British Columbia Mining – Page 74

U.S. ruling over Teck’s Trail, B.C. smelter may have ripple effect – by Dene Moore (Globe and Mail – December 17, 2012)

December 17, 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.

TRAIL, B.C. — On a beach in northeast Washington state near the Canadian border, Patti Bailey grabs a handful of what looks like sand and rolls the dark grains through her hands.

It’s slag, the grainy waste from the Teck Resources Ltd. lead and zinc smelter in Trail, B.C., about 10 kilometres north of the border.

“They’re little time bombs and they’re releasing zinc, copper, arsenic and other metals into the environment,” said Ms. Bailey, an environmental planner for the Confederated Tribes of the Colville Reservation.

A Washington state judge has ruled that Teck is liable for the costs of cleaning up contamination in the Columbia River south of the border from decades of dumping slag and effluent from the company’s Trail operations.

In a decision announced late last week, Judge Lonny Suko ruled that, “for decades Teck’s leadership knew its slag and effluent flowed from Trail downstream and are now found in Lake Roosevelt, but nonetheless Teck continued discharging wastes into the Columbia River.”

Why training workers in Canada beats importing them from abroad – by Barrie McKenna (Globe and Mail – December 17, 2012)

December 17, 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.

OTTAWA — Fast-tracking the entry of foreign workers to toil in Canada’s mines, oil fields and construction sites is certainly expedient. The work is there. So bring them in and get it done, for the sake of the economy. But a rented foreign work force is hardly an enduring solution to a skills shortage that Prime Minister Stephen Harper has called “the biggest challenge our country faces.” At best, it’s a stop-gap.

Labour shortages are now a permanent feature of Canada’s labour landscape. The country is staring at a decade or more of critical labour scarcities as the massive baby boom generation retires and the economy grows. Hundreds of thousands of jobs will go begging for electricians, welders, pipe fitters, heavy equipment mechanics and many other trades.

The federal government’s recent announcement that it intends to bring in an extra 3,000 skilled tradespeople next year may be welcome news for employers.

It’s one thing to bring in foreigners to do jobs Canadians can’t or won’t do. Farmers have been doing it for years to harvest crops. But the program betrays the national interest if it is being used as a cover to import workers whose only asset is a willingness to work for a lot less than Canadians.

B.C. mine to hire only Chinese temporary workers for years – CBC News (December 12, 2012)

December 13, 2012

http://www.cbc.ca/bc/

HD Mining plans to start hiring Canadians after 4 years

The B.C. Federation of Labour says documents show it will be 14 years before Canadians replace all the temporary foreign workers from China hired to work at an underground coal mine in northern B.C.

Two unions are in court challenging more than 200 temporary foreign worker permits obtained by HD Mining for its Murray River underground coal mine near Tumbler Ridge, B.C. The employer says there were no qualified Canadians to do the specialized work at the underground mine.

Documents tendered in the case include HD Mining’s previously unreleased transition plan, which outlines how the company won’t start hiring Canadian miners for more than four years and plans to continue using temporary foreign workers for the next 14 years.

“What the document says categorically is it will be 4½ years before a single Canadian will be working underground at the mine,” said B.C. Federation of Labour president Jim Sinclair.

“After 4½ years, it will be 10 years before it will be a majority of Canadians working underground, and it will be 15 years before the temporary foreign workers are finished working in that mine.”

No Canadian hires for four years at Chinese-owned B.C. mine – by Pav Jordan (Globe and Mail – December 13, 2012)

December 13, 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.

MINING REPORTER — HD Mining International, building a large coal mine in northern British Columbia using Chinese workers, will take four years before it hires even a single Canadian miner, and another decade beyond that before the work force is fully local, court documents show.

According to documents made public on Wednesday by the B.C. Federation of Labour, HD Mining plans to use up to 201 workers from China to staff the mine through 30 months of construction and two years of ramp-up and mining.

It plans to phase in a Canadian work force at the so-called Murray River coal mine, near Tumbler Ridge, B.C., in the subsequent 10 years, at a rate of 10 per cent per year, documents showed. Murray River is expected to have a mine life of 40 years.

