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Canadian Media Resource Articles

Why this town in the Northwest Territories was called the ‘Village of Widows’ – by Nina Dragicevic (CBC Docs – October 25, 2024)

https://www.cbc.ca/documentaries/

The discovery of a rare rock amidst the tundra of Canada’s Far North nearly 100 years ago set in motion one of mankind’s most destructive legacies: Decades of mining, workers getting sick and, finally, a pair of atomic bombs that killed tens of thousands of civilians in an instant — and changed the world forever.

As author and professor Peter van Wyck says in the documentary Atomic Reaction: “This is a piece of Canadian history that doesn’t get talked about much.” It all started near Délı̨nę, a community on Great Bear Lake in the Northwest Territories, where the Sahtu Dene people have lived for thousands of years. Originally a nomadic people, they started settling more firmly at Délı̨nę in the 1940s.

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Wall Street and Main Street rein in their optimism on gold prices for next week – by Ernest Hoffman (Kitco News – October 25, 2024)

https://www.kitco.com/

(Kitco News) – After delivering one of its strongest weekly performances of the year last week, gold picked up right where it left off, but a midweek stall after fresh all-time highs has market participants more divided on the yellow metal’s near-term direction.

Spot gold kicked off the week trading at $2,722 per ounce, and traders in the Asian and European sessions pushed the yellow metal to the edge of $2,740 by the North American open. But U.S. traders woke up filled with doubt about the precious metal, and they drove the spot price all the way down to $2,716 by 2:45 p.m. EDT.

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Millennial mining heirs bet the family business on Argentine copper – by Jacob Lornic (Bloomberg News – October 25, 2024)

https://www.bnnbloomberg.ca/

When he was 16, Adam Lundin was lowered by helicopter into the remote wilderness of northern Canada. For the son of a wealthy mining mogul, this was something of an initiation. He spent the summer hunting for gold — shadowing grizzled prospectors and geologists, bushwhacking through the Boréal forest.

He even dug holes for where the outhouses would go. “I just wanted to be kept busy,” he said. Adam, 37, is now the chairman of Lundin Mining Corp., a publicly traded Canadian metals producer. His younger brother, Jack, 34, is the company’s chief executive officer.

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Investing in oil and gas still important, IEA deputy head tells Calgary crowd – by Amanda Stephenson (Halifax City News – October 22, 2024)

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CALGARY — Investments in oil and gas production are important and must continue in tandem with increased investment in renewable and clean technologies, the deputy head of the International Energy Agency said Tuesday. Mary Burce Warlick made the comments in Calgary, the corporate heart of Canada’s oil and gas sector, just a week after the Paris-based IEA released its most recent forecast for global energy demand.

The IEA said in that forecast that demand for all three fossil fuels — coal, oil and gas — is set to peak by the end of this decade. It also predicted a potential oversupply of both oil and liquefied natural gas in the second half of the 2020s.

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Mali threatens to let Barrick mine permit lapse over dispute – by Katarina Höije, Diakaridia Dembele and William Clowes (Bloomberg News – October 25, 2024)

https://www.bnnbloomberg.ca/

Mali’s military government has threatened to take back Barrick Gold Corp.’s Loulo mine concession when the current permit expires in 2026, amid an escalating dispute over how to divide the economic benefits from operations in the country.

Mali is considering letting the permit for Loulo lapse when it expires in February 2026, Finance Minister Alousseni Sanou said in an Oct. 18 letter sent to Barrick’s chief executive officer Mark Bristow, and seen by Bloomberg. Mali “reserves the right not to renew the operating permit” and invited Barrick to talks on the mine’s “transition phase” starting later this month, Sanou wrote.

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Teck cuts copper forecast again as it encounters more problems at anchor QB2 mine in Chile – by Niall McGee (Globe and Mail – October 25, 2024)

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/

Teck Resources Ltd. has cut its full-year copper forecast yet again owing to setbacks at multiple mines, including at its giant QB2 copper operation in Chile. Vancouver-based Teck said on Thursday that its 2024 copper production will be between 420,000 tonnes and 455,000 tonnes, about 6.5 per cent lower than predicted.

The downgrade was driven in part by issues with its haul trucks at its Highland Valley mine in British Columbia, including labour availability and problems with its autonomous system. Teck also cut its guidance for the QB2 mine in Chile, reducing its forecast by 6 per cent to roughly 205,000 tonnes.

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Who will pay for Ontario’s radioactive past? – by Aya Dufour (CBC News Features – October 15, 2024)

https://www.cbc.ca/newsinteractives/

One northern remediation project illustrates the complexity of the issue

If not for the fences and the signs, nothing’s obviously threatening about the radioactive waste that has plagued Nipissing First Nation for decades. It looks like sandy soil peppered with small rocks. Behind the benign appearance, however, are niobium and other naturally occurring radioactive materials that were left behind by a defunct mining operation dating back to the early days of the Cold War.

With the company long gone and the Ministry of Mines busy remediating and monitoring the other 5,865 abandoned mining projects in Ontario, the waste has just sat there for 67 years.

