British Columbia Mining – Page 72

Canadian gov’t investigates foreign worker permits for Chinese miners in B.C. – by James Keller (Vancouver Sun – October 30, 2012)

October 31, 2012

http://www.vancouversun.com/index.html

The Canadian Press – VANCOUVER – Ottawa is investigating controversial foreign worker permits that will allow as many as 201 Chinese miners to work a proposed project in northern British Columbia, a government spokeswoman confirmed Tuesday.

HD Mining International Ltd. has obtained permits for miners from China to conduct exploration work at its proposed Murray River project near Tumbler Ridge, B.C., located about 200 kilometres west of Grande Prairie, Alta.

The company insists there aren’t any Canadian workers trained in the specialized skills it needs. Details of those permits became public earlier this month, prompting several unions to demand Canadians be hired instead. There have also been allegations that recruiters in China demanded fees for the jobs, which HD Mining has denied.

Human Resources and Skills Development Canada is now investigating whether the permit applications met all the necessary requirements, said Alyson Queen, a spokeswoman for Human Resources Minister Diane Finley.

“The government is committed to ensuring that Canadians always have first crack at the jobs available in Canada,” Queen said in an interview Tuesday.

B.C. jobs plan abandons local benefits and exploits workers – by Jim Sinclair (The [Vancouver] Province – October 29, 2012)

October 29, 2012

http://www.theprovince.com/index.html

Jim Sinclair is president of the B.C. Federation of Labour.

News that a company backed by Chinese state-owned steelmakers plans to bring more than 200 Chinese miners to work temporarily in its coal mines in northern B.C. has put a much-needed spotlight on Canada’s Temporary Foreign Worker Program, as has news that recruiters in China are charging $12,500 a head for access to these mining jobs in Canada.

That these are the first jobs directly associated with Christy Clark’s jobs plan ups the politics and has embarrassed the premier and her government. However, the issue is much bigger than the current electoral cycle.

The Temporary Foreign Worker Program was, in theory, designed to ensure that short-term skills shortages would not stifle economic growth by holding up major projects. But the theory doesn’t match the reality. Whether in coal mining, fast food or construction, the TFW program has proven to be less about solving a labour shortage and much more about keeping wages low.

The program claims to require employers to search for local workers at the going pay rate, and come up empty before looking outside Canada.

Teck makes cuts amid global tumult – by Pav Jordan and Carrie Tait (Globe and Mail – October 25, 2012)

October 25, 2012

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.

TORONTO, CALGARY – Canada’s largest diversified miner is cutting back in the face of a global economic slowdown.

Buffeted by volatile markets for the commodities it produces, Teck Resources Ltd. is deferring some $1.5-billion in capital spending over the next year or so, the latest in a string of Canadian resource companies to rewrite its plans in response to rising costs and an unpredictable outlook for the economy.

Among the casualties announced was Fort Hills, an oil sands joint venture in which Teck is a 20-per-cent partner along with Suncor Energy Inc. and Total SA. The project is not scheduled to begin producing oil until after 2017, but now some of the pre-production work will occur at a slower pace.

Canadian mining companies are increasingly joining the ranks of resource businesses that are being forced to rethink capital spending as the demand drops for key industrial commodities. The commodities cycle is sputtering along with the economies of the United States and Europe and as growth slows in China.

Suncor said in July that it was reevaluating tens of billions of dollars of planned spending, and pledged to apply “rigorous scrutiny” to the cost of three projects, including Fort Hills.

B.C. government investigating claims about Chinese recruiters looking for miners – by Jeremy Nuttall (Vancouver Sun – October 23, 2012)

October 23, 2012

http://www.vancouversun.com/index.html

Canadian Press – VANCOUVER – The provincial government is investigating after the B.C. Federation of Labour complained an employment agency has been advertising for Canadian jobs, offering miners in China a chance to work here in exchange for exorbitant recruitment fees.

The investigation was launched because it is against the Employment Standards Act to charge a foreign worker a fee for information about employment or help them find a job in the province. Workers also cannot be forced to pay back any costs associated with recruitment to the company or agency.

“It is a serious allegation,” said Jobs Minister Pat Bell of a news release issued by Jim Sinclair, president of the B.C. Federation of Labour. “I hope he has substance to it. If he does, we will get to the bottom of it.”

