Attention Premier Wynne: Turn Laurentian Into Global Harvard of Hardrock Mining – by Stan Sudol (January 30, 2015)

Stan Sudol is a Toronto-based communications consultant, mining columnist and owner/editor of www.republicofmining.com  He can be reached at stan.sudol@republicofmining.com

This essay was also published in the Sudbury Star in two parts:

http://www.thesudburystar.com/2015/02/07/accent-laurentian-as-harvard-of-hardrock-mining-2

http://www.thesudburystar.com/2015/02/09/sudbury-needs-premier-needs-to-act-boldly

Sudbury Byelection

Laurentian University economics professor David Robinson, who is running for the Green Party in the current municipal by-election, has done a terrific job in highlighting mining issues and his plans to ensure that Sudbury continues to become Ontario’s centre of mining excellence.

It’s a refreshing policy approach that often gets overlooked by other politicians but in fairness to Glen Thibeault and even Premier Wynne, both have also mentioned – but not with the same passion as David Robinson – and promoted Sudbury’s mining sector.

However, as with many issues related to Premier Wynne and the mining sector – including the Ring of Fire – there seems to be more “political talk” and very “little solid walk”, actually dodging and spinning would be a better description of her government’s mining policy in general.

If Premier Wynne is truly serious about promoting and establishing Sudbury as a centre of mining excellence, than she must merge and relocate all of Ontario’s university mining programs to Laurentian and significantly expand and establish a “Global Harvard of Hardrock Mining” with a mandate to educate the next generation of miners in Canada and from around the world.

Government “Differentiation” Policy Encourages Specialization

With this consolidation, not only would the Premier solidify Sudbury’s premier role in underground mining, supply and services, mining education and research in Canada, she would also dovetail with current policy proposals from her own Ministry of Training, Colleges and Universities (MTCU) that are trying to cut duplication in the university sector and increase the number of international students attending the province’s universities.

The Higher Education Quality Council of Ontario (HEQCO), an arms-length advisory group on post-secondary education, was established to improve the quality and effectiveness of universities and colleges in this province at a time of severe funding restraints due to unsustainable billion-dollar deficits. Their key policy initiative is called “differentiation”.

A government news release stated, “Research shows a differentiated postsecondary education system supports greater quality, competitiveness, accountability by allowing institutions to spend resources more efficiently, focusing on their areas of strength.”

In other words, “all universities can’t be all thing to all people” and that they should start focusing on specializations which will enhance their global standing and further entice international students who pay much higher tuition fees, that considerably help their stressed operating budgets. Obviously, one of Laurentian University’s “strategic mandate specializations” was their world-class mining engineering and earth sciences programs combined with the Goodman School of Mines.

Last summer, the province finalized Strategic Mandate Agreements which run from 2014-2017, with each of its colleges and universities in order to end costly duplications. There are complaints that the process is moving too slowly and that the Ministry is just too respectful of the traditional autonomy universities have traditionally had. Other than a reduction of funding, there is no proverbial “big stick” to force powerful college and university presidents to consolidate and/or transfer smaller faculties to other institutes.

There are three mining engineering faculties – University of Toronto, Queen’s (Kingston) and Laurentian – and, astonishingly, 11 Earth Sciences/Geology departments in Ontario’s 20 publicly funded universities. The only communities that have operating mines are Sudbury and Windsor which has an underground salt operation. However, I would keep the geology programs at Windsor and Lakehead in Thunder Bay as the mineral potential of Northwestern Ontario, including the Ring of Fire, is so vast.

Would MTCU Minister Reza Moridi be determined and bold enough to demand that the presidents of Queens and U of T start the process of transferring their mining engineering and earth sciences faculties to Sudbury?

Southern universities will not want to give up the potential of multi-million dollar donations from mining alumni and Premier Wynne will need a “nickel/steel reinforced backbone” to stand up to these very powerful men.

