https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/north/
The Yukon Chamber of Mines says the territorial government needs to speed up implementation of the Resource Gateway program announced more than three years ago.
The program announcement was the highlight of Justin Trudeau’s first visit to Yukon as prime minister.
Yukon Premier Sandy Silver and Trudeau jointly pledged just over $360 million in funding to build and upgrade mining roads. Mining companies promised another $108 million. Continue Reading →
https://www.theglobeandmail.com/
Michael Byers is the Canada Research Chair in Global Politics and International Law at the University of British Columbia, and the author of International Law and the Arctic.
A Chinese state-owned company wants to purchase a gold mine in Nunavut. Does the Arctic location make the purchase a national security risk?
The Hope Bay gold mine is operated by TMAC Resources, a junior Canadian mining company. Shandong Gold wants to buy TMAC for $208-million, and 97 per cent of TMAC shareholders have approved the sale.
Meanwhile, however, the Canadian government has ordered a national security review; some experts, including retired Major-General David Fraser, have pointed to Arctic sovereignty and security as reasons for blocking the sale. Continue Reading →
The copper price was trading at its highest since March 2013 on Tuesday after Chinese data showed manufacturing and construction in the world’s second-largest economy was expanding at a pace not seen in a decade.
On the Comex market, copper for delivery in March jumped 2.4% to $3.5215 a pound ($7,764 a tonne) in New York, racking up its fifth straight day of gains. The copper price has advanced 26% year to date after recovering from a dip below $2.00 a pound at the height of the pandemic in March.
According to Fastmarkets MB, benchmark 62% Fe fines imported into Northern China were changing hands for $132.13 a tonne on Tuesday. That was the highest level for the steelmaking raw material since January 2014 and brings gains for 2020 to over 43%. Continue Reading →
https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/
Nine-year-old Bedahbun ‘Bee’ Moonias can’t bring herself to drink the running water in her Thunder Bay, Ont., hotel room. “Since we can’t drink the tap water back in Neskantaga, I’m scared to use the tap water here to drink it,” Moonias said. “So I use water bottles.”
Moonias has spent her whole life worrying about the water flowing from her faucets back home in Neskantaga First Nation, a remote fly-in Ontario community about 450 kilometres north of Thunder Bay.
Neskantaga has the longest-duration boil water advisory of any reserve in the country — 25 years and counting. “Sometimes, I feel like we don’t exist,” Moonias said. “Like, nobody knows that we don’t have no clean water. Like, we’re just ghosts and we’re just put in a drawer, in a box.” Continue Reading →
https://www.theglobeandmail.com/
Copper, soybeans, wheat and gold have enjoyed spectacular run-ups this year, reigniting interest in commodities as the global economy recovers from the pandemic. More than a snapback, the gains are raising the question of whether a commodities supercycle is now in the works.
The mere mention of a supercycle – where prices for a swath of commodities remain elevated for many years, as demand outpaces supply – is sure to lift the spirits of Canadian investors with money tied to the country’s major benchmark.
The S&P/TSX Composite Index is still heavily dependent on miners, energy producers and other resource developers. The exposure has weighed on the benchmark in recent years, but could deliver it back to glory if some of the more bullish forecasts come true. Continue Reading →
“Canada produces just 1.6 per cent of global CO2 emissions, with
Ontario responsible for less than half of that. China, by contrast,
is at 30 per cent and rising.”
On Nov. 12 an Ontario judge refused to strike out a lawsuit by a group of two minor children and five youths alleging that the Ontario government’s 2018 reduction in its climate-change target by 15 per cent violates their constitutional rights to life, liberty and security of the person.
This judgment conflicts with a judgment of the Federal Court two weeks earlier, striking out an almost identical claim. The Ontario court should have followed the Federal Court precedent.
Most adults have an instinctive desire to protect innocent, vulnerable children. In the climate-change wars, however, we are seeing child litigants being used as climate-change soldiers in lawsuits brought by adult lawyers and their financial supporters. Continue Reading →
The Dominican Republic’s Minister of Energy and Mines, Antonio Almonte, rejected rumours that linked Barrick Gold’s recent $108-million advanced tax and royalty payment to the possible approval of a tailings dam at the Pueblo Viejo operation.
In a TV interview broadcasted over the weekend, Almonte said that the advanced payment was the result of negotiations led by the ministry of finance and the national government’s economic team, with the goal of addressing the current fiscal deficit that is a direct consequence of the slowdown caused by the covid-19 pandemic. Continue Reading →
https://www.theglobeandmail.com/
A former commander of Canadian troops in Afghanistan is urging the federal government to reject a takeover of an Arctic gold mine by a Chinese state-owned enterprise.
