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Ontario Mining

Grassroots mineral exploration is undergoing a massive decline – by Ed Thompson (Canadian Mining Journal – April 2014)

The Canadian Mining Journal, is Canada’s first mining publication.

E. G. Thompson has worked in the exploration industry for over 50 years and been associated with a number of successful mining companies.

With both the senior and junior mining/exploration companies facing a plethora of problems, grassroots exploration is undergoing a dramatic decline as the industry comes off its recent highs.

Most of the senior companies have had massive cost overruns on their projects due to a combination of inflation , permitting , environmental and social costs and delays and difficult engineering supervision in their attempts to develop large projects in remote areas of the world.

Virtually no major mining project performed to specification and the financial markets have downgraded these companies. Lower metal prices, especially for gold, and many governments raising taxes, have exacerbated the situation.

This negative publicity has not been lost on the investor who understandably says “If the majors can’t perform, why should I risk my money on juniors?” 

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NEWS RELEASE: Keep dates open for seventh annual mine reclamation conference

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 and the Canadian Land Reclamation Association are once again combining forces for the Ontario Mine Reclamation Symposium and Field Trip, which is being held June 17 and 18, 2014 in Peterborough. This will be the seventh annual conference dedicated to this industry environmental activity.

A one-day symposium will highlight the history and status of mining in Southern Ontario. Also on the agenda are updates on current research and rehabilitation practices and specific reclamation projects.

The field trip will take participants to mine and aggregate sites in the Peterborough and Bancroft areas. This area was home to some of the earliest mining sites in Ontario. As part of the program, there is also a reception and banquet.

The ceremony will include the presentation of the Tom Peters Mine Reclamation Awards. There are two components to this environmental award – for companies rehabilitating specific mine sites and a $5,000 scholarship for university students, who must deliver a presentation on their research topic.

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NEWS RELEASE: Mining weeks — and days — help recognize and celebrate industry contributions

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.

Mining brings a lot to the society and economy of Ontario. The Ontario Mining Association’s website www.oma.on.ca contains a number of studies which illustrate the industry’s contribution to direct and indirect employment, transportation networks and other vital infrastructure, high tech investment in Research & Development, taxes provided, balance of trade support, communications and community development.

To help remind us all about the vital role of mining and its importance, several communities across the province hold Mining Week, or Mining Day, activities to focus on those contributions. By way of example, a strictly non-exhaustive sample of some of these events follow.

In Timmins, members of the local mining community have declared May 24 to 30, 2014 as Mining Week. During that period Northern Mines Expo is being held May 28 and 29 at the McIntyre Community Centre. Also, on Saturday, May 24, Timmins Square will be the focal point for a number of mineral related activities and displays.

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News Release: Transforming the Ontario Northland Transportation Commission

Ontario Investing in Northeastern Transportation Services and Infrastructure

April 4, 2014 11:07 a.m.Ministry of Northern Development and Mines

Ontario will continue to operate the motor coach, Polar Bear Express, rail freight, and refurbishment services of the Ontario Northland Transportation Commission (ONTC) as a government-owned transportation company.

The province will make new strategic investments to ensure ONTC’s transportation services and infrastructure continue to support economic growth in northeastern Ontario.

The investments include more than $23 million over three years, subject to annual budget approvals, to purchase new motor coaches for its bus line and to refurbish rail coaches for the Polar Bear Express. This will maintain and improve vital transportation services, and provide new work for the ONTC refurbishment division.

Ontario has also reached an agreement with Bell Aliant to purchase Ontera. Proceeds from the sale include $6 million in cash and will result in long-term revenue to ONTC estimated at $10 million. The province and Bell Aliant will each commit $15.1 million as part of a $30.2 million public-private investment in telecommunications infrastructure in northeastern Ontario.

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Gold bugs invade Northern Ontario – by Marilyn Scales (Canadian Mining Journal – March 26, 2014)

Marilyn Scales is a field editor for the Canadian Mining Journal, Canada’s first mining publication. She is one of Canada’s most senior mining commentators.

It’s already bug season in Northern Ontario – gold bug season that is. The numbers of junior exploration companies eager to drill the region are almost as many as there will be blackflies when the weather warms up. Well … maybe not quite as many, but the winter drilling programs are promising for some.