But that’s not good enough for the B.C. Federation of Labour, which has been a vocal critic of the decision earlier this month to allow foreign, temporary workers into B.C. coal mines. “The only sensible thing to do is to suspend the permits and conduct a full investigation,” Sinclair said in the release.

Dead pipeline walking – by Tex Enemark (National Post – October 19, 2012)

October 19, 2012

The National Post is Canada’s second largest national paper.

Tex Enemark, former president of the Mining Association of B.C. and a former B.C. deputy minister, is a Vancouver-based public-policy consultant who does political risk assessments and strategic planning.

Northern Gateway dead as Enbridge had no grasp of B.C. reality

I told a friend of mine — a retired pipeline executive — that I was writing a column on why the Enbridge pipeline project failed. He responded, “A column? You could write a book!”

Enbridge ought to have studied the history of large B.C. projects that failed when faced with the combined influences of native unhappiness and British Columbia’s environmental protest industry. The Alcan expansion project of the 1980s was killed by the Mulroney government after more than $2-billion had been spent over about eight years.

The huge Windy Craggy copper-cobalt mine in northwest B.C. was sidelined into limbo by the Social Credit government in 1989, then neutralized by park designation by the NDP in 1993. Northgate’s Kemess North copper-gold mine was turned down by the provincial Liberals in 2007. These project cancellations were not associated with any one political party.

B.C.’s low-wage migrant coal mining jobs send us back to the future – by Thomas Walkom (Toronto Star – October 13, 2012)

October 14, 2012

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.

Early on in the 20th century, the silver and gold mines of Northern Ontario imported thousands of foreign workers. The mine owners said they were filling a labour shortage. But their real reason was to keep wages down.

So when native-born, anglophone miners went on strike in Cobalt or the Porcupine region, the owners shipped in French-Canadians. And when they went on strike, Finns were brought in and, after them, Ukrainians and Poles and Italians and Englishmen from Cornwall.

In every case, the point of the exercise was to bring in workers who were less likely to make common cause with those already there and who, therefore, would be willing to work for less.

It was an ugly time in our history and it gave rise to very ugly labour disputes. So it is depressing in the extreme to see employers, aided and abetted by the federal government, engage in the same discredited tactics.

The latest and most bizarre example comes from British Columbia where, as the Vancouver Sun has reported, four brand new coal mines in the province’s northeast are bringing in just under 2,000 temporary Chinese migrants to do most of the work.

Rio Tinto wants to reopen union deal in Quebec – by Pav Jordan (Globe and Mail – October 13, 2012)

October 14, 2012

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.

Rio Tinto Alcan is in talks with workers about reopening a nine-year collective agreement at its aging Arvida smelter in Quebec, as the company battles stubbornly low aluminum prices hit by a global commodities slowdown.

Montreal-based Rio Tinto Alcan, the aluminum division of parent Rio Tinto PLC, said it met on Thursday with representatives of the 1,500-strong Canadian Auto Workers union at Arvida and related facilities, for preliminary talks about how to cut costs at the smelter.

The meeting, expected to be the first of several over coming weeks, came just days after London-based Rio Tinto, the world’s third-biggest diversified miner, said it would delay new project approvals in the near term because the business outlook has become less certain than it was even a few months ago.

“There are a number of headwinds that we are dealing with, but certainly with the metal where it is, today it is just under $2,000 on the [London Metal Exchange], it’s a pretty challenging environment,” said company spokesman Bryan Tucker.

B.C. government knew for years of plan to import Chinese miners – by Craig McInnes (Vancouver Sun – October 11, 2012)

October 11, 2012

http://www.vancouversun.com/index.html

Young Canadian workers could have been trained for highly paid mining positions

How long does it take to train a coal miner? Granted, at least in Canada, it’s been a while since all that was required was a strong back, a desperate need of a job and a high tolerance for dangerous and dirty work.

But five years? That’s how long the provincial government has known that a company proposing an underground coal mine near Tumbler Ridge in northeastern B.C. wanted to bring in experienced miners from China as part of its operating plan because of a lack of skilled underground miners here.

