Canadian Media Resource Articles – Page 458

Ontario’s moment of truth, message of reconciliation – by Martin Regg Cohn (Toronto Star – May 31, 2016)

May 31, 2016

https://www.thestar.com/

One public pledge stands out as the easiest to uphold: The promise to recognize and remember the history of residential school survivors by retelling their stories to all our schoolchildren through a revised curriculum.

For most of its existence, Ontario’s legislature has not been an especially welcoming place to the indigenous people who predate it.

The hallways at Queen’s Park are a pantheon of portraits showing stolid leaders of European descent — generals, politicians, fathers of Confederation — their stern visages looking down upon visitors. Today, that whitewashed view of the province’s history looks a little less cloistered.

After a sunrise reconciliation ceremony on the front lawn of Queen’s Park, hundreds of indigenous Ontarians were invited inside Monday to see its new public face.

Interest Rate Expectations Pressure Gold Below $1,200 In Holiday Trading – by Neils Christensen (Kitco News – May 30, 2016)

May 30, 2016

http://www.kitco.com/

(Kitco News) – According to some analysts, gold prices remain on the defensive Monday, in thin holiday activity, as traders continue to price in a rate hike from the Federal Reserve some time during the summer.

Both U.S. and British markets are closed for holidays Monday and thin volume helped push gold future below the key psychological support level at $1,200 an ounce in electronic markets. Overnight gold prices hit a session low of $1,199 an ounce. Although prices have managed to push off those lows, they are still under pressure, last trading at $1,207.70 an ounce, down 0.50% on the day.

Alex Thorndike, senior precious metals dealer at MKS, said that traders are still digesting Fed Chair Janet Yellen’s comments Friday. At an event at Harvard University, she said she was optimistic that the U.S. economy will continue to expand and added that it could be appropriate to raise interest rates in a few months.

Why India could be the oil market’s next big driver of consumption – by Joe Chidley (Financial Post – May 30, 2016)

May 30, 2016

http://business.financialpost.com/

Oil’s rise to US$50 a barrel earlier this month proved to be short-lived, but at least it suggested that oil prices had established a new and higher range. We might not be looking at a return to US$100-a-barrel WTI anytime soon, but prices seem to have stabilized somewhat, remaining north of US$40 for several weeks now.

Who knows how long this will last, of course. Support for higher prices has come at least in part from supply disruptions — in Nigeria and Libya, as well as Alberta, thanks to the Fort McMurray fires. Recent U.S. Energy Information Administration data suggest that stockpiles of crude are coming down.

Yet things like supply disruptions are difficult to predict, and even harder to count on when it comes to having a lasting impact on the supply glut. The better news might be that the other side of the supply-demand imbalance is starting to do what it’s supposed to do: There are signs that global demand is picking up.

Dubbed the ‘new gasoline’, lithium fuels gains for miners – by Ian McGugan (Globe and Mail – May 30, 2016)

May 30, 2016

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/

Over the past few months, it has been touted as the “new gasoline,” hailed as the vital ingredient in the electric-car revolution and billed as a great investment opportunity. Lithium is enjoying its moment in the spotlight – and at least some of the enthusiasm for the once-obscure silvery-white metal is solidly grounded in reality.

If sales of electric vehicles from Tesla Motors Inc. and other manufacturers take off in years to come, so too will sales of a new generation of lithium-ion batteries. Increased use of lithium-ion batteries will propel “staggering growth in lithium demand” over the next five years, writes Julia Ralph, a Hong Kong-based principal consultant for CRU Group, a metals and mining research company.

Lithium lust is already fuelling big gains in some Canadian-listed junior miners, such as Nemaska Lithium Inc. and Lithium X Energy Corp., both of which have quadrupled in share price this year.

Opinion: Making mines safe: Victoria gets an ‘F’ – by Calvin Sandborn (Vancouver Sun – May 29, 2016)

May 30, 2016

http://vancouversun.com/

Calvin Sandborn is legal director of the University of Victoria’s Environmental Law Centre.

We’ve done it with the highest standard of sustainable mining in the world… Premier Christy Clark, 2012

We found over a decade of neglect in compliance and enforcement program activities …
B.C. Auditor General, 2016

The muddy torrent that ripped down Mount Polley dam and turned gentle Hazeltine Creek into a toxic canyon also did something else: It swept away a decade of empty government boasts about environmental stewardship.

The recent Auditor General report on compliance and enforcement of the mining sector pulls no punches about the state of mine regulation: “The ministry is deficient in carrying out most of the expected regulatory activities. …

University of Saskatchewan offers mining specialization – by Alex Frazer-Harrison (Saskatoon StarPhoenix – May 28, 2016)

May 30, 2016

http://thestarphoenix.com/

POSTMEDIA CONTENT WORKS – A new set of undergraduate courses at the University of Saskatchewan’s College of Engineering is helping open the door for students seeking to enter the mining field.

The “mining engineering option” courses in geological, chemical and mechanical engineering allow students seeking a bachelor of engineering degree the opportunity to take additional specialized classes related to mining. Announced in 2013, the first five students to enrol will graduate this spring.

“This means students taking engineering degrees in chemical, mechanical or geological can pick up these mining-focused classes. … We have a strong interest at home because there are still very large mining operations in Saskatchewan,” says Al Shpyth, executive director of the International Minerals Innovation Institute, which entered into a funding agreement with the U of S for five mining-related courses and the options.

