Canadian/International Media Resource Articles – Page 193

[MiningWatch Canada Ring of Fire report] Power requirements a concern – by Carol Mulligan

February 14, 2011

Carol Mulligan is a reporter for the Sudbury Star, the City of Greater Sudbury’s daily newspaper.

For the MiningWatch Canada report written by Joan Kuyek, please click here: Economic Analysis of the Ring of Fire Chromite Mining Play

For an extensive list of articles on this mineral discovery, please go to: Ontario’s Ring of Fire Mineral Discovery

The author of an economic analysis on the Ring of Fire chromite deposits urges Ontarians to ask a couple of basic questions about the benefits of developing the resource.

What will it cost taxpayers of the province of Ontario for every job that is created? And, is the cost worth it?

Joan Kuyek wrote the report for MiningWatch Canada, a national non-profit organization that examines mining and its effects on communities. Formerly of Sudbury and now living in Ottawa, Kuyek was commissioned by MiningWatch to conduct a preliminary review of the economics of mining the rich chromite deposits in Northern Ontario.

In the opening paragraph of her 20-page report, Kuyek said there is no experience in chromite mining or ferrochrome production in Canada.

[Manitoba Government] Asleep at the Wheel [Vale Thompson Job Cutbacks] – Winnipeg Free Press Editorial (November 20, 2010)

February 10, 2011January 27, 2011

The Winnipeg Free Press is the oldest newspaper in western Canada and has the largest readership in the province of Manitoba.

It appears that a better expenditure of the $1 billion is the one Vale
plans — to sink it into new mining operations that will at least protect
1,000 of the 1,500 jobs Vale currently supplies. (Winnipeg Free Press Editorial)

Mines Minister Dave Chomiak is heading to Toronto on Monday to talk to Vale SA officials about the mining giant’s plan to wind down smelting and refining activities in Thompson over five years, moves that will cost the city 500 jobs. The trip will be a continuation of the frantic to-ing and fro-ing that Mr. Chomiak and Premier Greg Selinger have been engaged in since news broke Wednesday that Manitoba’s third largest city was going to take a very hard economic hit.

It might be that the hand-wringing and dashing-about is simply what politicians always do in the face of bad news — they must be seen to be “doing something,” no matter how ineffectual. Or it might be what it seems to be, that the government was caught completely off guard by the news. And that raises the question that Opposition Leader Hugh McFadyen has raised: Has the government been asleep at the wheel?

It was, after all, only seven years ago that Inco Ltd., which was subsequently bought by Vale for $20 billion, threatened to shut down all operations in Thompson because the price of nickel had fallen so low that the Thompson operations were no longer viable. So it might have been expected that the government was keeping a close eye on Thompson, which has long been represented by Steve Ashton.

Fate of Vale, Petrobras CEOs [Roger Agnelli, Jose Sergio Gabrielli] Hinges on [Brazil] Politics – by Brian Ellsworth and Guillermo Parra-Bernal

June 10, 2015January 26, 2011

The National Post is Canada’s second largest national paper. This article was originally published in the Financial Post on January 25, 2011.

Former President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva harshly criticized Agnelli for slashing
investment and firing 2,000 workers after the 2008 financial crisis. Vale raised
capital spending again following heavy government pressure.

RIO DE JANEIRO — Markets dictate that corporate managers who create the most value for shareholders keep their jobs. But for Brazil’s two biggest companies, state-controlled oil firm Petrobras and mining giant Vale, the reality may shape up to be exactly the opposite.

Roger Agnelli, who over a decade helped transform Vale into the world’s leading iron ore producer, is under fire for not creating enough jobs in Brazil and rumors are swirling that President Dilma Rousseff could lobby for his ouster.

In contrast, Jose Sergio Gabrielli may stay on as Petrobras CEO despite a US$38-billion tumble in market value last year sparked by a plan that boosted government control over the company despite complaints from private shareholders.

Although Brazil is still a hot destination for emerging market investments, the apparently diverging fate of the two chief executives is a reminder that political interference is still a risk in Latin America’s largest economy.

As Brazil flexes its economic muscles and boosts its global influence, investors fear its companies could be vulnerable to government pressure to lead economic development efforts at the expense of private shareholders.

