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Canadian/International Media Resource Articles

Canadian mining firm threatens legal action against Peru- by Brenda Bouw (Globe and Mail – June 27, 2011)

The Globe and Mail is Canada’s national newspaper with the second largest broadsheet circulation in the country. It has enormous impact and influence on Canada’s political and business elite as well as the rest of the country’s print, radio and television media.

Canada’s Bear Creek Mining Corp. is threatening a legal challenge against Peru after its mining rights were revoked in a move that raises the risk for other resource companies doing business in the mineral-blessed South American country.

“We have done nothing wrong,” Bear Creek chief executive officer Andrew Swarthout said in a telephone interview on Sunday from Peru. The company has been working for more than a decade in Peru with some challenges, but Mr. Swarthout said this is the first time its mining rights have been pulled.

The Santa Ana mine was expected to produce about 47-million ounces of silver over its 11-year mine life and represented about 20 per cent of Bear Creek’s value, behind its flagship Corani project, also located in Peru.

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Peru revokes licence of Canadian mining firm Bear Creek – by William Lloyd George (Globe and Mail – June 27, 2011)

The Globe and Mail is Canada’s national newspaper with the second largest broadsheet circulation in the country. It has enormous impact and influence on Canada’s political and business elite as well as the rest of the country’s print, radio and television media.

As smoke rose from burning tires and torched security vehicles, heavily armed police confronted nearly a thousand angry anti-mining protesters walking the runaway of Juliaca’s airport in southern Peru, near Lake Titicaca. One protest leader called for the group to reclaim the airport. Others said it was too dangerous. Then a call came through from the protest leaders in the capital, Lima.

The government had given into their demands and agreed to revoke the licence for Canadian mining firm Bear Creek to open its Santa Ana silver mine in the area; as well, it halted all new mining concessions in Puno province for 36 months. The unrest ended with the agreement Saturday, narrowly averting a repeat of a bloody conflict the day before, when police killed at least five demonstrators at the airport.

While the breakthrough agreement stopped further bloodshed, it casts doubts on other resource operations in Peru, a nation that relies heavily on foreign investment and receives about 70 per cent of its GDP from the mining industry. Peru is South America’s fastest-growing economy, driven by surging commodity prices, but the rural poor have benefited little from mining and complain it contaminates their water and crops.

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First nations, corporate leaders meet to map out partnership blueprints – by Shawn McCarthy (Globe and Mail – june 27, 2011)

The Globe and Mail is Canada’s national newspaper with the second largest broadsheet circulation in the country. It has enormous impact and influence on Canada’s political and business elite as well as the rest of the country’s print, radio and television media.

Armed with new clout over development on their traditional lands, Canada’s aboriginal people are increasingly looking to be partners in energy and mining development.

At the same time, first nations groups are insisting on their right to reject projects that fail to provide real benefits or are too damaging to the environment – even if Canadian law does not give them a formal veto.

In Niagara Falls this week, Shawn Atleo, National Chief of the Assembly of First Nations, is co-hosting the first International Indigenous Summit on Energy and Mining, with his U.S. counterpart, Jefferson Keel, president of the national Congress of American Indians. The summit is a chance for corporate leaders from the energy and mining sectors – as well as financial institutions – to talk with native leaders and government officials about the opportunities for and challenges with first nations project partnerships.

The stakes are enormous, with virtually every major energy and mining project in Canada requiring consultations with native communities.

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First a Gold Rush, Then the Lawyers – by Randal C. Archibold (New York Times – June 26, 2011)

http://www.nytimes.com/

SAN ISIDRO, El Salvador — When a Central American gold rush brought a Canadian mining company here a few years ago, the company promised to stake a claim that would be as green as the lush hills.

The copious amounts of water needed would come only from the rain, not from the nearby Rio Lempa that is this country’s lifeline, the company said. Cyanide, a toxic chemical used to extract gold embedded in rocks, would be dispersed naturally, dried by sunlight in vast double-lined pools. Several hundred jobs could be created here, in one of the country’s poorest regions.

“No other mine in North America has gone to this level of environmental protection,” said Tom Shrake, the chief executive of the Canadian company, Pacific Rim, which is seeking to tap a vein that it says could be worth hundreds of millions of dollars.