If the Premier is committed to enhancing Sudbury as a world-class center of mining excellence as well as determined to move forward MTCU’s policy of differentiation, she is going to have to become involved and demand the consolidation of Ontario’s mining programs at Laurentian.

It would also send a very clear message to the rest of Ontario’s universities and colleges that funding problems are not going to go away and this government is prepared to force them to comply.

Foreign Mining Students Potential Impact on Local Economy

Both the Ontario and federal governments are also keen to significantly increase the number of international students.

Foreign students pay higher fees – about three to four times the standard rate – that are a potential cash injection to help support the province’s financially struggling universities. There are currently 66, 417 international students at Ontario’s post secondary institutions. Each of these students contributes about $35,000 to our provincial economy.

Last year, the federal government committed to almost doubling the number of foreign students coming here by 2022 to 450,000. In 2014, Australia, with a population of about 24 million, attracted almost 300,000 international students, seven percent of the world’s market and was the third most popular global destination. The Australian educational market is that country’s fourth largest export following iron ore, coal and gold and valued at $15 billion.

By comparison, much larger Canada with a population of 35 million attracted 265,000 international students in 2012.

There are roughly 4.5 million students who are going abroad for their post-secondary education, almost double a decade ago. Consolidating all of Ontario’s post-secondary mining programs at Laurentian as well as expanding them, to take advantage of global demand could also have a significantly positive economic impact on the local economy.

While Ontario will face significant competition from the United Kingdom, Australia and the United States for international students, the chance to get a world-class mining education in a community with a well established mineral ecosystem like Sudbury would not have much competition in the English-speaking world.

Past Premier Peterson’s Historical Legacy

History will be very kind to Ontario’s 20th premier, the Honourable David R. Peterson PC, QC who was also the Minister of Northern Development and Mines (MNDM) and an extraordinary advocate for Sudbury’s mining sector. On July 30, 1986, Liberal Premier Peterson announced the relocation of the Ontario Geological Survey and the mineral resources branch, together with the head office functions of the MNDM from Toronto to Sudbury.

At the time, Peterson said, “…Sudbury was chosen as the site for this conference because of its growing reputation as a centre of mining excellence and know-how. This government wants to build on that reputation and put Sudbury on the road to being an internationally recognized centre of excellence in the earth sciences, mining and mineral research. To do that means increasing the store of mining knowledge that is here already. The programs I have outlined will help do just that.”

By far, this was one of the most bold and significant government policies ever to encourage the growth of the Sudbury mining clusters! It is time for Premier Wynne to match that vision.

In a telephone conversation many years ago, the former Premier told me that the Queen’s Park bureaucracy was decidedly against this move and he really had to push and struggle to accomplish his worthy goals.

High/Tech Clusters and Universities

Economic clusters are composed of interrelated industries and institutions that create value-added wealth primarily through innovation and the export of goods and services. Respect Harvard Professor Michael Porter, whose ideas are taught in almost every business school in the world, is a key proponent of industry clusters that enhance economic development, competitiveness and encourage growth.

Every successful high-technology cluster around the world is anchored by one or more large engineering/research universities with well-funded programs.

Two of the best examples of this university/high-tech cluster connections are California’s Silicon Valley – south of San Francisco – which is anchored by Stanford University’s renowned engineering faculty and the various tech clusters around Boston’s Route 128 that can count on a number of prestigious ivy league universities including the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Harvard.

The technology related sectors of science, math and engineering are enormous wealth creators in any country or region. Remember, it was in the engineering schools of the world that produced innovative products and businesses like the world-wide-web, Microsoft and Apple.

Before I continue, I want to mention two interesting historical facts that are very relevant to the Sudbury’s current mining sector.

The first is that the steam engine was the most important invention in the history of the industrial revolution, which started in the 1760s when James Watt improved an earlier version that was being used to pump water out of the English coal mines. (An extraordinary example of mining technology transfer!)

