November 7, 2012 – Republic of Mining

What’s holding Ontario back? – by Gordon Nixon and Kevin Lynch (Globe and Mail – November 7, 2012)

November 7, 2012

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.

Ontario – Northern Ontario, in particular – is rich in natural resources.
Northern development is one of Ontario’s great economic opportunities. With
industrial production surging in developing economies, demand for these
resources is high, and we need to capitalize on opportunities across the
value chain. (Gordon Nixon and Kevin Lynch)

Gordon Nixon, CEO of the Royal Bank of Canada, is chair of Ontario’s Jobs and Prosperity Council. Kevin Lynch, vice-chair of BMO Financial Group, is vice-chair of the council.

The world has changed, and Ontario must adapt or fall behind. Emerging economies are driving a new era of intense global competition. The Internet and information revolution have made the world smaller, entrenching globalization and accelerating the pace of change. Developed economies are mired in the aftermath of the worst financial crisis and global recession since the 1930s, and many of the advantages that underpinned their prosperity have vanished.

Developed economies across the world must reinvent themselves to compete and win in the new global marketplace. Ontario is no exception – the status quo is not an option.

Ontario’s New Mining Act: The Good, the Bad and the Very, Very Ugly – by Stan Sudol (November 6, 2012)

November 7, 2012

This speech was given at the Ontario Prospectors Association: 2012 Ontario Exploration & Geoscience Symposium in Sudbury Ontario, November 6, 2012.

Check Against Delivery

Intro

Good evening everyone. It’s always great to get back to my hometown. I was born and raised in Sudbury and even worked at Inco’s Clarabell Mill for one year before going off to college.

And I also spent one summer underground at the Frood-Stobie mine way back in 1980, digging ditches, helping the miners, and digging more ditches. Regardless of all that ditch digging, the Inco jobs ensured a lifelong interest with this fascinating industry.

I was on a recent site visit at Superior Copper’s Bachawana Bay properties – 70 kilometers north of Sault Ste. Marie – when I heard the terrific news that McGuinty had resigned. I almost wanted to kiss the chalcocite outcrop that CEO Judy Baker was showing both me and a reporter from the Northern Miner.

I think northern Ontario history will not be kind to McGuinty. His many green legacies – including the detested Far North Act – and his economic mismanagement have left this province a much poorer place. McGuinty’s resignation is a small glimmer of hope for the junior exploration sector which has seen a really tough year.

Union wary of Vale move – by Sebastien Perth (Sudbury Star – November 7, 2012)

November 7, 2012

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

Union leaders say they are suspicious of a move by Vale to house temporary workers dur ing construction of the company’s $2-billion pollution reduction project in Sudbury.

“I think its 90-10,90% towards the labour issue, 10% towards housing contract workers,” said Dennis Theriault, vice-president of Steelworkers Local 6500. “I think our community of 160,000 can handle an influx of 1,3001,800 workers, particularly when a great deal of those workers are supposed to be from our local community.”

Vale has applied to the city’s planning committee to amend a zoning bylaw to allow the company to house temporary workers working on its massive Clean AER project. Theriault, however, said the application is a charade to hide Vale’s real plans of housing replacement workers during a future labour dispute.

“I’m very disappointed and very concerned about this. The timing of the application reeks of an opportunity to house workers around the date of our contract ending. That would definitely have a huge impact on our bargaining position,” Theriault said.

The collective bargaining agreement between the USW and Vale expires May 31, 2015.

Prospectors leery about Mining Act changes – by Ian Ross (Northern Ontario Business – November 6, 2012)

November 7, 2012

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. Ian Ross is the editor of Northern Ontario Business ianross@nob.on.ca.

The head of the Ontario Prospectors Association harbours some trepidation on whether new regulations to the province’s Mining Act will reduce misunderstandings and conflict between the exploration industry and First Nations.

“We have some reservations on some of the things they are enacting,” said Garry Clark, the association’s executive director in Thunder Bay. The new rules are basically geared to improve the consultation process between government, industry and First Nations.

Included in the revised act are new requirements for notifying landowners and Aboriginal communities about proposed activities through a system of plans and permits during various phases of early exploration. Prospectors have been grumbling the new regulations in the revised act create more paperwork and slow down projects.

“We’re not 100 per cent sure that plans and permits are going to work, but on a personal level I think it’s one of the ways to go,” said Clark. “But we need First Nation communities’ buy-in and we’re not sure it’s there.”

Clark said each First Nation community is very individual and independent, making it difficult to have a one-window solution.

Cliffs to push mine, smelter project forward – by Carol Mulligan (Sudbury Star – November 7, 2012)

November 7, 2012

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

Bill Boor, senior vice-president of global ferroalloys for Cliffs Natural Resources, had already been asked several times about the company’s projected start date for its Black Thor deposit in the Ring of Fire by the time he addressed a lunch crowd Tuesday.

Boor told 330 people attending an event organized by the Greater Sudbury Chamber of Commerce that he hoped to clear up any confusion about his company’s schedule to begin production at its McFaulds Lake mine site in northwestern Ontario.

“How do you clear it up?” Boor asked rhetorically during his 40-minute speech. “My simple answer is, ‘It depends.’ ” Many things will have to come together to meet Cliffs’ target of beginning production by the end of 2016, he said.

The company is in the middle of completing a feasibility study that will refine what came out of a pre-feasibility study. That will result in “a very specific project with tighter understanding of the impacts of what needs to be managed here,” said Boor.

Using targets the company believes are realistic, it is looking to complete the feasibility study by mid-2013 and to have permits in place in the second half of 2014.  The environmental assessment for the project will be “running parallel and that’s an uncertain timeline,” said Boors.