But when the government of El Salvador, facing mounting public concern over the consequences of mining, failed to grant the company the final permit it needed, Pacific Rim sought to extract a different kind of green: $77 million from the nation’s treasury as compensation for lost profits.

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[Canadian] National interest at stake in TMX deal – by Diane Francis (National Post – June 25, 2011)

The National Post is Canada’s second largest national paper. dfrancis@nationalpost.com

No self-respecting nation would allow its stock exchange, the cornerstone of a financial system, to be sold to foreigners. Australia, for instance, rejected a proposed sale of its exchange to Singapore as a “nobrainer.”

And yet, on June 30, the board of directors of the Toronto Stock Exchange will ask its shareholders to bless a sellout to the London Stock Exchange that will, eventually, result in both being sold to even bigger foreign entities. The vote is being staged before regulators and governments have given special permission required to allow the deal to be closed.

There is another competing bid, by Canadian financial players, that won’t need special permission. I don’t want to comment on the merits of that deal, which raises antitrust and other issues.

But the sellout to the British is not in the national interest. It will orphan Canadian entrepreneurs, ideas and corporations.

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Mining Marshall Plan for Canada now – by Diane Francis (National Post – March 8, 2009)

The National Post is Canada’s second largest national paper. dfrancis@nationalpost.com

For instance, the single greatest discovery in Canadian mining history is the nickel belt
in Sudbury, the world’s biggest deposit. This multi-billion dollar development would never have been found nor discovered if the  Canadian Pacific Railway had been routed
differently. The railway passed through the area in remote northern Ontario.
(Diane Francis – National Post, March 8, 2011)

Canada’s best stimulus package is to launch a Marshall Plan for Mining by building unpaved roads and other infrastructure to open up the country’s vast, unexplored and untapped mineral wealth in its interior and the north.

The world expert on Canada’s geology is petrologist Wayne Goodfellow with the Geographic Survey of Canada in Ottawa. He’s an expert on rocks and petrology is a multidisciplinary incorporating a knowledge of chemistry, physics, mathematics, geophysics, structural geology, and geochemistry.

I interviewed him at last week’s Prospectors and Developers Association of Canada giant conference in Toronto about how Canada is a mining giant but is also one of the most unexplored nations in the world with vast untapped reserves in Canada’s remote interior.

“If I was going to hazard a guess,” he said in an interview this week, “there are three to five times’ more than has ever been found or exploited….three to five times more the current reserves as well as what we have left. It’s huge. There are vast areas in this country where boots have never been on the ground.”

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With asbestos, we are the Ugly Canadians – by Jeffrey Simpson (Globe and Mail – June 25, 2011)

The Globe and Mail is Canada’s national newspaper with the second largest broadsheet circulation in the country. It has enormous impact and influence on Canada’s political and business elite as well as the rest of the country’s print, radio and television media.

Billions of dollars will be spent over the next two decades to repair the Parliament Buildings. One reason for the repair: The buildings are full of asbestos, a cancer-causing substance that Canadians no longer use.

But we mine asbestos, we ship it, we make money from it, and we’ll use every diplomatic trick in the book to defend this odious practice. We are the Ugly Canadians.

The Harper government could care less. It vigorously defends mining asbestos because of one little corner of Quebec, near Thetford Mines, where the asbestos is mined and shipped to developing countries, mostly in Asia. Stephen Harper’s top Quebec minister, Christian Paradis, used to head the Thetford Mines chamber of commerce. Mr. Harper campaigned in the area and supported the mining. He spent part of Friday, St. Jean Baptiste Day, in Thetford Mines, thereby reinforcing his government’s political marriage to asbestos.

This week, the Ugly Canadians stood alone against the world in blocking the listing of chrysotile asbestos as a hazardous chemical under the Rotterdam Convention.

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Canada’s toxic asbestos trade – Toronto Star Editorial Comment – June 25, 2011

The Toronto Star, which has the largest broadsheet circulation in Canada,  has an enormous impact on Canada’s federal and provincial politics as well as shaping public opinion.

For years the federal government has been warned by doctors, environmentalists, unions, even Health Canada, about the deadly impact of asbestos. But Ottawa remains intransigent about curbing exports of this harmful mineral. Once again this week it opposed listing chrysotile asbestos on the United Nations’ list of dangerous materials. Once again it acted irresponsibly.