As Vancouver Sun reporter Peter O’Neil noted Wednesday, Premier Christy Clark didn’t mention during her trade mission to China last November that most of the coal mining jobs created by a $1.4-billion Chinese investment in B.C. would be filled by Chinese workers. But at least her officials should have known that the rationale given in 2007 by the Canadian Dehua International Mines Group for bringing in miners from China appears to be essentially unchanged in 2012, despite her government’s focus on jobs for British Columbians.

As O’Neil reported, the first of a group of 200 temporary Chinese workers approved by the federal government will be arriving in B.C. in the coming weeks to start work on one of four projects that could provide employment for 1,600 to 2,000 Chinese miners and an estimated 480 to 800 jobs for Canadians.

Chinese workers fill B.C. mining jobs – by Peter O’Neil (Vancouver Sun – October 10, 2012)

October 10, 2012

http://www.vancouversun.com/index.html

Canadians ‘just don’t have the experience’ to operate equipment to extract coal

The first of a group of 200 temporary Chinese workers approved by the federal government will start arriving in B.C. in coming weeks to work in the burgeoning northeast coal industry, a mine project spokeswoman confirmed Tuesday.

In total, anywhere from 1,600 to just under 2,000 Chinese nationals could find full-time work in four projects being proposed in coming years for the region, due to the shortage of underground mining skills in Canada, according to industry officials.

The four projects could create an estimated 480 to 800 full-time mining jobs for Canadians. Canadians “just don’t have the experience” operating the equipment needed to safely extract coal in underground mines, said John Cavanagh, chief executive of Vancouver-based Canadian Dehua International Mines Group Inc., a company founded by China-born Vancouver businessman Naishun Liu.

“Without the Chinese and the technology they’re bringing … these particular mines would not have been developed.” The necessity of foreign work ers wasn’t mentioned in B.C. Premier Christy Clark’s Nov. 9, 2011 news release from Beijing, in which she announced $1.4 billion in Chinese funding for two of the four coal projects.

Miner claims see major spike in B.C.- by Ed Watson (CTV British Columbia – September 24, 2012)

September 25, 2012

http://bc.ctvnews.ca/

A record number of mineral claims have been filed in B.C. over the last three years and more than 11,000 were filed in the first seven months of 2012, signaling a prospecting boom in the province.

Around $463 million was spent on mineral exploration in B.C. last year and the same amount is expected to be spent this year.

But despite few claims actually becoming a mine, those who work as prospectors cling to the dream of striking it rich.
Geologist Leslie Hunt lives in a cabin on the shores of a small lake in northern B.C.

While moose splash around in the water outside of her cabin, computers are switched on inside as she looks for her fortune.
“This would run about a hundred ounces a ton, which is an awful lot of gold,” Hunt said referring to a rock with gold in it.
One mine nearby her spread produced more than 70,000 ounces of gold before it was shut down several years ago.

Now, driven by the high price of gold, Chinese investors are interested in starting it up again. Such claims are traded back and forth at “roundups” where junior miners try to sell to senior mining companies and people look for investors.

OPINION: Prosperity gold-copper mine will live up to its name – by Russell Hallbauer (Vancouver Sun – September 20, 2012)

September 25, 2012

http://www.vancouversun.com/index.html

Russell Hallbauer is president and CEO of Taseko Mines Ltd.

New gold-copper project near Williams Lake promises to bring new jobs

Taseko operates the Gibraltar mine near Williams Lake, the second-largest copper concentrator in Canada and by Christmas of this year, the third largest in North America.

We’re proud of what we do — supplying copper to a global market for the past 40 years, employing thousands of people and contributing billions in revenues to local, provincial and national economies. We are able to do so safely and efficiently because of the highly capable engineering staff and the more than 500 skilled and committed employees working at Gibraltar.

By the end of this year, Taseko will have invested nearly $700 million in new state-of-the-art mining and milling equipment for Gibraltar in just six years, improving efficiencies and providing greater assurance that the mine can continue to produce uninterrupted for 27 more years.

This week, Taseko filed with the federal government an environmental-impact statement (EIS) detailing its proposal to build a new mine in British Columbia, also near Williams Lake.

Teck admits operations polluted U.S. waters – by Dene Moore (Globe and Mail – September 10, 2012)

September 11, 2012

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.

