the original seed money for the three statues,” he said. “These are three men whose discovery, vision, hard work and commitment to their craft led ultimately to a city that is thriving here in Ontario.” Read the rest of this entry »

The Thunder Bay Chronicle-Journal is the daily newspaper of Northwestern Ontario.

ONTARIO’S plan to close all of its coal-fired power plants by 2014 has suffered another setback and a Thunder Bay city councillor wants to make sure it doesn’t last long. Larry Hebert, a former city hydro official, has revealed that conversion of the Thunder Bay Generating Station from coal to natural gas is on hold because two branches of Ontario’s energy kingdom can’t agree on price. Hebert worries that advancing climate changes could result in a combination of low winter snow and summer drought that stretches hydro dams’ ability to power the Northwest coinciding with the scheduled plant closure in just over two years.

Ontario has failed to meet earlier targets to shut down the dirty coal plants because it could not get alternate energy sources up and running. It is now trying to encourage wind and solar power projects while it converts the remaining coal plants to gas or, in the case of Atikokan, forest biomass. And it cancelled two gas plant projects in southern Ontario to save Liberal seats in the last election, the costs of which will be staggering.

These are all large-scale projects that need long lead times and jobs of this scale inevitably run into delays. That is why Hebert wants council to agree tonight to petition the Energy minister to force a price agreement to get the Thunder Bay plant conversion back on track. Read the rest of this entry »

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

SHERBROOKE – If he was premier, François Legault would ban the export of asbestos while maintaining a $58-million loan that was intended to reopen what would be Quebec’s last asbestos mine.

“Quebec is not a banana republic,” Legault told Sherbrooke reporters Monday, suggesting that while the government would honour its loan, Balcorp Ltd. would have to abandon its goal of reviving the mine. But the company could use the public money for some other purpose.

Balcorp was granted the loan, after it failed to find any private-sector backers, a month before the Sept. 4 election was called. “No bank in Quebec would associate its name with the Jeffery Mine,” Legault noted. The Coalition Avenir Québec leader said banning asbestos, a proven cause of cancers, including mesothelioma, is a matter of principle.

“We can’t let people die to save a job,” he said. “There are limits.” 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.

COLD LAKE, ALTA. — Dave Tuccaro is driving from Los Angeles to Las Vegas, where he will plan the book tour he will mount after Christmas when his biography is released. That biography, written by Peter C. Newman, will tell the story of the aboriginal businessman – quite possibly Canada’s wealthiest.

Mr. Tuccaro will contemplate what to do with the $102-million he will take in when he finalizes a deal to sell his business, knowing that he still holds an additional $25-million in real estate.

And he will think of how he can use those funds, built up over three decades in which he profited handsomely from the oil sands, to lift up others. Mr. Tuccaro, 54, is a member of the Mikisew Cree First Nation, out of Fort Chipewyan, Alta., a place that garnered attention after reports – discredited by medical authorities – that its location downriver from the oil sands created an elevated level of rare cancers.

But for Mr. Tuccaro, Fort Chipewyan was a launching pad for a career that has helped to reshape the expectations for Canada’s aboriginal communities, which face a deluge of resource development plans. Read the rest of this entry »