At a summit in Switzerland to discuss the Rotterdam Convention — a UN treaty on the international trading of hazardous substances — Canadian officials quietly blocked the inclusion of asbestos on the list of dangerous materials, joining such countries as Vietnam, Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan.

The hypocrisy is staggering. The federal government has spent millions to clear its own buildings of this noxious material — including taking it out of 24 Sussex Drive to protect the Prime Minister and his family. Canadian companies, schools and homeowners have also removed asbestos from their structures. Yet we happily export it.

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When less asbestos is best – Globe and Mail Editorial (June 24, 2011)

The Globe and Mail is Canada’s national newspaper with the second largest broadsheet circulation in the country. It has enormous impact and influence on Canada’s political and business elite as well as the rest of the country’s print, radio and television media.

What does the federal government have against a five-page form? That’s what its opposition to “listing” chrysotile asbestos – a hazardous material – under the Rotterdam Convention amounts to. Canada was wrong to block an emerging consensus in favour of listing at a Convention meeting on Wednesday, especially given the small restrictions involved in the listing procedure.

Chrysotile, of which Canada is the world’s fifth-largest producer, is a material that can be used to make cement. Can be used – most developed economies have forsaken it for other materials, because chrysotile contains tiny fibres that, if exposed, can lead to respiratory ailments and even cancer. But it is a cheap enough alternative that growing Asian countries are a growing market for the product. An Asian medical journal recently reported that it expects a “surge of asbestos-related diseases in the immediate decades ahead” as a result.

Industry Minister Christian Paradis said in the Commons last week that “scientific publications show that chrysotile can be used safely under controlled conditions.” We’re not sure which publications he’s referring to, but presumably not the ones read by Health Canada’s director-general for the safe environments program, when he recommended listing of chrysotile under the Rotterdam Convention in 2006; nor statements by the World Health Organization or the Rotterdam Convention’s review committee.

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Asbestos’s last, lonely champion – by Susan Riley (Ottawa Citizen – June 24, 2011)

http://www.ottawacitizen.com/ Susan Riley writes on national politics. E-mail: sriley.work@gmail.com.

I still remember the shock and dismay I felt walking through the ByWard Market in 2005, when I noticed newspaper headlines announcing that Chuck Strahl had been diagnosed with a deadly form of asbestos-related cancer.

Not only was Strahl fit and strong (fortunately, he still is), he was a well-liked Reform, then Conservative, MP and, subsequently, a successful cabinet minister in a number of posts. He decided not to run in the last election – his son Mark took over his B.C. seat on May 2 – and has returned to Chilliwack, his cancer apparently in remission.

This memory makes Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s adamant support for Quebec’s asbestos industry in recent weeks seem even more confounding and cold. After all, within his own cabinet he had sobering evidence of the cost of unprotected exposure to asbestos.

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Constraints shackle [Australian mining] boom – by Wayne Cole (National Post – June 23, 2011)

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

Australia’s road to resource riches is proving bumpier than first thought as miners struggle to meet ambitious investment plans, another reason for the country’s central bank to go slow on further interest rate rises.

The Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA) has long assumed it would have to tighten policy to temper inflationary pressures from a mining boom. But the sector’s race to meet red-hot demand in China and India is running into other constraints, from dire weather to a dearth of skilled labour.

“The mad rush to spend is already dissolving into delays and cost overruns, so there’s no way the mining industry is going to meet its investment targets,” said Brian Redican, a senior economist at Macquarie.

A record A$430-billion ($442billion) in resources investment is either underway or on the drawing board in Australia, a real stretch for an economy with an annual output of A$1.3-trillion.

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Barrick Gold and North Mara: the search for common ground – by Aaron Regent (Globe and Mail Website – June 22, 2011)

The Globe and Mail is Canada’s national newspaper with the second largest broadsheet circulation in the country. It has enormous impact and influence on Canada’s political and business elite as well as the rest of the country’s print, radio and television media.

Aaron Regent is the president and CEO of Barrick Gold Corp. For Corporate Social Responsibility initiatives at Barrick, go to Beyond Borders.

The relationship between developing countries and Canadian mining companies has been the subject of much discussion in recent weeks and understandably so. As president and CEO of Barrick Gold Corp., it troubles me that events surrounding our company are part of that discussion.