The revelations could deepen the controversy around the company – majority-owned by Chinese coal miner Huiyong Holding – and the use of temporary foreign workers in an industry suffering from skills shortages after demand for metals skyrocketed over the past decade.

Local unions were in court on Wednesday seeking an injunction that would prevent any more workers coming to the project pending a judicial review of the process that cleared the hirings.

Chinese workers headed to Greenland – by Marilyn Scales (Canadian Mining Journal – December 11, 2012)

May 4, 2015December 12, 2012

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.

If something happens twice, does that the beginning of a trend? The “something” is governments allowing foreign workers to fill jobs at mining projects. With the blessing of Canada’s federal government, HD Mining is importing “temporary” Chinese workers for its Murray River coal project in British Columbia. Greenland has passed legislation that will allow the employment of Chinese workers in Greenland at the Isua iron ore project belonging to London Mining plc.

In Canada, the idea of Chinese workers arriving to fill jobs at a coal mine was first floated a few years ago. Then the plan fell below the radar until The Globe and Mail newspaper revived the story a week ago when it was learned that speaking Mandarin is a requirement for working at the Murray River project.

In Greenland, the new legislation paves the way for companies to employ foreign workers at lower wages than they would pay natives of Greenland. All political parties voted for the law, with the exception of the largest opposition party which abstained.

The situations in Canada and Greenland vary on one notable point: Canada has a skilled mining workforce, Greenland does not.

By virtue of our world class mineral industry, Canada has a knowledgeable, inventive and hardworking pool of labour from which to choose.

B.C. mine’s offshore hiring plan sparks conflict – by Pav Jordan and Wendy Stueck (Globe and Mail – December 12, 2012)

December 12, 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 and VANCOUVER — When 60 Chinese workers arrive for work later this week at a British Columbia coal mine, they will be getting a lot more than they bargained for.

Hired by HD Mining International to work the Murray River coal project in Tumbler Ridge, B.C., the miners will walk squarely into a mushrooming debate about the use of temporary foreign workers in an industry running a massive labour deficit as Canada’s work force ages and new mines come on stream.

The workers will join 17 already here. All of them are skilled in the longwall coal mining method, and come to Canada directly from the coal operations of Huiyong Holding, one of two Chinese companies that own HD Mining. The other is Canadian Dehua International Mines Group Inc.

Local unions want Ottawa to reverse a decision to allow HD to hire up to 201 workers from China under the Temporary Foreign Worker Program. They say HD did not make sufficient efforts to hire locally before going abroad, that the company made Mandarin a requirement and advertised wages below the industry norm. Some question whether HD pushed the limits of the program in hiring so many workers for one operation, potentially creating the first Canadian mine that is not operated in either French or English. They also question whether advertised wages were truly competitive.

Chinese miners asked to pay for Canadian jobs – by Lisa Laventure (CBC News – December 10, 2012)

December 11, 2012

http://www.cbc.ca/bc/

CBC investigation finds recruiters offering jobs to inexperienced miners

Labour brokers may be charging Chinese miners up to $16,000 for the chance to work in Canadian mines as temporary foreign workers, a CBC investigation has found.

The National visited a prominent recruitment agency in Beijing carrying hidden cameras. Investigators posing as miners learned that workers with minimal mining experience are being offered positions in Canadian gold, copper and potash mines.

Recruiters said that, once working in Canada, miners would be paid no less than $10 per hour. Permanent workers in Canada’s underground and surface mines are paid on average $25 to $30 per hour.

Business-backed website defends HD Mining – by Wendy Stueck (Globe and Mail – December 7, 2012)

December 7, 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.

Vancouver — HD Mining supporters have launched a website to support the company, which has come under fire for its plans to develop a coal mine with the help of Chinese miners brought to Canada under the temporary foreign worker program.

A website entitled Friends of HD Mining lists member companies in businesses including trucking, construction and restaurant services and says the initiative is funded by donations from those members.

It includes a bulletin headlined “HD Mining is under attack.”

