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.

Occasionally, we do the right thing in Northern Ontario. We focus on the right stuff, stay with it, attract broad-based support, stop competing with one another long enough to get something done and we move the hash marks forward.
 
Usually this success comes from one person or a group of like-minded people who form a working trust and are determined, fearless, single-minded, often rude, sometimes arrogant and always in a hurry.
 
You see this in business, politics, sports and economic development. What you don’t see often is succession from one hard-driving generation to another. One of the reasons is that, just like entrepreneurs who start their own businesses, larger than life groups or individuals in the civil society suck up the oxygen in the room and there isn’t much room for successors to grow and spread their wings. Most great politicians who change a city, a province or the country don’t think they will ever lose an election. Most entrepreneurs don’t think they will ever die. Great leaders are often too busy, too focused, and too passionate about today to give much thought to tomorrow when they have moved on. It is just unimaginable to them. Read the rest of this entry »

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

Jeff Lafortune teaches in the civil and mining engineering technologist program at College Boreal he graduated from 15 years ago. In that decade and a half, he has seen a tremendous demand build for skilled mining employees.

“When I graduated, there was one company in town … and there were 15 of us wanting that job,” Lafortune said Saturday. “Now, there are 15 companies wanting that one person. So it’s opportunity for the kids. It’s unreal,” said Lafortune, who was taking part in a career fair at the New Sudbury Centre as part of Sudbury Mining Week.

Lafortune was advising people who stopped at his booth about job possibilities after they graduate from the three-year program in which students learn skills such as surveying, ventilation, planning and designing, “and a whole realm of different work.”

He worked 15 years in the industry with several mining companies before heading to the classroom. “In mines, when I left, you could see it was hard to keep and retain” employees, said Lafortune. The mining industry is booming and skilled tradespeople have their pick of the best jobs. Read the rest of this entry »

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

IT SEEMS there is so much going on in Thunder Bay that it’s hard to keep track of. In one way, that’s a good thing. Thunder Bay needs development to complement what’s left of forestry, build on the next big mining boom and capitalize on the emergence of medical research clusters.

But citizens need to keep aware and be apprised of all these initiatives. It’s our community, our region, and the power brokers must always bear in mind who’s in charge. Grand plans cost money and it mostly comes from taxpayers.

There are two distinct camps among supporters of a proposed event centre. Those who favour a downtown waterfront site agree it will build on and feed off the city’s designated entertainment district surrounding it. Those set on Innova Business Park like the wide-open space to allow for on-site parking and access from adjacent expressways.

A letter writer today wonders if Thunder Bay and area’s notoriously fickle sports fans will troop to a new arena when so few fail to attend events like the Dudley Hewitt Cup. Read the rest of this entry »

www.mineweb.com

Whether it be a junior, an intermediate or a major, it seems mining companies are scouting the world to find skilled workers for the latest mining boom.

TORONTO (BLOOMBERG) - Bruno Rizzuto’s father, Cesare, was 19 when he got off a boat in Halifax from southern Italy in 1951. With no coat, and “5 cents in his pocket” he headed for the gold mines of Timmins, Ontario, where he worked underground for 41 years.
 
Six decades later Rizzuto, a Calgary-based recruiter, is looking for people like his father, with a proposal to bring 10 to 20 miners to Canada from South America as companies scour the world to find workers for the latest mining boom.
 
“There are just simply not the people there, and I think it’s going to be the Achilles heel of the industry,” said Rizzuto, 38, managing partner at Cadre Staffing Inc. “A lot of these projects will not be able to get off the ground because they will not have either the management capacity to do so or the operational workforce.”
 
Mining companies such as Barrick Gold Corp. (ABX) are struggling to fill vacancies amid a skills shortage that stretches from the iron-ore pits of Western Australia to Chile’s copper mines and the gold deposits of Quebec. 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.

International reputation

When Richard Spence was a young adult searching for the next step in his life, the Haileybury School of Mines was the answer.
 
“After high school, I wasn’t sure what I wanted to do,” he said. “My dad picked up a hitchhiker who was attending the school and he raved about it. So I called the guy and ended up here in 1966.”
 
The school celebrates its 100th anniversary this year with a weekend of activities and events from June 15 to 17. For former students like Spence, who currently lives in New Liskeard, the school prepared them well for a life-long career in the mining industry.
 
“I was originally from Thunder Bay and then spent my teenage years in southern Ontario,” he said. “I know I wanted to go back to school and come back North.” Although there were no girls attending the school at that time, Spence said he “became a statistic” when he fell for a local girl and ended up staying in the area. Read the rest of this entry »

www.mineweb.com

With skilled labour in severely short supply, mining companies are paying over the odds for new skills and students are flooding to mining schools in a bid to get a piece of the action.