In mid-May, we learned that five people had been killed by Tanzanian police following the invasion of the North Mara mine by as many as 1,500 people. Shortly after, this newspaper reported on our findings that police and security officers may have committed sexual assaults in the area around the mine. Barrick’s revulsion at discovering this evidence is deep. I have seen myself, from the men and women working on the ground to the most senior levels of management, enormous disappointment at these situations and a determination to act.

Barrick will not shy away from the challenges at North Mara, nor diminish them by failing to respond. Where we do encounter safety or human-rights concerns, we will act. We will aggressively investigate allegations of abuse or violence, and we will actively support the investigations of authorities. We will address concerns related to security and the safety risks posed by trespassing.

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For Cameco’s new CEO, patience is a priority – by Brenda Bouw (Globe and Mail – June 22, 2011)

The Globe and Mail is Canada’s national newspaper with the second largest broadsheet circulation in the country. It has enormous impact and influence on Canada’s political and business elite as well as the rest of the country’s print, radio and television media.

When Tim Gitzel takes over as chief executive officer at Cameco Corp.  next week he will become more than just head of the world’s largest publicly traded uranium company.

The 49-year-old Saskatoon-based executive will also be thrust into a leadership role in a global industry fighting to convince the world that nuclear energy is a clean, safe alternative despite the recent nuclear disaster in Japan.

He must also try to persuade investors that uranium – the price of which has fallen about 25 per cent since Japan’s earthquake and ensuing nuclear crisis struck in March – is heading for a recovery. Even more pressing for Mr. Gitzel will be trying to stage a rebound in Cameco’s stock, which has fallen nearly 40 per cent over the past three months.

Overall, Mr. Gitzel has his work cut out for him as countries such as Germany, Switzerland and most recently Italy have vowed to phase out their nuclear energy programs as a result of pressure from citizens nervous about the potential for a nuclear meltdown in their own country.

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Canada must remain a free-trading [mining] nation – by Pierre Gratton (National Post – June 21, 2011)

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

Pierre Gratton is president and CEO of the Mining Association of Canada (MAC).

In the Northwest Territories, $7-billion has been invested
in northern and aboriginal businesses. This has cut the number
of citizens in the territory requiring income support in half.
Some 26 Aboriginal companies are supplying expertise to N.W.T. diamond mines and are well positioned for future opportunities.
(Pierre Gratton – CEO Mining Association of Canada)

In recent weeks, Canadians have again debated the merits of foreign investment in our industries. I am astonished to read commentators claiming that, despite the fact that natural resources are increasingly central to Canada’s economic trajectory, multinational investment delivers a limited return to Canadians.

Nothing could be further from the truth. If Canada is to seize the opportunity for new mining investment that’s currently before it, we need to welcome investment from every quarter of the planet.

Canada’s mining sector is booming. Commodity prices are at or near record highs, driven in large part by impressive Chinese growth, and the industry is enjoying a period of buoyancy not seen since the years that followed the Second World War. The economic crisis of 2008, from which other sectors of the global economy have not yet recovered, has been left far behind.

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Commodities boom lifts Aboriginal incomes – by Jeremy Torobin (Globe and Mail Blog – June 17, 2011)

The Globe and Mail is Canada’s national newspaper with the second largest broadsheet circulation in the country. It has enormous impact and influence on Canada’s political and business elite as well as the rest of the country’s print, radio and television media.

Click here for: TD report on Aboriginal incomes

Anyone who reads the business pages knows that lofty commodity prices have mostly been bonus for the Canadian economy and average household wealth, even if the strong currency that comes with them is a headache for manufacturers.

But here’s a good-news aspect of Canada’s emergence as a globally renowned hotbed for coveted resources that doesn’t get the attention it deserves: Aboriginals are sharing in the bounty, finding jobs more easily and seeing their personal and community incomes grow. Since 2001, thanks to a steady stream of jobs in the oil-and-gas and mining sectors, as well as in construction, total personal income for Aboriginals has grown by an average 7.5 per cent each year, according to a new study from TD Economics.

In fact, TD economists Sonya Gulati and Derek Burleton estimate in their report that the combined income of Aboriginal households, businesses and governments could top $32-billion within five years. That’s more than the combined level of nominal gross domestic product of Newfoundland and Labrador and Prince Edward Island, making Aboriginals a fast-growing consumer market that all Canadian businesses would do well to factor into their marketing plans, the authors suggest.

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