Ring of Fire Warning Issued [by First Nation] – by Kris Ketonen (January 26, 2011)

January 27, 2011January 26, 2011

The Thunder Bay Chronicle is the daily newspaper of Northwestern Ontario. This article was published on January 26, 2011.

For an extensive list of articles on this mineral discovery, please go to: Ontario’s Ring of Fire Mineral Discovery

“As the ring of fire co-ordinator and with support of the leadership and their respective
First Nations, I can truthfully state that no longer will foreign corporations pillage our
lands, wildlife, waters and desecrate our way of life without the inclusion and
maximum benefits for our people.” Raymond Ferris (January 26, 2011)

Matawa First Nations’ new Ring of Fire co-ordinator says the provincial government is handling development in the northern chromite deposit “very badly.”

Raymond Ferris of Constance Lake First Nation began his new job with Matawa on Monday, and said the government and mining companies alike need to do a better job consulting with First Nations as development in the Ring of Fire — a potentially-massive chromite deposit in the James Bay Lowlands — proceeds.

Ferris will be responsible for co-ordinating the relationship between government, the mining industry and First Nations as it pertains to developments in the Ring of Fire.

“So far the First Nations have been acting in good faith, and the governments and industry have been taking advantage of our generosity,” Ferris said during his introduction Tuesday at the Matawa offices in Thunder Bay.

[Peter Munk Donation] Biting the Hand That Feeds Them – Financial Post Editorial

January 24, 2011

The National Post is Canada’s second largest national paper. This column was originally published in the Financial Post on January 22, 2011.

In 2006, he [Peter Munk] announced a donation of $37-million to Toronto General Hospital, for support of the Peter Munk Cardiac Centre … That was the largest gift ever made to a Canadian medical institution … (Financial Post, January 22, 2011)

Peter Munk is donating $35-million to the University of Toronto. But all left-wing activists see is the evil spectre of ‘corporatization’

Today, the University of Toronto is the site of a major protest event, which will be led by academics flown in from California, and by Toronto Star writer Linda Mc-Quaig. What’s the object of the activists’ ire — Aboriginal rights? Stephen Harper? Israel? The United States? The contested territorial status of the land-locked Central Asian region of Nagorno-Karabakh?

Nope. None of the above. The seven-hour “Anti-Corporatization teach-in” scheduled to take place at U of T’s Sidney Smith Hall will target the decision of an alumnus to give the university $35-million. Oh, the horror.

The alumnus in question is gold magnate Peter Munk, and his donation will go toward funding the U of T’s Munk School for Global Affairs. If the school’s name sounds familiar, it could be because of the global acclaim won by its Citizen Lab, which in 2010 helped uncover a network of 1,294 computers in 103 countries that had been compromised by a virus originating in China. Or it could be because of the work of renowned scholars such as director Janice Stein, who has co-authored the definitive book on Canada’s deployment to Afghanistan.

[Innovation Cluster Theory] Saguenay: Next-Gen Aluminium – by Brian Banks (National Post/December 1, 2009)

September 13, 2018January 21, 2011

The National Post is Canada’s second largest national paper. This column was originally published in the Financial Post Magazine on December 1, 2009.

No. Of Companies: 70, R&D Jobs: 350, Production Jobs: 7,000

The Aluminium industry cluster in the Saguenay-Lac St. Jean region of Quebec, about 200 kilometres northeast of Quebec City, is a success story born of adversity. The first seeds were sown at a 1984 provincial economic summit when Alcan (now Rio Tinto Alcan, or RTA), a key employer and the region’s primary aluminium producer, announced plans for job cuts. New technology and the need to reduce costs left it no choice.

Rather than surrender, local entrepreneurs, civic leaders and Alcan itself hit upon a critical job-creation strategy — build upon Alcan’s massive presence and technical expertise by establishing companies to pursue value-added secondary and tertiary aluminium-related opportunities. Within two years, a $10-million venture capital fund had been established — with $5 million coming directly from Alcan — and the diversification had begun. Twenty-five years and several waves of private-sector, university and government-backed incentives and investments later, more than 70 spin-off companies, employing more than 7,000 workers — making everything from specialized heavy equipment to tubing and other fabricated products to world-class casting technologies for domestic and international markets — call the “Aluminium Valley” home.