And it is often said that the people who really made money during the California and Klondike gold rushes were the business people who sold the picks, shovels and other equipment to the gold miners. (Sudbury’s mining supply and service sector is massive!)

Dance With the Partner Who Brought You

Permit me to go on a brief but related tangent. For almost forty years, Sudbury’s much vaunted diversification efforts has primarily been government driven. Those tax dollars are going to be much harder to get with a near bankrupt provincial government. It almost seems that local politicians are still traumatized by those decades of mine layoffs, which started in 1977, and have developed a default mindset of “any industry but mining”.

I can guarantee you that GM will not be locating to Sudbury to build cars. In fact there is a tremendous fear in Oshawa that GM’s commitment to that city is not rock solid. Other recent suggestions that include the potential of film production and aerospace sectors are not based on economic reality. The high paying jobs that the mining sector provides must be our number one economic priority.

Is it not time to set aside our dreams of diversification and instead embrace and promote the mining sector with the enthusiasm that it rightly deserves?

As the old saying goes, “you dance with the partner who brought you!” Yes the mining sector can be a “capricious witch” and this city has 130 years of experience with the industry’s boom and bust cycles. But it has been the primary wealth creator in this community and we will still be digging out that amazingly rich, nickel, copper, cobalt and precious metals ore for generations to come.

Let’s do a quick test about how many local jobs are linked to mining. Take away all tax-funded government jobs including the broader public sector like health, education and social services. Next, take away low paying retail and tourism employment. Now, I challenge you to name five PRIVATE SECTOR companies who employ more than fifty people each, who are NOT connected with the mining sector in some capacity. It is estimated that the mining contributes about 35% to 40% of direct or indirect employment in the community!

I am very pleased that Mayor Brian Bigger and his predominately new council took the time for a 2 ½ hour tour of Sudbury’s industrial parks including a stopover at Atlas Copco with SAMSSA Executive Director Dick DeStefano. Considering his many years of community involvement in both politics and the mineral sector, Mr. DeStefano has become the “unofficial Mayor of Mining emeritus” – and the “go to” person you must talk with if you want a strategic overview of the entire local industry.

Our mining sector is not only our past and present but our ticket to future prosperity if we embrace and market this city’s extraordinary expertise and intelligence in an industry whose products are the foundation of all we build, manufacture and even eat in the case of agricultural fertilizers. (potash and phosphates)

Commodity Supercycle Still Exists

Before I continue, let’s put to rest the media feeding frenzy about the end of the commodity supercyle.

Regardless of the current commodity slump and the slowest growth rate in China in almost a quarter century, the commodity super cycle is not over. And we need to remember that in 2015, China is now the second largest economy in the world so current growth rates of around 7% consume more minerals than the 10% growth rates of a decade ago when the country had a much smaller GDP.

As Doug Morrison, the President and CEO of Sudbury-based CEMI has often stated, “For the last 70 years, the global mining industry’s capacity to supply the necessary minerals for a population of roughly one billion middleclass lifestyles in the west has been adequate. However, over the next few decades, there are an additional two billion who want our high standard of living and how are we going to find and mine the necessary raw materials to help them urbanize and industrialize. The commodity super-cycle is definitely not over, it’s just taking a much needed break.”

Hence the tremendous need to keep educating the next generation of mining engineers and geologists.

Four Mineral Clusters in the “Paris of the Mining World”

While I can’t remember who coined the phrase “Sudbury, the Paris of the Mining World” – I wish I had been that clever – there is an amazing amount of truth to the statement. Obviously, in no uncertain terms, does any part of Sudbury remind anyone – even in a severally drugged or drunken state – of Paris.

However, my lake-filled, mid-sized hometown does have a wide variety of retail, tourist, educational and other amenities that most tiny isolated mining towns do not and it is located only 400 kilometres north of Canada’s largest city, Toronto.

A few years ago, a colleague who moved from Red Lake to Sudbury almost considered herself in “mining heaven” with the abundance of amenities not found in that tiny gold mining centre.