“As fellow service providers to HD Mining, we feel the need to stand up for a company that has been supportive of all of us,” it says. “Certain organizations in B.C. have targeted HD Mining in an effort to succeed in their own selfish agenda. This website has been developed to provide a voice for the many Canadian-owned companies providing services to HD Mining and to set the record straight about our friend and client, HD Mining Ltd.”

The recent furor over foreign workers has overshadowed the positive impact of HD Mining’s project, says one of the business people involved in the campaign.

Norman Keevil: Ernst & Young Entrepreneur Of The Year 2012 Pacific Lifetime Achievement Award (National Post – December 2012)

December 5, 2012

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

Overseeing a $25-billion company doesn’t exactly sound like a very entrepreneurial job, but then Teck Resources wasn’t always so big. It traces its roots back to 1912 and a gold discovery at Kirkland Lake, Ont., but it remained a comparatively small company until the early 1970s when it started on a growth streak. Norman Keevil, who joined Teck in 1962, became CEO and president in 1981 and then chairman in 2000, was at the helm for many of the developments that have made Teck the resources giant it is today. “We did it one small step at a time,” he says.

BUSINESS PHILOSOPHY Your philosophy when you started may be different than later on. But I would say now, and maybe it always was, it’s to try to be the best at what you do. For us, that’s been working toward building the best Canadian-based mining or resources company we can. We’ve been all over the place. In the ’60s, we actually had more oil than gold, but then we got out of oil in the ’70s because we realized we didn’t know much about it and then we got back in later on in the oil sands and out of gold. We’ve been willing to be diversified, which is one of our pluses.

In our business, the three keys are people, oil reserves and financial strength, in no particular order. At any given time, there are only so many opportunities out there in the world and if you’re restricted to one commodity, whether it’s gold, coal or copper, if in your mind you’re restricted to one, then by definition there are fewer opportunities. One of our business philosophies is to be opportunistic in the sense that we’re looking for the maximum number of opportunities and size them up to each other, which means being prepared to look at different commodities at different times. We end up being diversified not because we set out to be that way, but because we set out to be opportunistic.

Chinese investment OK but not workers, B.C. unions say in fight against foreign employees at coal mine – by Brian Hutchinson (National Post – November 30, 2012)

November 30, 2012

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

VANCOUVER — Tumbler Ridge is a coal mining town, tucked away in northeastern B.C. All of its largest employers are in the same business: Extracting high quality coal from the ground and shipping most of it to Asia, where demand is insatiable.

The first Chinese investors arrived in Tumbler Ridge almost 10 years ago and began purchasing coal-bearing properties. They even bought a small lodge. And now the first wave of Chinese coal miners have landed, to the chagrin of some. Chinese money is welcome in Tumbler Ridge, it seems. But Chinese muscle is another story.

HD Mining International Ltd. is a private partnership, established last year by Chinese-owned entities, including the Chinese government. In April, the partnership obtained permission from Ottawa to hire on a temporary basis 201 foreign workers, for the development of a potential underground mine just south of Tumbler Ridge.

The Murray River coal project could eventually create up to 600 permanent jobs, and over a lifespan of 30 or more years yield up to three billion tonnes of coal. That’s just for starters, says the town’s mayor, Darwin Wren. “For every job underground, there would be another one above ground,” he says.

The Chinese insist they need their own workers to continue with the coal deposit’s “advanced exploration stage,” which precedes actual mine production.

Copper Mountain Tempts With Canadian Stability: Real M&A – by Tara Lachapelle and Brooke Sutherland (Blomberg.com – November 26, 2012)

November 27, 2012

http://www.bloomberg.com/

pper Mountain Mining Corp. (CUM) is offering buyers a potentially irresistible combination: the cheapest valuation in three years and the ability to extract metal without the threat of civil unrest in such places as Indonesia and Peru.

Lower-than-estimated copper production drove the company’s price-earnings ratio down to 16.7 in October, the cheapest since 2009, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. Copper Mountain has tumbled 43 percent since this year’s peak, giving the business the lowest price-sales multiple using estimated 2012 revenue among Canadian base metals stocks with a market value exceeding C$250 million ($252 million), the data show.