Toronto’s Harte Gold Corp. is examining its Hemlo style Sugar zone property, located 60 km east of the Hemlo camp, between White River and Hornepayne. Having discovered what it calls the “Peacock Boulder” with gold values up to 87 g/t, Harte has mounted surface and airborne surveys. The next step is to conduct an induced polarization and magnetic survey to targets for additional drilling. The Sugar zone gas a 43-101 compliant indicated resource of 1.12 tonnes grading 8.41 g/t and an inferred resource of 417,000 tonnes grading 7.13 g/t. (HarteGold.com)

Lake Shore Gold has identified new, high grade structures near the current mining at the Bell Creek Labine deposit in the Timmins area. The previously untested gap in the North A zone and two hanging wall structures returned 14.12 g/t over 10.2 metres, 8.41 g/t over 12.0 metres, and 7.01 g/t over 10.7 metres. Near the active 685 level mine workings, core assayed 11.42 g/t over 3.6 metres, 8.47 g/t over 4.6 metres, 7.76 g/t over 8.7 metres, 5.96 g/t over 6.5 metres, and 6.38 g/t over 6.0 metres.

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Ontario, First Nations ink RoF regional framework agreement – by Henry Lazenby (MiningWeekly.com – March 26, 2014)

http://www.miningweekly.com/page/americas-home

TORONTO (miningweekly.com) – The province of Ontario and Matawa-member First Nations on Wednesday took an important step to move development of the province’s vast northernmost mineral wealth forward, by reaching a landmark regional framework agreement that will ensure First Nation communities benefit from the proposed Ring of Fire (RoF) mining camp.

The agreement is a first step in a historic, community-based negotiation process, which began in July last year at the request of nine Matawa-member First Nations.

“This regional framework agreement is a landmark achievement in community and regional discussions. I am proud that our collaborative work with Matawa-member First Nations continues to progress.

“Together, we are moving forward on realising the RoF’s potential and making important advancements on regional, environmental and economic developments,” Northern Development and Mines Minister Michael Gravelle said.

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Green Party of Ontario News Release: Stop the fire sale of Ontario’s natural resources

 http://www.gpo.ca/

Submitted by Amy Watson on Tue, 2014-03-25 10:06

Queen’s Park – Green Party of Ontario leader Mike Schreiner is calling on the Liberal government to end the fire sale of the province’s natural resources in the spring budget.

“It’s outrageous that the Liberals are selling off our natural resources at rock bottom prices when the province has a record $11 billion deficit,” says Schreiner. “The people of Ontario deserve their fair share of the province’s resource wealth.”

Mining, aggregates and water taking are all important parts of doing business in Ontario. But these activities also have costs in terms of remediation, decreased resource availability and loss of natural heritage, farmland and biodiversity. The costs of extraction should not be borne by taxpayers.

Ontario has the lowest effective mining royalty rate in Canada. In 2010 and 2011 the province’s mining industry extracted metals and minerals valued at $17 billion but only paid 1.4 per cent ($250 million) for these resources. The average Canadian rate for the same period was 5.6 per cent.

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In the aftermath [Elliot Lake Mall Collapse] – Mine Rescue – by Ian Ross (Northern Ontario Business – March 24, 2014)

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.

Ontario Mine Rescue stood anxiously on the sidelines during the fatal Elliot Lake mall collapse, but it may prove to be a watershed event in the history and evolution of the 86-year-old volunteer organization.

In the investigative aftermath, a new relationship has sprung up between the Sudbury-based Mine Rescue and Toronto’s Heavy Urban Search and Rescue (HUSAR) Task Force that was deployed to the Algo Centre Mall when the rooftop parking lot collapsed in 2012, killing two.

“I think it’s going to transform and reshape things,” said Alex Gryska, director for Mine Rescue. No formal mutual aid agreement has ever existed between them, but that could all change in the coming months.

The two organizations have met regularly since the conclusion of the Elliot Lake Inquiry’s testimony phase to talk about joint training exercises sometime this year. “We need to know the nature of how we (each) operate,” said Gryska.