(Reuters)  -  When Travis Howard started his degree at the Colorado School of Mines four years ago he decided to pursue a double major in mechanical engineering and metallurgy to give himself the best chance of landing a high-paying job when he graduated.
 
Turns out he had nothing to worry about. The 21-year-old, who dropped his mechanical classes to focus on mining after his second year, has accepted a job with Kinross Gold Corp at a starting salary of $64,000 a year plus bonuses.
 
With graduation still a month away, “pretty much everyone is sitting on an offer or two,” said Howard of his classmates, adding that some students were juggling four or five offers.
 
In fact, students at the Colorado School of Mines are some of the most employable in the country – 94 percent of 2011 graduates from the mining engineering, metallurgy and materials, geological engineering, and geophysics programs have jobs. 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.

Thomas Homer-Dixon is director of the Waterloo Institute for Complexity and Innovation and CIGI Chair of Global Systems at the Balsillie School of International Affairs in Waterloo, Ont.

Ontario, we’re told, is Canada’s new rust belt. The high dollar is pummelling the province’s exports. Big manufacturers are fleeing. The Liberal government is slashing spending to maintain the province’s credit rating. And to top it off, it’s wasting money promoting green energy. There’s just one problem with this pop wisdom: It’s largely nonsense.

Ontario certainly faces huge challenges. Its main trading partner – the United States – is only now emerging from the economic doldrums that followed the 2008-09 financial crisis. And since that crisis, the world economy has been struggling with depressed consumer demand, wary investors and aggressive deleveraging by households, businesses and governments.

Ontario wasn’t ready for this new reality. From the early 1990s to the mid-2000s, a weak loonie made Ontario’s products artificially competitive outside Canada, so companies deferred investment in new factories and technologies. 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.

It was an admittedly bittersweet occasion for Darryl Lake when FedNor Minister Tony Clement visited Sudbury’s Northern Centre for Advanced Technology (NORCAT) March 30.
 
Lake was pleased to guide Clement, a long-time friend and supporter, on a tour of the innovation centre, but it was also Lake’s last day at the helm of the organization, which he played an essential role in shaping. And the poignancy of the day wasn’t lost on Clement.
 
“There’s no way you can capture an understanding of NORCAT without feeling the passion and the commitment of Darryl Lake over the years,” he said in an address. “Really, it’s such a moment for this organization, but I just want to say, from the bottom of my heart, thank you so much for everything you’ve put into this. You’ve put your body and soul into this organization.”
 
Clement, president of the federal treasury board, assured Lake and others that FedNor’s support of NORCAT—which, since 2008, has totalled $3.4 million—would be bolstered through Budget 2012 and the federal government’s Economic Action Plan. Read the rest of this entry »

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

Q: What exactly is CEMI?

A: The Centre for Excellence in Mining Innovation is a not for profit organization of about 10 people that was established to help bring innovation in the areas of exploration, deep mining, integrated mine engineering, environment and sustainability to the mining industry of Northern Ontario by directing industry funding to universities and colleges, existing research groups, and the supply and services sector.

It is widely recognized that the era of cost-cutting to survive low commodity prices is gone and the present challenge is to meet the continuing demand of the global economy for metals given the demographics of the industry.
Companies such as Xstrata Nickel, Vale, and Rio Tinto fully recognize that this can be accomplished only by implementing new ideas that will redefine how the mining industry of the future will operate.

Q: What is its mandate?

A: Well, it is the centre for excellence because the mandate is to deliver solutions that can be implemented in the fields of mining operations, exploration, and sustainability. Most metal mines in Canada are underground mines that are getting deeper and hotter, and this presents huge challenges. Read the rest of this entry »

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

The Centre for Excellence in Mining Innovation has made a few changes to prepare for its continued growth. Peter Kaiser, founding president during the startup phase of CEMI, has passed the leadership baton to Douglas Morrison, chair of Holistic Mining Practices, who joined CEMI in 2011 as vice-president.

Kaiser will not be going very far as he will continue to lead the Rio Tinto Centre for Underground Mine Construction, a division of CEMI. During the five years of his leadership the organization more than doubled the initial investment by the Ontario government and founding partners Vale, Xstrata Nickel and Laurentian University.

CEMI directs and coordinates step-change innovation in the areas of exploration, deep mining, integrated mine engineering, environment and sustainability for the metal mining industry. This year, CEMI’s cumulative program funding exceeded the $40-million threshold. Read the rest of this entry »

www.mineweb.com

Gold Fields CEO Nick Holland says the escalating shortage of skilled workers is a major concern for executives globally as the industry presses ahead with projects in increasingly tough and remote places.

