Northern Life, Greater Sudbury’s community newspaper, gave Republic of Mining.com permission to post Michael Atkin’s column. www.northernlife.ca

Michael Atkins

Buzz Hargrove, the feisty (I’m being kind) president of the Canadian Auto Workers (CAW) union, recently said they would go on strike against General Motors (GM) if the auto maker did not promise new car products for Windsor, Oshawa, and St. Catharines, Ontario. A few days later, he changed his tune completely.

“You strike after something you think is achievable,” he said. “If we thought there was a product out there that we could strike and fight and win, then you can bet your boots we would be striking over it.”

Of course, what happened between the ultimatum and the climb down was that GM announced unceremoniously it would close a transmission plant in Windsor, whether the union liked it or not. Buzz is now negotiating severance packages, not new jobs.

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This article was provide by the Ontario Mining Association (OMA), an organization that was established in 1920 to represent the mining industry of the province.
    
Xstrata Nickel´s Fraser/Thayer Lindsley mine rescue team captured the top prize in the 2008 competition, which was held in Sudbury. Let´s applaud all team members in earning the coveted gold helmets as overall competition winners. This team earned first place overall as well as in the team firefighting and team first aid categories. The competition was held in Onaping at the NORCAT Training Centre, which is the former Fecunis Mine.

“Congratulations to the members of the Fraser/Thayer Lindsley team. They were outstanding representatives of both Xstrata Nickel and the Sudbury District with their performance,” said Mike Romaniuk, Vice President of Sudbury Operations for Xstrata Nickel. “This is a clear demonstration of the quality of our mine rescue program and the commitment of all employees to ensuring the health and safety of our workers.”

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The economy isn’t exactly bouncing along these days but not much more than sixty years ago,it was down right flat. This was the time of the Great Depression, the lost years, when production in many industries in Canada and around the world came almost to a standstill.

There were few social umbrellas then. Help for the unemployed had to come from financial strapped communities and also the generosity of those who had a job.  

By and large the unemployed wanted to work and would take anything they could get rather than go on relief. This spurred the Province of Ontario to use its strained resources to salvage something from the funds expended on public assistance.

Between 1929 and 1932, overall employment fell by 32% in the province. Read the rest of this entry »

Today when many travel often, it is with an array of brochures outlining the  points of interest one should note during the trip. Certainly, this is not a new phenomenon. In 1939, Their Majesties King George VI and Queen Elizabeth traveled across Canada. For the use of the Royal visitors, their entourage and others, Canada’s two transcontinental railways compiled a guide book. Extracts from the account are of interest for a variety of reasons including the way in which sites along the route were described.

On May 23, it was anticipated the train would pass “through a land of great rock hills and tall pines, the railway wanders through deep cuts on its approach to Romford, seven miles east of Sudbury, on the main transcontinental line, and the train, on arrival at Sudbury, has traversed one of the finest sporting regions of Canada”. Suffice to say, the sporting regions described in glowing terms were, among others. Parry Sound, Point au Baril and French River.

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Good evening everyone. I hope you enjoyed the tour of the Windsor Salt Mine and your round at the Canadian Salt Golf Challenge. Mining and golf, now there’s a tourism package in the making!

The mining industry is very important to Ontario’s prosperity.  Our province is a major global player in mining and has produced $300 billion in metals over the last century. In 2007 alone, the value of mineral production in Ontario exceeded $10-billion.

Exploration spending this year is expected to exceed $600-million.  Over 1,000 companies employ more than 22,000 skilled people in this province.  Hundreds of Ontario companies supply the industry with everything from contract mining services to custom equipment design.

The expertise supplied by people in the Ontario mining industry supports economic growth across the province, throughout Canada and around the world.

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Sandra Pupatello was elected to the Ontario legislature in 1995, and re-elected in 1999, 2003 and 2007. Pupatello has served as Minister of Economic Development and Trade since 2006. She previously served as Minister of Education, Minister of Community and Social Services and Minister Responsible for Women’s Issues.

