November 23, 2012 – Republic of Mining

B.C. court says unions can see work permits for Chinese miners – by Petti Fong (Toronto Star – November 23, 2012)

November 23, 2012

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.

VANCOUVER—The federal government was ordered Thursday to turn over to two B.C. trade unions the permits it granted up to 300 Chinese miners to see whether those jobs could have been done by Canadian workers.

In a decision late Thursday in federal court, Judge Douglas Campbell awarded the two unions access to the Labour Market Opinions, the federal government term for the temporary work permits that allows foreign workers to come to Canada. Federal lawyers had argued against releasing the LMOs because of concerns that allowing the permits to be made public could open the floodgates to wide access. They said the permits could provide information that could violate privacy and raise competition issues for the companies that wanted to bring in workers.

HD Mining International Ltd., Canadian Dehua International Mines Group and Huiyong Holdings B.C. sided with the federal government in arguing the trade unions should not have access to those permits.

The permits will allow 200 to 300 miners from China to come to northern B.C. to work at the Murray River Coal Mine near Tumbler Ridge. Already about a dozen miners from China have arrived to do preliminary surveillance work and another 60 were scheduled to be in Canada by mid-December.

How the war against the mega quarry was won – by Jason Van Bruggen (National Post – November 23, 2012)

November 23, 2012

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

In early 2011, while visiting our relatives’ farm near Melancthon in Dufferin County, Ont., my wife and I learned about the now infamous “mega quarry” proposal tabled by The Highland Companies, which were looking to turn the area’s rolling hills into one of the largest open-pit excavation sites in North America. This project involved drilling a pit deeper than Niagara Falls beneath the area’s fertile farmland, and permanently disrupting the source water for five pristine rivers.

My wife Blaine and I decided that this could not happen on our watch, and we took on a role as volunteer strategists for opponents of the mega quarry. Conversations with neighbours, the farmers of Mulmur and Melancthon who had not sold their land to the Highland Companies, revealed a tale of David versus Goliath. Potato farmer Dale Rutledge showed us woodlots that the quarry proponents had carved up to circumvent laws preventing complete woodlot removal. Fifth generation farmers, Ralph and Mary Lynn Armstrong, had been approached and encouraged to “retire to Florida” by people wishing to buy their farm under the guise of creating a giant potato farm.

Not being traditional “activists,” we formed a rabble-rousing group of communicators, all volunteers, and called ourselves the Comm Comm (Communications Committee). From early 2011 onward, we met several times a month to plot what were essentially marketing strategies to create a movement to appeal to everyone who valued food and water.

Trudeau’s glossy sheen doesn’t change Liberal realities – by Kelly McParland (National Post – November 22, 2012)

November 23, 2012

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

I’m still having difficulty getting swept up in the excitement over the growing threat Justin Trudeau allegedly represents to the Conservative bastion of Stephen Harper.

The latest evidence is, allegedly, the brilliant tactical move Team Trudeau executed in suggesting China should be allowed to invest in Canada just like everyone else. This proves he’s not a lightweight, won’t be ruled by past orthodoxies, is capable of rational thought and isn’t about to get caught up with Thomas Mulcair in a tug-of-war for dominion over wishy-washy feel-good leftwing bromides. So we’re told. I just can’t swallow it, for some reason.

Maybe it’s because of people like David McGuinty, the Liberal MP from Ottawa (and brother of the outgoing Ontario Premier) who was viewed by some as a potential leadership candidate all on his own. Upset at the attitude of Tory MPs on the Commons natural resources committee, he let loose with a few typically Liberal insults about Conservatives, Alberta and Big Oil all being in cahoots.

“They are national legislators with a national responsibility, but they come across as very, very small-p provincial individuals who are jealously guarding one industrial sector, picking the fossil fuel business and the oil sands business specifically, as one that they’re going to fight to the death for,” he informed reporters on Tuesday.

China’s place in the oilpatch is too complicated for simple answers – by Deborah Coyne (National Post – November 23, 2012)

November 23, 2012

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

Deborah Coyne is a candidate for the leadership of the Liberal Party of Canada.

It may be tempting to look for simple answers to the $15.1 billion Chinese takeover of Canadian oil sands company, Nexen. It would be simple to just say we’re open for business and that it’s a good deal, as my fellow candidate Justin Trudeau has done. But this issue is too complicated for simple answers, and leadership in crucial areas of public policy is never quite so black and white.