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Top Ten Mining Events in Northern Ontario History – by Stan Sudol (March 22, 2014)

This column was also published on the Huffington Post – the “New York Times” of the web: http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/stan-sudol/ontario-mining_b_4885841.html

Klondike Versus Northern Ontario

For crying out loud, I continue to be astonished with our collective Canadian obsession over the Klondike Gold Rush while northern Ontario’s rich and vibrant mining history is completely ignored by the Toronto media establishment, especially the CBC.

Discovery Channel’s recent six-hour mini-series on the Klondike – vaguely based on Charlotte Gray’s book, “Gold Diggers: Striking It Rich in the Klondike – once again highlighted this glaring snub.

Unfairly, the Klondike did have the benefit of terrific public relations due to famous writers like Jack London, Robert W. Service and Pierre Berton, but I still don’t understand how this brief mining boom continues to dominate the “historical oxygen” in our national psyche.

At its peak, the Klondike only lasted a few years – 1896-1899 – and produced about 12.5 million ounces of gold. And unlike the California gold rush that created one of the largest and richest states in the union, the entire Yukon Territory’s population today is about 36,000. Contrast that with booming Timmins with 45,000 hardy souls who have dug out of the ground about 68 million ounces and counting of the precious metal, since the Porcupine Gold rush of 1909.

It’s enough to make to make Benny Hollinger, Jack Wilson and Sandy MacIntyre – the founders of this extraordinary deposit – spin in their collective graves!

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Trust, compromise required to resolve overlapping territory [Wabun Tribal Council] – by Shawn Batise (Onotassiniik Magazine – Spring 2014)

 http://onotassiniik.com/

The following is from a presentation by Shawn Batise at the 2013 Mining Ready Summit in Timmins, hosted by Nishnawbe Aski Development Fund. Batise is executive director of Wabun Tribal Council, which has six member First Nations: Beaverhouse, Brunswick House, Chapleau Ojibwe, Flying Post, Matechewan, and Mattagami.

I’ve been involved with Wabun Tribal Council since it started in 1990. The Wabun communities are in northeastern Ontario, all within about a two-hour drive of Timmins. Their traditional territories kind of intersect here in Timmins.

It’s the busiest area in the province in terms of mining exploration and development, and mining has become top of mind in most of the communities of our tribal council. With our participation in resource development over the past five to seven years, I’ve never seen more growth in the communities in terms of wealth, health, better jobs … being economically well off.

A large part of it is because of what we’ve been able to do in the tribal council area, with the help of the First Nations, obviously, in negotiating agreements around mining development. Things have really taken off. We’ve created a number of businesses servicing the industry that have been very successful.

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Whose duty to consult [First Nations]? – by Doug Beazley (National Magazine – March 2014)

http://nationalmagazine.ca/

It’s being left up to resource companies to negotiate access to aboriginal land. Is government outsourcing DTC to the private sector? Hindsight says everyone involved probably should have seen it coming.

In June 2012 — more than a year before Cliffs Natural Resources Inc. suspended its planned $3.3-billion chromite-mining operation in Northern Ontario, putting the entire Ring of Fire mining rush on the bubble — Northern Superior Resources quietly halted exploration of its gold claims in northwestern Ontario.

The junior miner was mired in a dispute with the local Sachigo Lake First Nation over compensation for exploration activities in Treaty 9 territory. Under Ontario’s Mining Act, mining start-ups on aboriginal land can proceed only after consultation with local aboriginal communities, which the company did. But things went off the rails.

The company found itself embroiled in disputes with the community over invoices and fees. At one point, the First Nation blocked two Northern Superior staffers from flying out of the community for a day.

In October 2013, Northern Superior filed a $110-million statement of claim against the Ontario government in a case that maps one of the deepest fault lines in the relationship between the Crown and First Nations: the legal doctrine of duty-to-consult (DTC).

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Major role for Aboriginal partners in Northern Ontario Detour Lake mine – by Bryan Phelan (Onotassiniik Magazine – Spring 2014)

http://onotassiniik.com/

The figure seemed so high, Leonard Rickard double-checked his calculations. Rickard, Aboriginal affairs manager for Detour Gold Corporation, had been asked to determine the value of Aboriginal participation in construction of the company’s Detour Lake gold mine.