While every firm is unique, the story of Mecfor Inc., based in Chicoutimi, is representative of the region’s evolution and the ways in which the cluster concept can foster success. Founded as a small forestry services firm in 1987 and later absorbed as an operating unit within a larger, local engineering and consulting firm, Mecfor took aim at the aluminium business in the late 1990s.

[Innovation Cluster Theory ]Fields of Dreams – by Karen Mazurkewich (National Post/December 1, 2009)

September 13, 2018January 21, 2011

The National Post is Canada’s second largest national paper. This column was originally published in the Financial Post Magazine on December 1, 2009.

Economic shifts and recession have brought innovation cluster theory to the forefront. Will it deliver? Entrepreneurs, venture capitalists and governments are saying, ‘yes’

It was the little conference that could.

On a cloudy day this past June, a tight group of technology nerds met in Stratford, Ont., to discuss their ambitious new digital media plan. What started as a small meeting of minds mushroomed to 1,000 delegates as momentum gathered. “It surprised us, it snowballed,” organizer Tom Jenkins, executive chairman and chief strategy officer of Kitchener-Waterloo, Ont.-based Open Text Corp., would later comment. Whether motivated by fear over where the economic crisis was taking the country, or simply the chance to hobnob with Canada’s top innovation executives like Michael Lazaridis, president and co-chief executive officer of Research in Motion, the conference ended on a high with a proclamation from above: the gurus — Jenkins and Lazaridis — decreed that this pastoral town (known mostly for its annual Shakespeare festival) would be transformed into Canada’s new digital media centre. Just as they had built nearby Kitchener-Waterloo into a vibrant hub for information and communication (ICT) technologies, they now planned to reshape Stratford, starting with the construction of the proposed Stratford Institute, a digital media innovation centre to be housed at the University of Waterloo.

It was as if the local dream team were channelling fiction by positing: “If we build it, they will come.” Only in this case the “they” are entrepreneurs, and the “field of dreams” a vibrant new industry to help drive the faltering economy in southern Ontario. Even the chosen leader of the project, Ian Wilson, a 66-year old retired librarian and archivist who has never written a line of code, is an unlikely saviour. But he has a vision that the new technology push into interactive digital media will be driven by creativity not just algebra. “[Firms like Open Text] know that the future means they need employees that have both the creativity of an artist and the knowledge of technology,” says Wilson, the former chief librarian and archivist of Canada, who embraced a Sisyphean task of digitizing all national publications.

Liberals Eye Ontario’s Northern Resource Riches [in Ring of Fire] – by Tanya Talaga (Mar 26, 2010)

January 27, 2011January 20, 2011

Tanya Talaga is the Queen’s Park (Ontario Provincial Government) reporter for the Toronto Star, which has the largest circulation in Canada. The paper has an enormous impact on Canada’s federal and provincial politics as well as shaping public opinion. This article was originally published March 26, 2010.

For an extensive list of articles on this mineral discovery, please go to: Ontario’s Ring of Fire Mineral Discovery

“We’ve lost 60 mills in Northern Ontario and some 45,000 well-paying
manufacturing and resource jobs from Dalton McGuinty’s tax hikes and
increasing red tape in energy policy.” Ontario Progressive Conservative
Leader Tim Hudak (March, 2010)

“For the 21st century, the discovery of chromite in the Ring of Fire could
be as big as the discovery of nickel was in Sudbury in the 19th century.”
Ontario Finance Minister Dwight Duncan (March, 2010)

The Liberal government is offering $150 million in electricity breaks for industry and $45 million for aboriginal job training to promote development in Northern Ontario’s ore-rich land. Opposition leaders say the incentives are “too little too late” for the region, where nearly 60 mills have closed and thousands of jobs have been lost.

Yet the province hopes developing a recently discovered massive deposit of chromite in the Ring of Fire area, 500 kilometres northeast of Thunder Bay, will help drive down the $21.3 billion deficit.

“For the 21st century, the discovery of chromite in the Ring of Fire could be as big as the discovery of nickel was in Sudbury in the 19th century,” Finance Minister Dwight Duncan said in his budget speech.

The ring’s development will be managed by a new coordinators office, which will bring together competing interests, from First Nations to mining companies, the government and environmentalists.

