Natural resources may transform northern Manitoba reserves from poverty-stricken to prosperous. Human resources may transform First Nations from have-nots to self-sufficient
No boat trip in Manitoba is prettier than the one between Garden Hill and St. Theresa Point, dodging dozens of tiny, pincushion islands made of bedrock and pine trees.
The Island Lake region should be a quintessentially Canadian jackpot of mining, logging, hydro development and high-end tourism catering to eco-adventurers and rich American sport fishermen. Instead, it’s a national shame.
There appears to be only one thing that will make reserves in northern Manitoba viable communities able to rise above the poverty that’s shackled generations: natural resources.
At the recent Crown-First Nations Gathering in Ottawa, chiefs had education, health care and housing on the brain. But the one resounding theme was a desire to get Ottawa and the provinces to the table so First Nations can finally start reaping the benefits of the natural resources they believe are bountiful on their traditional lands. Read the rest of this entry »
The Daily Press is the city of Timmins broadsheet newspaper.
Company, two First Nations sign memorandum of understanding
An agreement has been reached between a mining firm and two First Nations over mineral rights to about 60,000 hectares of land. Ring of Fire Resources Inc. has entered into a memorandum of understanding (MOU) with the Matachewan and Mattagami First Nations with respect to its mineral exploration activities in 10 townships just north of Timmins.
The memorandum sets out the provisions of a co-operative approach to developing the Ring of Fire Inc. interests within the territorial homelands of the two First Nations. The agreement provides for business and employment opportunities that encourage First Nation participation in the mining industry.
The parties have also committed to negotiating an Impact and Benefits Agreement should the project warrant a mining operation. 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.
Ontario Mining Association member Barrick Hemlo Mines is providing opportunities for residents of two nearby First Nations, Pic River and Pic Mobert, in Northwestern Ontario. In 2009, the original 1992 agreement between Hemlo and these First Nations was broadened. It creates a framework to train First Nations people in skills for present and future mining employment, to support business development and to include involvement in environmental stewardship programs.
“The agreement helps build capacity in First Nation communities to ensure that they benefit from mining,” said Roger Souckey, Superintendent of Employee Relations at Hemlo Mines. “About 50 First Nations people work at Hemlo Mines, or about 10% of the workforce. The mine is a benefit to the area.”
The Hemlo Operations of Barrick include the Williams and David Bell gold mines. The mines purchased goods and services worth $35 million in Ontario in 2010 and $147 million in Canada. In 2010, Hemlo Mines paid taxes and royalties of $8 million and contributed a further $800,000 in a variety of donations to local communities. Read the rest of this entry »
The Canada Mining Innovation Council Signature Event 2012″ brings together industry, academic and government decision-makers to discuss the need for innovation in mining in Canada.
“…so I’d like to take a moment to talk about the Ring of Fire, a
relatively new mining region in the James Bay lowlands….For Ontario, this area is of strategic importance since it could open up the entire region to greater prosperity. It has significant potential to create wealth, and provide taxes and royalties for government.” (Joe Oliver, Minister Natural Resources Canada)
The Hon. Joe Oliver:
Ladies and gentlemen, thank you very much. Thank you also for all your good work and your leadership of this important council.
Et sincère remerciement au Conseil canadien d’innovation minière pour l’occasion de prendre part à la discussion de ce matin.
Thank you very much to the Canadian Mining Innovation Council (CMIC) for the opportunity to be part of the discussion this morning. It’s an honour to be here on behalf of Prime Minister Stephen Harper. As Canada’s Minister responsible for mining, I take pride in being part of this network of industry, government and academic leaders who are working together to strengthen Canada’s role as a global leader in mining innovation. Read the rest of this entry »
Canadian author and photographer Ed Struzik has been writing on the Arctic for three decades.
Canada’s Nunavut Territory is the largest undisturbed wilderness in the Northern Hemisphere. It also contains large deposits of uranium, generating intense interest from mining companies and raising concerns that a mining boom could harm the caribou at the center of Inuit life.
Until her semi-nomadic family moved into the tiny Inuit community of Baker Lake in the 1950s, Joan Scottie never knew there was a wider world beyond her own on the tundra of the Nunavut Territory in the Canadian Arctic. She didn’t see the inside of a school until she was a teenager and didn’t venture south until she was an adult.