In addition to the Ontario government’s new differentiation and international student outreach policies, there are many other reasons why all post-secondary mining programs should be relocated to Sudbury’s Laurentian.

There are four major mining clusters located in the Sudbury Basin. The first is the primary mineral producers, Vale, Glencore, KGHM and two juniors, First Nickel and Wallbridge and their many mines, two mills, two smelters and one refinery.

When you include the geological terrain between Sudbury, Timmins, Kirkland Lake and North Bay no other place on the planet has the concentration of hardrock mines and expertise except for two regions in South Africa, the Witswaterand gold mining district and the Bushveld platinum/chromium mineral belt and the Antofagasta copper region in northern Chile. While not as large, the cluster of underground gold mines in Nevada’s Carlin Trend also needs to be mentioned.

And on a historical note, we must not forget the many uranium underground mines that were built in Elliot Lake – only 120 kilometres west of Sudbury – during the cold war era of the 1950s and 1960s that greatly contributed to the underground mining expertise in the Sudbury/North Bay corridor.

In 2014, Vale opened its first new mine – Totten is its sixth local mine – in the Sudbury Basin in 40 years while Glencore opened its exceptionally rich Nickel Rim South mine in 2010. Both of these operations embody the high-tech digital mines of the future, integrating highly sophisticated data and communications systems and using cutting edge technology for ground control and ventilation systems that significantly improve worker productivity and safety.

KGHM is spending almost a billion to develop its Victoria deposit while Vale is looking towards another new mine, Copper Cliff Deep. While the Vale mine has yet to receive board approval, it has the potential of a low-risk, long-term source of feed for their operations.

SAMSSA

The second major cluster is the mining supply and services sector. In 2003, recognizing the need for an industry association – a critical part of any successful technology cluster – Executive Director Dick DeStefano established the Sudbury Area Mining Supply and Service Association as well as commissioning a definitive study that indentified the multi-billion dollar contributions of this sector for then skeptical politicians. SAMSSA members now include companies from across northeastern Ontario.

DeStefano estimates that there are roughly 13, 000 people directly employed locally – significantly more than the mines themselves – by slightly over 300 mining supply and services companies and throughout the rest of northeastern Ontario, which has often been called the hardrock mining heartland of North America, we are looking at about 23, 000 jobs and 500 plus businesses.

Due to 130 years of mining activity, the supply and services industry is composed of a wide variety of companies that include shaft sinkers, specialty pipe manufacturing, developers of wireless sensor detection programs, robotic and automation systems, specialty mine software and numerous mine engineering and design firms, just to mention a few.

On an annual basis, the mining supply and services industry has been averaging roughly $4 billion in sales in the Sudbury Basin and about $5 billion throughout Northeastern Ontario. A new generation of entrepreneurs are focusing on advanced technologies and innovation that can be globally exported.

To further promote sales and collaboration of Sudbury’s mining supply and services, research and education expertise, the community should establish trade links by twinning itself with Antofagasta, Chile, and Rustenburg and Johannesburg, South Africa.

In fact, we should also twin ourselves with many other mining cities around the world including, Lublin, Poland the headquarters of KGHM, Norilsk, Russia, which mines nickel, copper and PGMs like Sudbury, Jinchang, China which is known as that country’s Nickel City and gold mining centres like Kalgoorlie, Australia and Elko, Nevada.

Mining Education and Research Clusters

The final two clusters are mining education and research and innovation which are done within the mining companies, post-secondary facilities, supply and service companies and as stand-alone institutes.

Laurentian University’s well respected Bharti School of Engineering and Earth Sciences faculties are supported by the recently established Goodman School of Mines, being lead by Dr. Bruce Jago. He will support expansion of mining-related programs in occupational health and safety, Indigenous relations and mine finance and mine and mineral exploration management.

Dr. Jago will also develop continuing education and short programs for mining executives, enhancing their skills in a constantly changing and demanding sector.