We Need Tougher Rules on Foreign Investment – by Diane Francis (National Post)

January 19, 2011

The National Post is Canada’s second largest national paper. This column was originally published in the Financial Post on January 15, 2011.

“A new Canadian foreign investment policy need involve only four pillars: investor reciprocity, resource protection, reverse onus and a veto for any affected provinces.” Diane Francis (January 15, 2011)

The Potash Corporation of Saskatchewan Inc. rejection hasn’t abated interest in takeovers in Canada. Just look at this week’s contest to buy two iron-ore plays or news that China’s sovereign fund is opening a Toronto office.

It also hasn’t harmed Potash Corp.’s stock price either, which is trading much higher than BHP Billiton PLC said it was worth.

The point is that the come-and-get-it Canada mentality has to end. The open-door mindset is ideological and rooted in the misconception that globalization and free markets exist. They do not and the world’s economic players have been cherry-picking naive nations like Canada for as long as our government has let it happen.

The mentality, by the way, is fiercely propagated by banks, and their mergers and acquisitions departments seeking fat fees, which would have happily sold Potash Corp. to foreigners and denied untold billions of dollars in head office benefits to Canada.

Minister [Gravelle] Tries to Calm Fears for Ring of Fire – by Chelsey Romain (Timmins Daily Press)

January 27, 2011January 12, 2011

This article was originally published in the Timmins Daily Press on January 11, 2011. Timmins is the second largest mining community in Ontario with a population of about 45,000.

For an extensive list of articles on this mineral discovery, please go to: Ontario’s Ring of Fire Mineral Discovery

“We consider it an absolute priority that the greatest value-added opportunities take place with the Ring of Fire development. That very much includes the processing facility be in the North.” (MNDMF Minister Michael Gravelle – Jan/11/2011)

“We are very, very concerned about plans for the Ring of Fire because, quite frankly, there doesn’t seem to be any plan. There doesn’t seem to be a plan that involves Northern communities or the First Nation people who live up in the region.” MP Charlie Angus (NDP — Timmins-James Bay – Jan/11/2011)

Vows ore won’t go to China

The Far North’s Ring of Fire project has been hailed as the next great thing in mining, bigger than the Porcupine Camp and Sudbury’s ore body combined.

But there is fear among those wanting to benefit from the project that Northern Ontario, more specifically the Northeast and Timmins, will be left out, while foreign countries reap the rewards.

A recent comment from Teamsters Canada Rail Conference Maintenance of Way Employees president William Brehl that ore mined from the Ring of Fire could be shipped to China for processing has political leaders saying discussion on the subject needs to take place now.

“We are very, very concerned about plans for the Ring of Fire because, quite frankly, there doesn’t seem to be any plan,” said MP Charlie Angus (NDP — Timmins-James Bay). “There doesn’t seem to be a plan that involves Northern communities or the First Nation people who live up in the region.”

Up for debate is whether or not the companies involved with the project will decide to have a processing plant in the North. Stating Ontario’s lack of competitiveness versus other provinces as well as other countries, there is concern that a processing plant could be built elsewhere, most specifically China.

Real Help for the North – by Peter Foster (National Post)

January 11, 2011

The National Post is Canada’s second largest national paper. This column was originally published in the Financial Post on January 4, 2011.

Whoever wins the contest for control of BIM, the people of Baffin Island are
far more likely to thrive being “exploited” by filthy capitalists than being
“helped” by governments. National Post, Peter Foster (January 4, 2011)

The Baffinland Iron mine Would Bring Desperately Needed Jobs

From a financial point of view, the takeover contest for control of Baffinland Iron Mines Corp., BIM, hardly registers. The latest round of bidding for the company puts a value on it of $570-million, a piddling amount when compared with, say, the $44-billion market capitalization of Potash Corp. In other respects, however, BIM may be more genuinely “strategic” than the Saskatchewan mining giant, a proposed takeover of which was deep sixed earlier this year because of the “S” word.

In fact, the rejection of BHP Billiton’s bid for Potash was all about electoral politics. However, the location of Bafflinland’s prime asset is genuinely strategic in terms of the Conservative government’s Arctic aspirations. Also, the project would bring desperately needed jobs and revenue to the region of Nunavut, where it costs Canadian taxpayers $1-billion a year to service some 33,000 people living in an area the size of Western Europe.