But that all changed in 1978, when a Soviet satellite carrying 100 pounds of enriched uranium for an onboard nuclear reactor crashed into the middle of the wilderness she knew so well, resulting in a military search that recovered some of the radioactive debris. Everything that Scottie learned about uranium after that convinced her she wanted nothing to do with a mineral that had the potential to cause such serious health problems or be used for military purposes. 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.
ATTAWAPISKAT, ONT. — At Micheline Okimaw’s White Wolf Inn, the most popular of the two motels in this remote James Bay reserve, visitors to town tend to cross paths. And in recent days, in Okimaw’s cozy confines, folks arrived trying to help the community with both its future and its past.
From the organization Mining Matters, a travelling “school of rock” in the person of Toronto teachers Barbara Green Parker, Janice Williams and Jenni Piette, came a high-energy presentation on earth sciences and how that field could lead to jobs for young people in projects like a nearby diamond mine.
From Angela Lafontaine, a member of the Moose Cree First Nation, survivor of her own difficult past, came help addressing long-standing wounds that have gone unhealed down generations and helped sabotage aboriginal aspirations.
For the Cree of Attawapiskat, each of those aims — hopeful futures, reconciled pain — is as necessary as the other. Read the rest of this entry »
AME BC is the predominant voice of mineral exploration and development in British Columbia. Established in 1912, AME BC represents thousands of members including geoscientists, prospectors, engineers, entrepreneurs, exploration companies, suppliers, mineral producers, and associations who are engaged in mineral exploration and development in BC and throughout the world.
Through leadership, advocacy, and partnerships, AME BC promotes a healthy environment and business climate for the mineral exploration industry. http://www.amebc.ca/Home.aspx
The mining sector is the largest private sector employer of First Nations people in Canada. This 20 minute documentary about First Nations involvement in the exploration and mining industry was in British Columbia was produced by AME BC.
The Vancouver Sun, a broadsheet daily paper first published in 1912, has the largest circulation in the province of British Columbia.
Aboriginal opposition to development of silver-zinc deposit in Nahanni National Park Reserve is supported by writer’s great-granddaughter
Celebrated writer Jack London’s great-granddaughter is supporting northern first nations and environmental groups challenging efforts by a Vancouver mining company to redevelop a rich silver-zinc deposit within the Nahanni National Park Reserve.
The park, surrounding the South Nahanni River where it carves through the Mackenzie Mountains about 1,300 kilometres north of Vancouver, has been called Canada’s Grand Canyon.
Last December, the Dehcho First Nations wrote to the federal government saying that a decision by the Mackenzie Valley Environmental Impact Review Board dismissing the need for an environmental impact review for the Canadian Zinc Corp.’s Prairie Creek mine was “troubling and disappointing” in its failure to adequately address their concerns about downstream water quality. 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.
ATTAWAPISKAT, ONT.—For more than 20 years, Gilles Bisson has been visiting Attawapiskat, often flying his own small plane up to this remote Cree reserve. As much as any outsider can, he knows all the people, all the issues. Being a smart guy, he also knows how much he doesn’t know.
“Sometimes,” sighs the veteran New Democrat MPP for Timmins-James Bay. “I wonder if I really understand the community any better now than when I started.”
Attawapiskat is basically built on swamp, about 300 kilometres north of Moosonee on the James Bay coast. And the imagery fits. Lately, as the reserve became the new Canadian shorthand for native need, dysfunction and failure, its problems have seemed just as boggy and intractable.
The community is, to be sure, everything it has been portrayed as and more — a world of chronic poverty and dependence, of babies having far too many babies, of cascading generations piling up in shanties, of disheartening self-sabotage, of nepotism and decidedly imperfect governance. 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. Ian Ross is the editor of Northern Ontario Business ianross@nob.on.ca.
Nipissing MPP Vic Fedeli said the provincially-appointed Ring of Fire coordinator admitted to him that she has never set foot on the burgeoning mineral exploration camp in the James Bay lowlands.
He is accusing the McGuinty government of mismanaging the Ring of Fire mining development in the James Bay lowlands. Kaszycki was a guest speaker at a professional engineers luncheon in North Bay, Jan. 27.