While this deal may seem of little significance on the surface — it will result in only a three per cent overall stake in the oil sands and provide a relatively small cash injection into an industry that will require literally hundreds of billions of dollars to develop over the next few decades – it will set the template for foreign acquisitions in the Canadian resource sector for decades to come. We’ve got to do the heavy lifting and get this right.

There has been a glaring lack of leadership this issue. We must establish, both for Canadians and our trade and investment partners, a clear long-term strategy for protecting and promoting the Canadian national interest in the development of our valuable and abundant natural resources.

First, we must clearly define the national interest. Our natural resources are a source of valuable leverage with our trade and investment partners.

Alberta’s national energy strategy looks good in hindsight – by Carol Goar (Toronto Star – November 23, 2012)

November 23, 2012

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.

Canada’s premiers gave Alison Redford the cold shoulder when she proposed a national energy strategy 10 months ago. They saw no value in an alliance in which Alberta was the big player and they were all bit players. Some wanted nothing to do with the West’s “dirty oil.”

No one was more dismissive than Dalton McGuinty. “If I had my preference as to whether we have a rapidly growing oil and gas sector in the West or a lower dollar benefitting Ontario, I’ll tell you where I’d stand — with the lower dollar,” the premier said curtly.

A few months later, McGuinty’s innate courtesy prevailed. He hosted a two-hour working dinner for Redford at Toronto’s Windsor Arms Hotel and emerged to say the two were back on a friendly footing. “We have found a lot of common ground,” he said. “Among other things we are determined to ensure that Ontarians understand that they have a vested interest in the continuing growth and prosperity of Alberta.”

But it was too late to save Redford’s vision of a cross-Canada energy framework in which each region capitalized on its strengths — oil and gas, hydro, renewable power, refining capacity, manufacturing of high-tech equipment — and steered business to its neighbours. Too many obstacles had loomed, too much ill will had accumulated.

Justin Trudeau kicks it up a notch as Liberal race heats up – Toronto Star Editorial (November 22, 2012)

November 23, 2012

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.

A lot of Canadians may cringe at the prospect of a Chinese state-owned company buying into Alberta’s oilsands, but Justin Trudeau is okay with it. And to his credit he isn’t afraid to say so. Suddenly, the federal Liberal leadership race is getting interesting.

Bucking popular opinion, even within his own party, Trudeau regards the $15-billion, heavily-conditioned bid by China National Offshore Oil Corp. to buy the Calgary oil firm Nexen as “good for Canada,” insofar as middle-class prosperity rides on expanding our business dealings with the fast-growing Asian market. Risky though it is, this readiness to Kick it up a notch, as celebrity chef Emeril Lagasse might put it, looks good on Trudeau and the party.

As the odds-on favourite to win the leadership vote on April 14 Trudeau could have played it safe and kept mum. But that would have ceded the debate on a hot Canadian energy issue to Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s Conservatives and Tom Mulcair’s New Democrats, in effect reinforcing the Liberals’ marginalization in a polarized environment. Trudeau’s bolt from the blue reflects a — correct — perception that the Liberals need to get back into the game and recapture their relevancy by taking bolder stands that will raise their profile after last year’s election debacle.

Study eats into oil-sands opponents’ corrosion claims – by Nathan Vanderklippe (Globe and Mail – November 23, 2012)

November 23, 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.

CALGARY — t has taken on the air of fact among those seeking to halt pipelines designed to carry crude from the oil sands. The diluted bitumen those pipelines would carry, critics say, is more corrosive than “normal” crude. In other words, the chemical nature of oil sands crude places the steel it travels through at risk.

But a new study conducted by federal scientists finds exactly the opposite: Diluted bitumen is not more corrosive. In fact, when comparing four types of dilbit, as it’s called, with seven other kinds of oil, the dilbit is among the least corrosive.

The study is a major strike against a key argument made by opponents of pipelines such as TransCanada Corp.’s Keystone XL and Enbridge Inc.’s Northern Gateway.

Just last week, Quebec Environment Minister Daniel Breton argued that Alberta crude was found to be more corrosive on older pipelines and could result in spills, as he warned Quebec could oppose a plan to pipe western oil through the province to eastern markets. The challenge to those claims comes from work conducted by a Natural Resources Canada lab in Hamilton.