Under Pupatello’s leadership in education, school infrastructure improved thanks to major renovations across the province, and high school students started to customize their education with new Specialist High Skills Majors. As Minister of Economic Development and Trade, Pupatello built on the government’s success attracting high-value jobs, bringing new investments to the province and developing new opportunities for Ontario workers.

Pupatello has a distinguished record of service to her community and the province and has made significant strides to improve the lives of Ontario’s most vulnerable. She has deep roots in the Windsor community. She was named honorary member of the Rotary Club of Windsor and a Paul Harris Fellow. In 1996, she was named Italian of the Year in Windsor-Essex County. In 2001, the University of Windsor honoured her with the prestigious Charlie Clark Award for Outstanding Service.

In March 2003, Pupatello was named “Windsor Woman of the Year.” In 2007, she received the prestigious Athena Award for the Windsor area, which recognizes men and women who provide a positive role model to encourage women to achieve their leadership potential in business.

This article was provide by the Ontario Mining Association (OMA), an organization that was established in 1920 to represent the mining industry of the province.

The success of the inaugural Ontario Mine Reclamation Symposium has cleared the path to make the workshop an annual event.  Close to 60 people representing a number of companies and organizations participated in this event, which was held in Kirkland Lake June 24 and 25.  This environmental event designed to share best practices and new technologies in mine reclamation was organized by the Ontario Mining Association in partnership with the Canadian Land Reclamation Association and Northgate Minerals. 

One of the highlights of the conference was the presentation of the inaugural Tom Peters Memorial Mine Reclamation Award, which was won by the Ministry of Northern Development and Mines for its work on the Kam Kotia property in Timmins.   Though this honour was first presented at the OMA´s “Demographics, Global Markets and the Future Workforce” conference in Windsor, it was re-presented to Dick Cowan, who is retired from MNDM and who was heavily involved in mine rehabilitation in general and the Kam Kotia property in particular. 

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In earlier years in the teaching game in Ontario, school boards were able to secure teachers because they were offered accommodation at either free or a cheap rate as part of the deal.

One young teacher had a house in an isolated community in 1956 for $30 a month. Now mind you it was not worth that much because it was cold, leaned in the wind and had no amenities, but at least the place to live was an incentive to take the job.

Big mining companies like Falconbridge and Inco in Sudbury offered their educators most pleasant living quarters. Many of these were for single men and women and  were known as teacherages. Actually there were places for other employees as well but none had a job specific name like those for teachers.

The mines in the smaller camps provided homes for many workers. Read the rest of this entry »

At the turn of the century, residents of Sudbury could turn to one newspaper for local news. The Sudbury Journal, under James A. Orr, had published continuously since 1891. Over the years competition had appeared in the form of The Star and the Sudbury News, yet neither was still operating by 1900. However, the monopoly was to be challenged in 1902 from afar – namely Copper Cliff.

On a Saturday in early March, 1902, the Copper Cliff Courier made its initial appearance. At the time it was described by the Journal as being “a seat five-column of quarto, well-printed”. It contained a “good list of advertisements” and proposed to be independent in politics. The Courier, published and edited by J.T. Pratt and sold for $1.00 a year, had its office on Main Street, Copper Cliff.

Few copies of the Courier appear to have been saved with a special 1903 issue being the one that appears most frequently. In that particular issue can be found community news with the new smelter of the Canadian Copper Company being a major feature.

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Every Canadian knows something of the NHL. The National Hockey League dominates Canadian sports culture. But few likely know of the National Hockey Association, the forerunner of the now famous league.

Teams in this genesis of the NHL included the Renfrew Millionaires, so called because after all their biggest sponsor, M.J.O’Brien, was a millionaire many times over, the Montreal Wanderers and a team that has made a comeback in recent years, the Ottawa Senators.

In the heyday of Cobalt when the town was rich and booming, all the mines had their own hockey teams. Both Haileybury and Cobalt had teams in the National Hockey Association and had no trouble finding corporate sponsors among the many big firms represented in both towns.

The silver town had a real Stanley Cup contender. This was the Cobalt Silver Kings. Although the players gave their all on the ice in association play, the fiercest battles were reserved for games with the Haileybury squad.

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