Fedeli, who attended the event as the Ontario Progressive Conservative Energy Critic, introduced himself to Kaszycki and spoke of his experience in the exploration camp last year. He flew up to the region with Muskoka MPP Norm Miller last August for one day to tour the area.
The Ring of Fire is roughly 530 kilometres northeast of Thunder Bay and is the site of a cluster of world class, multi-generational chromite deposits. Chromite is processed into ferrochrome which is used in the making of stainless steel. Read the rest of this entry »
Ontario Court Halts Exploration After Mining Company Refused to Consult First Nation – Nalin Sahni & David Hunter
The Wahgoshig First Nation (“WFN”) in Northern Ontario has obtained an injunction to temporarily stop Solid Gold Resources Corp. (“Solid Gold”), a junior mining company, from drilling on their First Nation Treaty lands. In a decision released last week (2011 ONSC 7708 (CanLII)), Justice Brown of the Ontario Superior Court halted all exploration activities for at least 120 days after finding that Solid Gold had repeatedly failed to respond to consultation requests from both WFN and the Ontario Government.
While this decision should not come as a surprise to knowledgeable observers, it is important for three reasons:
1) It confirms that as yet there is no Aboriginal veto over mining exploration activities;
2) It highlights problems with the Crown’s practice of delegating the consultation to proponents and Read the rest of this entry »
A mineral exploration company that was forced by injunction to halt drilling outside Wahgoshig First Nation has responded with a two-pronged legal attack.
Solid Gold Resource Corporation has filed an appeal against the court’s decision to award an injunction and it is suing the Ontario government.
“We’re appealing the injunction that was awarded to Wahgoshig, ordering the Crown and Solid Gold to enter some kind of consultation,” said company president Darryl Stretch. That appeal is to be heard on Feb. 29 in Toronto.
“We have also just served notice to the Crown for damages that have affected our company as a result of this injunction,” said Stretch. “That claim is for at least $100 million.” 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.
OTTAWA—Chief Theresa Spence says she has the answer to turning around her troubled aboriginal community of Attawapiskat — getting a share of the resource revenues flowing from a nearby diamond mine.
Without that, she warns that the troubling living conditions on her northern Ontario community will likely worsen and that lives may even be lost.
“Great riches are being taken from our land for the benefit of a few, including the Government of Canada and Ontario, who receive large royalty payments while we receive so little,” Spence said during a lunch speech Tuesday.
“Our lands have been stripped from us and yet development on our land area in timber, hydro and mining have created unlimited wealth for non-native people and their governments,” she said. Read the rest of this entry »
TORONTO - Solid Gold Resources Corp. (TSXV:SLD) says it plans to sue the Ontario government for $100 million over a ruling that temporarily prevents the junior mining company from drilling on Crown land near traditional First Nation territory.
The company alleges the province is liable for losses it suffered after a ruling earlier this month sided with the Wahgoshig First Nation in saying Solid Gold failed to consult before beginning its exploration.
Solid Gold has said any duty to consult with First Nations falls to the government, not the mining company, and it’s not something the province can delegate.
Solid Gold president Darryl Stretch, who is appealing the injunction, said the ruling has far-reaching implications because it means it would now be up to companies to get consent from First Nations on any project that runs near their traditional land. 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.
Catherine Murton Stoehr is an instructor in the department of history at Nipissing University.
On Tuesday, Assembly of First Nations national chief Shawn Atleo presented Governor General David Johnston a silver wampum belt symbolizing the relationship between the British people and the First Nations. He stopped short of saying what we all know to be true, that the chain is almost rusted out.
One of the central reasons for this breakdown is that non-aboriginal Canadians see all money and resources given to First Nations people as charity, while people in Atleo’s world see it as rent. If you’re handing out charity, you get to set conditions like submission to unelected managers. But people paying rent don’t get to interfere in their landlords’ business.
When British officials took over the land and destroyed the hunt in northern Ontario, they promised to immediately rebuild aboriginal communities’ infrastructure and then to support that infrastructure forever. In the same way that a lease remains in effect as long as a person rents a house, the treaties remain in effect as long as non-First Nations people live in Canada. Consistently fulfilling the terms of the treaties is the minimum ethical requirement of living on the land of Canada. Read the rest of this entry »