Goma’s fall leaves Congo afraid of score settling and all-out war [mineral resources] – by Geoffrey York (Globe and Mail – November 21, 2012)

November 23, 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.

JOHANNESBURG — The rebel takeover of the key Congolese city of Goma has sparked fears for the future of one of Africa’s biggest and most war-torn countries.

In the short term, the victory by the M23 rebels could trigger a wave of reprisal attacks on civilians in the city of a million people. Thousands of displaced people, in the chaos of the rebel advance, are fleeing out of Goma or into the city from rural camps.

In the longer term, the rebel victory could destabilize and weaken the fragile government of the Democratic Republic of Congo, opening the door for a foreign carve-up of eastern Congo, a mineral-rich region that has attracted rebels and invaders for many years.

The Rwandan-backed rebels, commanded by indicted war-crimes fugitive Bosco Ntaganda (known as “the Terminator”), walked into Goma almost unopposed on Tuesday after the city was abandoned by Congo’s notoriously underpaid and unreliable army.

United Nations peacekeepers, who had deployed helicopters to strafe the rebels with cannons and rockets on Sunday in a futile attempt to slow their advance, appeared to give up and just stood by watching as the rebels took the city. French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius said it was “absurd” that the 17,000-member UN force was unable to stop a few hundred rebels.

Why DR Congo’s volcano city of Goma matters – by Theodore Trefon (BBC News Africa – November 20, 2012)

November 23, 2012

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/

Theodore Trefon is senior researcher at the Royal Museum for Central Africa and author of the blog Congo Masquerade: The political culture of aid inefficiency and reform failure.

Goma lies at the foot of an active volcano in the Democratic Republic of Congo and on the border with Rwanda. It matters today because it testifies to the powerlessness of the Congolese government and the United Nations to stop fighting and tit-for-tat violence.

The border city also matters because it could be an indicator of the unravelling of the Rwandan president’s authority. In Rwanda, President Paul Kagame is under pressure from hardliners frustrated by the continued presence of opposition forces who have found sanctuary on the Congolese side of the border.

President Kagame is also increasingly seen as an embarrassment to touchy foreign partners. M23 rebels have now entered Goma; the governor of North Kivu has fled to Bukavu by boat and hundreds of thousands of people are fleeing the city helter-skelter without having anywhere to go.

War, rape and the illegal extraction of minerals – an old story – matter more and more.

Coltan: Michael Nest – Book Review – by Stephen Williams (African Business – September 10, 2012)

November 23, 2012

http://africanbusinessmagazine.com/main-articles/ic-publications

Just one of many resources that the DR Congo has in abundance, coltan, has received an unprecedented amount of attention from Western-based NGOs. They accuse the world’s technology corporations of fuelling the bloody conflict in the eastern Congo region where this metal is found. More accurately termed columbite-tantalite, but universally known by its abbreviation ‘coltan’, author Michael Nest explodes many of the myths that have grown around this controversial metal.

Like any good researcher, Nest takes the time to crosscheck and corroborate the basic facts and figures. One of the first ‘facts’ that he debunks is the commonly cited figure of 80% as the DR Congo’s share of the world’s reserves, or even the world’s production of coltan.

The earliest article he could find that gave this figure was a story from Agence France-Presse that quoted the 80% as Africa’s total, which was then repeated in March and April 2001 respectively by the UK’s Guardian newspaper and New Scientist magazine. It was the BBC News website, in the same year, that first attributed the 80% tag to DR Congo itself.

Nest tells us that there is no shortage of coltan, and it is, in fact, found in many countries around the world. The author’s own research suggests an “informed estimate” that Central Africa has about 9% of the world’s total and the DR Congo has about 7-8% of global reserves. Nest also believes that for much of the 2000s, the DR Congo may have produced around 20% of the world’s total, but historically the largest producer has been Australia.

Mining’s deep-rooted male chauvinism keeps glass ceiling firmly in place – report – by Dorothy Kosich (Mineweb.com – November 21, 2012)

November 23, 2012

http://www.mineweb.com/

The dearth of women executives running mining operations and mining companies is not due to a skills shortage, as the overwhelmingly male-dominated industry claims.