U.S.-controlled Nunavut Iron Ore Acquisition Inc. made a hostile bid for BIM in September. Since then, Luxembourg-based steelmaking giant ArcelorMittal has arrived on the scene as a white knight. Last week Arcelor upped its bid to $1.40 per share for all the Baffinland shares. Nunavut Iron Ore, which was set up solely to acquire Baffinland, immediately upped its own bid to $1.45, but for only 60% of the equity.

Canadian Mining Town [Sudbury] Hits Bottom – by Michael T. Kaufman (New York Times – August/1984)

May 21, 2012January 11, 2011

This article was originally published in the New York Times on August 13, 1984.

SUDBURY, Ontario, August 13, 1984 – the Manoir Bar sits on the floor of a valley that was gouged out by a meteor millennia ago. Until two months ago the men drinking in the Manoir worked for two large companies and earned some of the highest industrial salaries in Canada digging and processing the ore churned up by the meteor.

Now, over beers, they tried to explain to themselves and to a visitor how this recently prosperous city had become the place with the highest unemployment in Canada, in the northern hemisphere and, some said, in the industrialized world.

Last month the two giant nickel and copper companies around which ;this city of 135,000 grew, shut down operations and furloughed their workers because their stockpiled supplies far exceeded the demands of industrial users in the United States and Europe.

The 1,250-foot stack at Inco, which in flush times propelled acetic smoke all the way to Nova Scotia, now stands dormant like a stele from a lapsed civilization. The 13,000 miners and mill workers who in recent years have earned salaries averaging from 20,000 to 40,000 Canadian dollars a year, or about $16,000 to $32,000, are either using up the last of their vacation pay or are living on $200 a week in unemployment benefits, so called poky checks.

[Barrick Founder] Peter Munk: ‘I’ve made some money and I wish to give it back’ – by Richard Blackwell

January 7, 2011

This article was originally published in the Globe and Mail on December 31, 2010. It is Canada’s national newspaper with the second largest broadsheet circulation in the country. The paper 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.

Nation Builder 2010 Finalist

In 2010 Peter Munk cemented his reputation as one of Canada’s foremost philanthropists with a $35-million donation to the University of Toronto’s Munk School of Global Affairs, enabling a dramatic expansion of the Munk Centre for International Studies that he helped start up a decade ago.

The donation – the largest single gift the U of T has received from an individual – underlines the two prongs of Mr. Munk’s philanthropic vision: Stay focused and support Canada’s role on the world stage.

Mr. Munk, a refugee who built multinational mining giant Barrick Gold Corp. and is still its chairman at the age of 83, believes Canada is one of the world’s great countries, yet it is unappreciated by many who were born here.

“We are a country of peace, law, justice, freedom and free education. We have the largest multiracial society in the world,” he said. “Canada is as good as it gets.”

Mr. Munk has decided to give away most of his fortune rather than leave it to his children. “It is your obligation to give back as much as you have taken from a country,” he said in an interview from his winter home in Switzerland. “I consider myself considerably lucky. … I’ve made some money and I wish to give it back.”

Vale Inco saved Sudbury from becoming Valley of Death: Clement – by Carol Mulligan (July 18, 2009)

June 10, 2015January 6, 2011

Carol Mulligan is a reporter for the Sudbury Star, the City of Greater Sudbury’s daily newspaper.

“There was going to be no buyer, there were going to be no jobs, there weren’t going to be any capital investments, there was going to be no employer. That was the Valley of Death that Sudbury faced.” Tony Clement (July 18, 2009)

Sudbury is better off now than it was two and a half years ago when Vale Inco Ltd. bought the former Inco Ltd., says Canada’s Industry minister.

If the Brazilian-owned Companhia Vale do Rio Doce hadn’t bought it, Inco would “not exist, it would have been closed down, it would have been liquidated if there wasn’t a buyer,” said Tony Clement in a telephone interview late Friday afternoon.

“There was going to be no buyer, there were going to be no jobs, there weren’t going to be any capital investments, there was going to be no employer,” said Clement. “That was the Valley of Death that Sudbury faced.”

Clement was responding to charges by United Steelworkers international president Leo Gerard that the federal government should have forced Vale Inco to live up to commitments made when it purchased Inco.