In addition, he will establish new alliances with other mining schools across Canada and the world, further enhancing the University’s international reputation and is committed to doubling mining related enrolment by the end of the decade.

Both Cambrian College and French language Collège Boréal offer mining engineering technician and technology programs, alongside a wide variety of welding, civil engineering, mechanical, other trades and environmental related programs. In addition, both conduct some mining related research and product innovation and closely consult with the local industry.

Silicon Valley of Hardrock Mining

The Northern Centre for Advanced Technology (NORCAT) is a leading private, non-profit centre that concentrates on innovation, entrepreneurship and life-long learning with a strong focus on the mining sector and health and safety training. The centre has an operating mine that is used for training, project demonstration and the development of new products.

Both Vale and Glencore conduct underground mine research at their Sudbury operations while XPS Consulting, owned by Glencore International, focuses on metallurgical testing and challenges.
The Centre for Excellence in Mining Innovation (CEMI) conducts “step-change innovation in areas of exploration, deep mining, integrated mine engineering, environment and sustainability.” It is part of the ultra-deep mine consortium which is focused on economically and sustainably mining at extreme depths in excess of 2.5 kilometres or 8,200 feet. Vale’s Creighton mine is at the 8,000 foot level and intends to go to 10,000 feet.

There are extraordinary challenges operating at these depths and the consortium is focused on rock stress risk reduction, energy costs due to cooling requirements, transporting material at these great depths and managing the enormously hot environment for the workers. The research work being done is as innovative as any done in the high-tech hot spots of the world or in the Kitchener/Waterloo technology hub.

The Mineral Exploration Research Centre (MERC) which is associated with Laurentian’s Earth Sciences department conducts leading-edge, field-based collaborative research on mineral deposits. This semi-autonomous research centre is one of the largest clusters of mineral exploration and education. I have been told by one of the top geoscientists in the country – who doesn’t want his name used due to academic politics – that the MERC/Laurentian Earth Science group is the best in Canada. Its facilities are adjacent to the world-class Ontario Geological Survey and the provincial Geoscience laboratories.

Other hardrock mine research facilities include the Canadian Mining Industry Research Organization (CAMIRO) which works on innovations to help improve productivity and lesson environmental impacts and the Mining Innovation Rehabilitation and Applied Research Corporation (MIRARCO) which focuses in the field of geotechnical engineering to promote safer and more economical mineral development and underground construction.

The Vale Living with Lakes Centre works closely with Vale, Glencore and other academic institutes to study the effects and potential remediation of northern wetlands impacted by mining activities. Of particular interest is the eventual mineral development in the Ring of Fire located in the James Bay swampy muskeg.

Mining lands restoration research and implementation by the universities and local government, alongside with company tailings regreening and expertise in tailing dam management need to be mentioned and the billions spent on sulphur pollution controls – current and past projects – by both Vale and Glencore all contribute to Sudbury’s world-class environmental expertise.

This is why Sudbury is sometime called the Silicon Valley of the hardrock world. It’s not PR spin! Without a doubt the city has the largest concentration of highly skilled mining technocrats in the country, if not North America. They are an extraordinary human resource that Laurentian’s privileged mining students are able to access sometime during their university careers. This is the reason Dick DeStefano is always highlighting the importance of “mining intelligence.”

Premier Wynne Must Act With Vision

By default, the lack of an Ontario mining education strategy only encourages the wasteful duplication of three mining engineering faculties and 11 earth science/geology programs across provincial universities that are not sustainable in the current deficit-plagued era.

Does Premier Wynne have the same vision and determination as her Liberal predecessor and is she ready to place her own mark on history by consolidating all of Ontario’s university mining programs at Laurentian and creating a global powerhouse of underground educational expertise that will benefit the entire province?

 

Stan Sudol is a Toronto-based communications consultant, mining columnist and owner/editor of www.republicofmining.com  He can be reached at stan.sudol@republicofmining.com