The full report, The Pathway Forward: Creating Gender Inclusive Leadership in Mining and Public Leadership, is available at: http://www2.carleton.ca/cwppl/ccms/wp-content/ccms-files/Women-in-Mining-2.5.pdf

RENO (MINEWEB) – Despite the whining of mining companies concerning a critical shortage of skilled employees during an era of increasing numbers of female university graduates in engineering and technology programs, a university study made public Tuesday found women only comprise 18% of those employed in the Canadian mining sector.

A report by Carleton University’s Centre for Women in Politics and Public Leadership in Ottawa finds women remain under-represented in all of the mining industry’s employment opportunities, from entry level jobs to leadership posts.

At 18%, the number of women employed in the mining industry is very low compared to other key sectors such as finance (61.53%), service (71.86%), public administration (47.7%), manufacturing I21.7%), tourism and transportation (45.21%), and energy (24.6%).

The Pathway Forward: Creating Gender Inclusive Leadership in Mining and Resources Report – by Umut Riza Ozkan and Clare Beckton (November 2012)

November 23, 2012

This report was done by the Carleton University’s Centre for Women in Politics and Public Leadership. This organization promotes equitable representation of women in democratic institutions at all levels of government and in all positions of leadership within the public, private and non-profit sectors.

Executive Summary

Canada is a major player in the world mining industry, producing more than 60 different minerals and metals. The Canadian mining industry provides an important contribution to Canada’s economy, accounting for 4.5% of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) and 23% of Canadian exports in 2011. Moving forward, however, the industry faces key challenges, such as serious labour
shortages due to an aging workforce, requiring strong recruitment of new talent. According to the Canadian Mining Industry Employment and Hiring Forecasts Report (2011), the mining industry will require 45,760 new people by 2016 and 75,280 new workers by 2021.

Despite the looming labour shortage, women remain underrepresented in all of the industry’s employment opportunities, from entrance positions to leadership posts. In fact, women’s employment in the mining industry – at around 15% for the past 14 years – is very low compared to other key economic sectors: mining (18.6%), service (71.86), public administration (47.70%), manufacturing (21.70%), energy (24.56%), finance (61.53%), tourism and transport (45.21%). Women’s employment did marginally increase from approximately 14% in 1988 to 18.6% in 2011.

Group worried about metals in Sudbury soil – by Carol Mulligan (Sudbury Star – November 23, 2012)

November 23, 2012

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

A committee concerned about the health of Sudburians is calling on the government of Ontario to fill what it says is a gap in a study that looked at metals of concern in Sudbury’s air, water and soil.

Recommendations from the Sudbury Community Committee for Human and Environmental Health are the next logical step to the Sudbury Soils Study, says the committee and an environmental expert it commissioned to review the study.

The Sudbury Soils Study was a $15-million, eight-year study of the effects of a century of mining on the soil, air and water of the Sudbury Basin. The committee says the study didn’t consider an important factor relating to Sudburians’ health — the quality of the air inside their homes.

Scientific data collected for the study, conducted by the Sudbury Area Risk Assessment group, included indoor dust testing at 91 homes in five communities in Sudbury. That sampling showed, in many of those homes, levels of metals such as nickel and lead three to six times higher than concentrations those metals in soils in the areas.

The dust samples were collected in Falconbridge, Copper Cliff, Hanmer, Coniston and Sudbury Centre, some of which were dubbed hot spots because of smelting activities over the years.

Candidate votes to save ONTC [Gerard Kennedy] – by Sebastien Perth (Sudbury Star – November 23, 2012)

November 23, 2012

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

The decision to sell off Ontario Northland should be reviewed, but Northern Ontario does not need another level of government to promote economic growth.

Those are just a few of topics Ontario Liberal party leadership candidate Gerard Kennedy covered during a campaign stop at past Sudbury poet laureate Roger Nash’s house Thursday. About Ontario Northland, Kennedy said it wasn’t helping either passengers or industry.

“I’m going to review that decision (to shut down Ontario Northland). I’m not sure that is key part of a Northern strategy. I know a lot of people are upset, but Ontario Northland ran at a level that was almost not helping the passenger and not helping industry,” he said.

“The Ontario Northland … has to be one that is fully viable. The question is how do you do it that way. Is it part of the Ring of Fire outlook? We’ll have to look at that.” Born in The Pas, Man. , Kennedy said he knows full well the discrepancy in services offered to northern areas.

“I am interested in seeing what we can do in the North and I know some of my colleagues have mentioned things. I’m from northern Manitoba, so you guys are all southerners to me.