To find the answer, Rickard pored over all contracts associated with building the mine, line by line. He discovered – and confirmed upon double-checking – Aboriginal businesses and joint ventures had done more than $400 million worth of the construction work.

Surprised when presented with the information, Rickard’s supervisor also wondered whether this extraordinary level of Aboriginal involvement had really been achieved or if the number reported was just the result of a typo.

“People assumed I meant to say $40 million, something in that area,” Rickard recalls, “but to be able to say we did $400 million was quite amazing … certainly well above what we had anticipated.” It’s also a big share of the $1.5 billion total cost of construction.

The open-pit Detour Lake mine is located 185 kilometres northeast of Cochrane on a site that had been mined previously, most recently by Placer Dome in the late 1990s.

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NEWS RELEASE: One mine, a multitude of economic benefits

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.

Any new employer and enterprise in Ontario should be celebrated for the job and business opportunities it provides. Every one boosts the province’s economy, produces tax revenue to support infrastructure and provides stability to society. Because of the large scale involved, the start-up of a new mine multiplies the positive economic impact of most new businesses.

Last month, Vale officially opened the Totten nickel-copper mine in the Sudbury Basin. It is located in Worthington, which is about 40 kilometres west of Sudbury. Senior company management, employees, the Premier, the Minister of Northern Development and Mines, local First Nations leaders and municipal officials were on hand to show support and participate in the mine’s opening ceremonies. For sure this was an event worth celebrating, so let’s look at some of the numbers behind this new mine to see what benefits it offers.

The capital expenditures to bring the new mine into production were $760 million – more than three-quarters of billion dollars. The development of the project took seven years to complete. In order to put this sum into perspective, the 2014 operating budget for the City of Greater Sudbury is projected at $502 million and the projected operating budget for Windsor in 2014 is $722 million.

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Quebec and Ontario: Different Mining Acts for Similar Issues – by Herb Shields and Raymond Goulet – (Stantec Blog -March 14, 2014)

http://stantecinc.blogspot.ca/

Herb Shields is an Aboriginal Relations Specialist with Stantec. Raymond Goulet is a Principal, Environment Services with Stantec.

In the 2012-2013 Fraser Institute Mining Survey, Ontario and Quebec virtually tied for 8-9th position in a global ranking of mining jurisdictions. Both Canadian provinces have taken a serious look at their respective Mining Acts and made significant amendments to address concerns and pressures from their constituents. What are the chief reasons for these changes and what do they mean for mineral exploration and development in each province?

1. Aboriginal communities. Quebec’s Act now contains three provisions that relate specifically to Aboriginal communities. First, Quebec is to draw up an Aboriginal community consultation policy specific to the mining sector; second, the Act states that it is to be construed in a manner consistent with the obligation to consult Aboriginal communities; and third, the Act requires Quebec to consult them separately (Chapter 1 – Application, Interpretation).

Driving the Ontario Mining Act amendments was a need to enhance Aboriginal consultation approaches. Ontario’s modernized Mining Act included several regulations and subsequent policies whose objective is to implement effective consultation protocols and foster positive Aboriginal-government-industry relations.

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NEWS RELEASE: What is your number one event in Ontario mining history?

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.

It may not match David Letterman’s late night television talk show top 10 lists on the humour scale but Stan Sudol’s top 10 list of events in Ontario mining history are thought provoking and worthy of discussion. The Sudbury-born/Toronto-based communications consultant and editor of the blog Republic of Mining has done the industry a service by creating his own top 10 list on the subject.

While the ranking of Mr. Sudol’s compendium is likely destined to be the subject of perpetual debate, we suspect fewer could argue with the specific events themselves. Narrowing the topics down to 10 was no easy task with more than 150 years of Ontario mining history to analyze. As Mr. Sudol himself noted “the list encompasses traditional discoveries as well as certain events or the creation of institutions that have had long-lasting provincial or global impact.”

“Parts of Ontario’s mining history are brutal and tragic but it is also filled with stories of hope, courage and sacrifice, of enormous wealth creation and technical and social innovation. Ontario’s modern 21st century mining sector is the culmination of this amazing past that has helped forge a distinct regional culture in the province’s north and contributed enormously to the wealth of the entire province and country.”

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