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Liability trial for BHP in Samarco dam collapse begins in London – by Cecilia Jamasmie (Mining.com – October 21, 2024)

https://www.mining.com/

BHP (ASX, NYSE: BHP) faces a potential $47 billion payout in damages over the 2015 Mariana Dam disaster in Brazil, believed to be country’s most catastrophic environmental incident, as a lawsuit against the miner kicked off on Monday in London’s High Court.

The trial, expected to last up to 12 weeks, will determine whether BHP is legally responsible for the collapse of the Fundão tailings dam in Minas Gerais, Brazil. The structure failure caused a massive flood that claimed 19 lives, destroyed villages and severely polluted water sources for local communities. The dam was owned by Samarco, a joint venture between BHP and Brazilian mining giant Vale.

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Baffinland cuts 10% of workforce to focus on Steensby rail – by Samuel Wat (CBC News North – October 19, 2024)

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/north/

Mining company will reduce amount of iron ore shipments out of Milne Inlet

Baffinland Iron Mines is laying off 10 per cent of its workforce in Nunavut due to weak iron ore prices. Senior adviser Paul Quassa said the company is diverting its resources to the $5.7-billion railroad from the Mary River Mine south to Steensby Inlet.

“We would be rationalizing our equipment and supplies… and reducing the number of permit fronts to concentrate folks on the Steensby authorization,” he said.

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World’s Top Ruby Mine in Mozambique Stormed After ‘Fake’ Notice – by Matthew Hill (Bloomberg News – October 20, 2024)

https://www.bnnbloomberg.ca/

About 300 people on Sunday invaded a pit at Gemfields Group Ltd.’s ruby mine in Mozambique, which accounts for about half the world’s supply of the stones, executive officer Sean Gilbertson said. Two people were shot and injured by police, he said.

A crowd of about 500 people later gathered at a village near the Montepuez ruby mine in northeastern Mozambique intending to enter the mine, Gilbertson said by text message.

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As we build a vision of Canada, let’s make sure it has more Canada in it – by Dan Breznitz (Globe and Mail – October 19, 2024)

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/

Any follower of Canadian news is overwhelmed by the amount of doom and gloom about Canada’s economic future. Rightly so. We should not only be worried, but also forcefully demand that Canadian businesses finally embrace innovation to significantly improve productivity, and that our government focus less on symbolic politics and more on putting the country back on track.

I would be the first to admit that in this series I have been at the forefront of this choir of despair, documenting our alarming decline, how systemic and deep-set our problems have become, how unproductive and lacking in innovation our business sector is, and how our government is structured in a way that ensures it is not fit for purpose.

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Wall Street all in on further gains for gold, Main Street grows more bullish for next week’s price action – by Ernest Hoffman (Kitco News – October 18, 2024)

https://www.kitco.com/

(Kitco News) – After one of the strongest and steadiest price climbs of the year this past week on its way to fresh record-setting highs, and with domestic and international tensions supporting uncertainty, it’s no surprise that market participants see nothing but blue skies ahead for gold.

Spot gold kicked off the week trading in the low $2,650s, spiking as high as $2,665 per ounce in the early morning and starting the North American trading session at $2,659 per ounce on Monday. After a relatively uneventful day, the last the yellow metal would see this week, it slid to the weekly low below $2,640 per ounce just after 1:00 a.m. on Tuesday before recovering to trade at $2,651 by the North American open.

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‘Sleeping with an elephant:’ What will a Republican or Democrat win mean for Canada? – by Kelly Geraldine Malone (Finance Yahoo – October 19, 2024)

https://ca.finance.yahoo.com/

WASHINGTON — Pierre Trudeau famously described living next to the United States as “sleeping with an elephant,” a sentiment his son is intimately aware of amid this year’s tumultuous and polarized American election.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has likely reflected on his father’s words about Canada’s proximity to the U.S.: “one is affected by every twitch and grunt.” The U.S. is Canada’s closest neighbour and largest trading partner and who wins the White House in November will be in charge during the review of the Canada-U.S.-Mexico agreement in 2026.

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Barrick Gold asks judge to dismiss Ontario lawsuits for alleged killings and abuses at Tanzanian mine – by Niall McGee (Globe and Mail – October 17, 2024)

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/

Barrick Gold Corp. is asking an Ontario judge to dismiss lawsuits alleging that its subsidiary in East Africa committed human-rights atrocities in the vicinity of its North Mara mine, arguing that the matter should be litigated overseas.

Barrick is defending two civil cases in the Ontario Superior Court of Justice, one from November, 2022, and another from February of this year. The plaintiffs are Indigenous Kurya from villages around the mine in Tanzania who were injured in 2021 and 2022 when mine security police allegedly shot at them, as well as family members of victims who were killed during this period allegedly by the police.

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N.W.T.’s new net-zero climate target necessary for its mining future says MLA – by Liny Lamberink (CBC News North – October 19, 2024)

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/north/

MLA Shauna Morgan says bringing in renewable diesel will make the N.W.T. more attractive

The MLA for Yellowknife North says the government’s new commitment to reaching net-zero emissions by 2050 is “exciting,” and something that will need to be taken seriously if the territory wants mining to be part of its future.

Shauna Morgan pointed out in the Legislative Assembly on Friday that De Beers and Rio Tinto have both already made commitments to making their mining operations around the world net-zero.

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