JOHANNESBURG (Reuters) - A worsening shortage of skilled workers is the top worry for mining executives globally as the industry presses ahead with projects in increasingly tough and remote places, the chief executive of world No. 4 gold producer Gold Fields said.
 
“A lot of people ask me what is my biggest concern. What keeps me awake? Having skilled people available to do the job and go to locations that ordinarily they might not be too keen to go to,” Nick Holland told the Reuters Global Mining and Metals Summit on Monday.
 
“That is one of the biggest challenges. We are looking to build a whole lot of mines in the future. And getting the right skills to build those mines is a challenge, not only for us, but for the various engineering companies,” he said. The Gold Fields project pipeline ranges from Ghana in West Africa to the Philippines. Read the rest of this entry »

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

Note: This is the third of a multi-part series looking at the mining sector of Northwestern Ontario and the Ring of Fire.
Katherine Bruce likes to blow things up.

A professor of engineering technology at Cambrian College, she described her passion for her previous work in the mining sector, especially in the underground pits, to a large group of rapt attendees at the Mining Your Future conference on Feb. 25.

Bruce is one of the post-secondary institution partners working to develop strategies and solutions for the skill and labour shortage facing the mining industry. Confederation College president Jim Madder is also working to prepare students with diverse backgrounds and interests, for both the direct and indirect jobs available in the mining sector.

“Northwestern Ontario has to change its mindset and realize that there are jobs available,” Madder said.

Confederation is committed to preparing students for those jobs and currently offers flexible upgrading programs and outreach, as well as directly applied programs such as the diamond drillers course and an eight-month mining techniques program. 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.

The Ontario Mining Association’s high school video competition So You Think You Know Mining, which is now in its fourth year, continues to attract more entries. Momentum keeps building with dramatic increases in the level of participation of every edition.  This year, more than 135 videos were received, which is approximately 70% more than the 80-plus last year.
 
Video entries arrived electronically from all parts of the province and students from high schools we had not seen SYTYKM entries from previously have been received for the judges’ consideration.   “We try every year to keep the SYTYKM video competition fresh and interesting for students and educators,” said OMA President Chris Hodgson.  “It is gratifying to see this response.  We know these students invest a great deal of creativity, energy and time into making their productions.”

This year’s competition is making available opportunities to win $33,500 in prize money, an $8,000 increase of what was on the table last year.  Several entries eligible for the Early Bird draw for $500 were received by March 1.  Other key dates in 2012 are April 1 to 15 for the determination of nominees for the People’s Choice and OMA Academy Award, April 20 to June 3, which is the voting period for the People’s Choice Award, and May 22 when winners will be determined and notified.  Read the rest of this entry »

Laurentian Wins Mining Games for 8th Time In Games’ History

SUDBURY, ON (February 27, 2012) – Top marks in mine design, rock mechanics and mineral processing events propelled the Bharti School of Engineering team from Laurentian University to a first-place finish in the 22nd Annual Canadian Mining Games, held February 23rd-26th in Sudbury, Ontario. The team from Laurentian ranked among the top three in 12 of the events that make up the competition, completing the Games with a 27-point margin of victory. The team from Polytechnique in Montreal placed second overall, while Université de Laval took third place.

“The competition was fierce,” said Ramesh Subramanian, Director of the Bharti School of Engineering at Laurentian University. “All of the teams were exceptionally strong this year. I don’t think I’ve ever seen such an extraordinary level of proficiency and talent in this competition.”

Teams of engineering students from ten universities across Canada take part in the competition, a series of 20 challenges that test the skills of future mining engineers. Competitors must complete exercises in surveying, mine and equipment design, and mineral separation. They must also demonstrate mastery in jackleg drilling and operation of scoop trams and excavating equipment. Read the rest of this entry »

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

Sudbury’s Centre for Excellence in Mining Innovation has a new leader.

Douglas Morrison, a mining industry veteran, has been appointed as president and CEO of the mine research centre based at Laurentian University. He assumes his new duties March 1.

In a release, Morrison said he wants “to engage with the best scientists and engineers the academic community has to offer and engage our industrial experience to convert this knowledge into practical solutions that can be implemented as routine into mining operations.

“We also want to collaborate with as many mining research organizations as we can so we do not duplicate what has already been done, but also bring fresh minds to bear on problems that the industry has struggled with for many years, combining long years of experience with the youth and enthusiasm of today’s students for the benefit of the industry as a whole. Read the rest of this entry »