VANCOUVER — The Canadian Press – Canadian mining giant Teck Resources Ltd. has admitted in a U.S. court that effluent from its smelter in southeast British Columbia has polluted the Columbia River in Washington state for more than a century.

Teck subsidiary Teck Metals made the admission of fact in a lawsuit brought by a group of American Indian tribes over environmental damage caused by the effluent discharges dating back to 1896.

The agreement, reached on the eve of the trial initiated by the Colville Confederated Tribes, stipulates that some hazardous materials in the slag discharged from Teck’s smelter in Trail, B.C., ended up in the Upper Columbia River south of the border.

Specifically, the company admitted: “Trail discharged solid effluents, or slag, and liquid effluent into the Columbia River that came to rest in Washington state, and from that material, hazardous materials under (U.S. environmental laws) were released into the environment,” Dave Godlewski, vice-president of environment and public affairs for Teck American, said in a telephone interview.

B.C. mining giant [Teck Resources Ltd.] admits polluting U.S. waters – The Canadian Press/CBC News.com (September 10,2012)

September 11, 2012

http://www.cbc.ca/news/

Teck Resources acknowledges fouling Columbia River for more than 100 years

Canadian mining giant Teck Resources Ltd. has admitted in a U.S. court that effluent from its smelter in southeast British Columbia has polluted the Columbia River in Washington for more than a century.

Teck subsidiary Teck Metals made the admission of fact in a lawsuit brought by a group of U.S. Indian tribes over environmental damage caused by the effluent discharges dating back to 1896.

The agreement, reached on the eve of the trial initiated by the Colville Confederated Tribes, stipulates that some hazardous materials in the slag discharged from Teck’s smelter in Trail, B.C., ended up in the Upper Columbia River south of the border.

Specifically, the company admitted: “Trail discharged solid effluents, or slag, and liquid effluent into the Columbia River that came to rest in Washington state, and from that material, hazardous materials [under U.S. environmental laws] were released into the environment,” Dave Godlewski, vice-president of environment and public affairs for Teck American, said in a telephone interview.

A sudden chill for miners in Canada – Northern Miner Editorial (September 10 – 16, 2012)

September 10, 2012

The Northern Miner, first published in 1915, during the Cobalt Silver Rush, is considered Canada’s leading authority on the mining industry

The political winds are turning against miners in Canada, with the Sept. 4 victory of the tax-and-spend Parti Québécois in Quebec and the pro-mining Liberal party in B.C. on its last legs, and looking to be replaced by the environmentalist-friendly New Democratic Party.

The snap election in Quebec played out much the way pollsters predicted, with Pauline Marois’ separatist Parti Québécois defeating the incumbent federalist Liberal Party, and Premier Jean Charest losing his seat in Sherbrooke and officially resigning as the provincial Liberal leader.

With 54 seats, the PQ achieved minority power status, finishing ahead of the Liberals with 50 seats, the right-of-centre and untested Coalition Avenir Québec (19 seats) and the left-leaning Québec Solidaire (2).
Once again Quebec voters have treaded a fine line, this time by ousting a tired ruling Liberal party, but giving only tepid support to the PQ, who have proven over the years to be broadly capable managers when in power, looking past all the usual head-butting with the federal government.

NEWS RELEASE: Mining Association of Canada Remains Bullish on Metal Outlook

September 8, 2012

British Columbia in strategic position to benefit from mining’s largest customer, China

VANCOUVER, B.C, Sept. 7, 2012 /CNW/ – Canada’s mining industry is on the right path to continued prosperity despite current market volatility, says the Mining Association of Canada (MAC).

In a speech to members of the Vancouver Board of Trade, MAC President and CEO Pierre Gratton said regulatory reform, investment in infrastructure and promotion of strong trade relations with countries such as China, the world’s biggest consumer of metals, will keep Canada globally competitive.

Despite a slowdown in Chinese growth to 7.6 per cent in the second quarter, from decades of 10 per cent average annual growth, Gratton noted that most prices remain at relatively high levels, despite a fall off in recent months, and emphasized that the long-term fundamentals that have supported rising commodity prices over the past decade remain.

“The mining super cycle is not over, it is taking a pause. This is the nature of the mining business, which is cyclical,” said Gratton. “The industry is generally better prepared for the current slowdown compared to last time, which was much more dramatic.”