The location of Copper Mountain’s main mining project in British Columbia may prove alluring to acquirers seeking assets where there’s low risk of social disorder, Laurentian Bank of Canada said. While initial copper production levels were disappointing after extraction began in 2011, the Vancouver- based company seems to have turned the situation around and a buyer should strike now before Copper Mountain’s shares rebound, according to Haywood Securities Inc. Jennings Capital Inc. said companies such as Teck Resources Ltd. (TCK/B) could offer C$8 a share in a deal, more than double yesterday’s close.

“There’s a lot of reasons why it would be attractive to potential acquirers,” Adam Low, a Toronto-based analyst at Raymond James Financial Inc., said in a telephone interview.

NEWS RELEASE: UBC, SFU to further global sustainable mining practices through $25M Institute

November 25, 2012

Media Release | Nov. 23, 2012

The University of British Columbia and Simon Fraser University will lead an international coalition to help developing countries benefit from their natural resources in environmentally and socially responsible ways.

The establishment of the Canadian International Institute for Extractive Industries and Development (CIIEID), funded by a $25-million grant from the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA), was announced last October with an aim to sharing Canadian expertise in extractive industries. The selection of UBC and SFU to operate the Institute was announced today by the Honourable Julian Fantino, Minister of International Cooperation.

In 2008 alone, exports of oil and minerals from Africa, Asia, and Central America were valued at $1-trillion. Canadian companies, many headquartered in Vancouver, B.C., dominate the world’s mineral exploration and Canada relies heavily on its resource industries.

UBC’s research and education in the extractive sector spans nearly a century, with a strong emphasis over the past decade placed on sustainable development and corporate social responsibility through its Norman B. Keevil Institute of Mining Engineering. SFU’s Beedie School of Business offers Canada’s longest-standing Executive MBA program for sustainable mining, and houses the Responsible Minerals Sector Initiative, fostering global dialogue for the extractive sector.

Dehua shuts separate [B.C. coal] project over temporary worker concerns – by James Keller (Vancouver Sun – November 24, 2012)

November 25, 2012

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

THE CANADIAN PRESS – VANCOUVER – The legal and political troubles that have overshadowed a plan to bring 201 Chinese workers to a proposed coal mine in northern British Columbia have prompted one of the companies involved to shut down a separate coal project nearby.

Canadian Dehua International Mines Group Inc. announced Saturday it has decided to wind down work at its Wapiti River coal project, located southeast of Tumbler Ridge.

Dehua owns a minority stake in HD Mining, which has generated headlines in recent months over its plan to bring Chinese miners to another proposed mine at Murray River, also near Tumbler Ridge. Two unions have asked Federal Court to throw out HD Mining’s temporary foreign worker permits, and the case has prompted the federal government to announce a review of the entire temporary foreign worker program, including HD Mining’s permits.

Dehua issued a statement early Saturday morning announcing it had filed a notice to shut down its Wapiti River project. The shut-down order is effective Sunday at midnight, the statement said.

“The decision has been forced upon Dehua following a deluge of calls from investors in Dehua’s mining operations in Canada,” said the statement, distributed by company lawyer Darryl Larson.

B.C. court says unions can see work permits for Chinese miners – by Petti Fong (Toronto Star – November 23, 2012)

November 23, 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.

VANCOUVER—The federal government was ordered Thursday to turn over to two B.C. trade unions the permits it granted up to 300 Chinese miners to see whether those jobs could have been done by Canadian workers.

In a decision late Thursday in federal court, Judge Douglas Campbell awarded the two unions access to the Labour Market Opinions, the federal government term for the temporary work permits that allows foreign workers to come to Canada. Federal lawyers had argued against releasing the LMOs because of concerns that allowing the permits to be made public could open the floodgates to wide access. They said the permits could provide information that could violate privacy and raise competition issues for the companies that wanted to bring in workers.

HD Mining International Ltd., Canadian Dehua International Mines Group and Huiyong Holdings B.C. sided with the federal government in arguing the trade unions should not have access to those permits.

The permits will allow 200 to 300 miners from China to come to northern B.C. to work at the Murray River Coal Mine near Tumbler Ridge. Already about a dozen miners from China have arrived to do preliminary surveillance work and another 60 were scheduled to be in Canada by mid-December.