Retired major-general David Fraser said this rejection should form part of a strategic rethink aimed at keeping China out of Canada’s Far North.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s cabinet recently ordered a formal national security review of the proposed acquisition of Toronto-based TMAC Resources Inc. by Shandong Gold Mining Co. Ltd., a Chinese state-owned conglomerate and one of the world’s largest gold producers. Continue Reading →
TORONTO — A group of Canadian researchers, who discovered diamonds in a small rock sample found in an unrealized gold deposit in Nunavut, say their findings hint at the possibility of new deposits in the area that are similar to the world’s richest gold mine.
According to a press release issued in October, the new research “fills in blanks” about the thermal conditions of Earth’s crust three billion years ago.
The findings are set to be released in two studies at the virtual fall meeting of the American Geophysical Union between Dec. 1-17. Continue Reading →
https://www.theglobeandmail.com/
Steven Fletcher was the member of Parliament for Charleswood-St. James-Assiniboia from 2004 to 2015 and Canada’s first permanently disabled federal cabinet minister. He resides in Manitoba and is the principal of Fletcher Focus International.
Every day, amid the wilderness of boreal forest, Canadians driving along Manitoba’s Provincial Road 315 pass by Bernic Lake, just 165 kilometres outside Winnipeg.
They have nary a clue that they’ve driven past the world’s largest mining operation for a rare and highly valuable resource – one that’s worth more than gold, yet is little-known in the world at large.
Cesium – a soft, alkali metal that is element 55 on the periodic table – is categorized as a “rare earth mineral,” one of the vital elements for the technology we use today and will use tomorrow, from solar panels, wind turbines, electric vehicles and fast-charging batteries that could be the key to a clean-energy future to cutting-edge military tech and weapons. Continue Reading →
Electric cars will achieve only tiny emissions savings at a very high price
In a move to jump-start the market for electric cars in Quebec, the government of Premier François Legault this month announced a ban on the sale of new gas-powered cars from 2035.
Similarly, leaders across the rich world, including U.S. president-elect Joe Biden and U.K. Prime Minister Boris Johnson, who just announced an even more ambitious deadline of 2030, promise lavish carrots along with sticks to outlaw gasoline cars.
Unfortunately, electric cars will achieve only tiny emissions savings at a very high price. Electric cars are certainly fun, but almost everywhere cost more across their lifetime than their gasoline counterparts. Continue Reading →
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/new-brunswick/
There are barely a dozen homes at Cape Spencer on the Bay of Fundy coast. But people here are not surprised when strangers quietly appear in their community, about 20 kilometres southeast of Saint John.
The arrivals are often preceded by an upward trend in gold prices. “We’ve always had people looking for gold out here,” said Kimberly Burry, whose home sits atop a hill looking out toward the ocean.
The latest newcomers, a small crew of geologists, caused barely a ripple this fall when they took up residence in a rented house and began their daily trips into the woods to explore the many rock outcrops and other geological features. Continue Reading →
If leadership on climate action and environmental best practices are worthwhile pursuits, then the Canadian mining sector is an industry that’s deserving of Canada’s – and the global market’s – full support.
And if a strong regulatory framework for environmental performance, growing Indigenous support and a superior record on human rights are equally important benchmarks, then our country’s mining sector is on the right track.
Beyond the metals that contribute to so much of our modern world, let’s focus for the moment on electric vehicles (EVs). They’re viewed by a growing number of consumers here and abroad as an important way to help reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and improve air quality in many developing cities. Continue Reading →
Support from coal miners helped Donald Trump win the US presidency four years ago. Now, the leader of the nation’s top mining union is calling on Trump to “move on”, adding that ongoing efforts to challenge vote counts and pressure state elections officials are a “threat to our entire form of government and the American way of life.”
While the US General Services Administration — the federal agency that allows the transition process to begin — said late on Monday President-elect Joe Biden’s team could get in touch to begin changeover, Trump continues to hold on to power.
Trump tweeted on Tuesday he would soon present evidence of widespread ballot fraud and other wrongdoing in “great detail” in a “big lawsuit”. Continue Reading →
https://www.theglobeandmail.com/
Veteran Canadian mining investors are joining forces to purchase an obscure junior gold company, agreeing to lavish severance packages in exchange for control of a Colombian mining project.
The group of buyers includes former Goldcorp chair Ian Telfer, former Goldcorp chief executive officer David Garofalo, current Yamana Gold Corp. executive chair Peter Marrone and mining financier Frank Giustra.
Together, the group will buy $38-million in new shares of Toronto-based Caldas Gold Corp. as part of an $85-million private placement, and they will also assume operational control. Continue Reading →