Future of potash is solid despite low prices – by Paul Sinkewicz (Saskatoon StarPhoenix – May 28, 2016)

May 30, 2016

http://thestarphoenix.com/

POSTMEDIA CONTENT WORKS – As potash prices remain depressed, the watchword for Saskatchewan’s major producers in 2016 is cost control. Prices for the fertilizer ingredient were more than $900 a tonne in 2008, but thanks to slumping demand for the mineral, they are now expected to stay in the $200 to $300 range for the next several years.

Already the world’s largest producer of potash, Saskatchewan had been enjoying the promise of even greater things ahead for the industry with firms investing billions in upgrades to existing sites and several new major mining operations taking shape.

The Mosaic Company alone has committed more than $3 billion to a new shaft at its Esterhazy mine. The K3 development has been underway since 2013, and remains on schedule and on budget, says Bruce Bodine, incoming senior vice-president, potash.

Strong tailwinds giving juniors, project developers room to run – research note – by Henry Lazenby (Mining Weekly.com – May 26, 2016)

May 27, 2016

http://www.miningweekly.com/page/americas-home

TORONTO (miningweekly.com) – About halfway through the first quarter, analysts at Dundee Capital Markets noticed that exploration companies that had weeks earlier appeared to be dead in the water, as investors abandoned all but a handful of names, were steadily starting to leave the laggards behind as a combination of the gold price rally and improved investor sentiment blew wind in their sails.

On the back of a 17% rise in the price of gold during the first three months of 2016, the coverage universe of 47 resource stocks that Dundee tracked on an enterprise value per ounce (EV/oz) metric, based on a total mineral inventory (TMI) had risen steadily, helping analysts to differentiate those companies that had the benefit of wind in their sails from the idlers and providing a good measure of the potential upside that the market was willing to pay for quality gold opportunities.

In a research note published on Thursday, research analysts and co-authors Ron Stewart and Erik Bermel noted that the average EV/oz had so far this year improved from $13/oz to $32/oz, reflecting improved investor sentiment toward exploration-focused companies which, in turn, reflected the 15% year-to-date improvement in the gold price to about $1 220/oz.

A tale of two minerals: Overproduction, low demand, weak prices dog potash, uranium mining – by Bruce Johnstone (Regina Leader-Post – May 27, 2016)

May 27, 2016

http://thestarphoenix.com/

With apologies to Charles Dickens, it was the best of times and worst of times for Saskatchewan’s mining industry in 2015.

Both production volume and value of Saskatchewan’s most important mineral resources — potash and uranium — were up in 2015 over 2014. And, for the first time ever, Saskatchewan was ranked second in terms of the value of mineral production among Canada’s mining provinces last year.

But by the fourth quarter of 2015 and first quarter of 2016, overproduction and low prices resulted in potash and uranium mine shutdowns and layoffs.According to Natural Resources Canada, the value of Saskatchewan’s mineral production was $8.5 billion in 2015, with a nearly 20 per cent share of Canadian mineral production.

Miner Sees Silver Price Surging Ninefold as Global Gadgets Boom – by Natalie Obiko Pearson (Bloomberg News – May 26, 2016)

May 27, 2016

http://www.bloomberg.com/

A major Japanese electronics maker approached First Majestic Silver Corp. for the first time last month seeking to lock in future stock, a sign of supply concerns that could boost the metal’s price ninefold, according to the best-performing producer of the metal.

“For an electronics manufacturer to come directly to us — that tells me something is changing in the market,” said Keith Neumeyer, chief executive officer of First Majestic, the top stock in Canada and among its global peers this year. “I think we’ll see three-digit silver,” he said, predicting the metal could surge to $140 an ounce by as early as 2019.

That’s a bold forecast. While silver has rallied 19 percent this year to leapfrog gold as the best-performing precious metal, it settled lower Wednesday at $16.26 an ounce on the Comex in New York and reached a record of just under $50 in 2011. The highest projection among analysts surveyed by Bloomberg is $57 an ounce in 2019.

A 7,000-kilometre northern corridor in search of shared vision – by Claude Montmarquette and Andrei Sulzenko (Globe and Mail – May 27, 2016)

May 27, 2016

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/

Canada’s history is full of examples of large-scale transportation infrastructure projects that have motivated growth and helped define a shared vision for the country. The Canadian Pacific Railway, the Trans-Canada Highway and the St. Lawrence Seaway are prime examples.

But the Canada of 2016 does not have such grand plans for infrastructure that may be vital to supporting economic and social development in this country. Aside from some private-sector proposals (mainly pipelines), there are precious few examples of transportation infrastructure developments outside our major urban centres.

The best way to address this lack of vision may well be through a bold approach being examined by researchers at the School of Public Policy at the University of Calgary and CIRANO, a Quebec-based economic research organization. We have just released a study on the potential for a major transportation right-of-way through Canada’s North and near North, connecting resource-rich areas with tidewater access on all three coasts.

Proposed 7,000-kilometre resource corridor would improve life in Canada’s North, researchers say – by Eric Atkins (Globe and Mail – May 27, 2016)

May 27, 2016

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/

An ambitious proposal to build a 7,000-kilometre trade and infrastructure corridor in Canada’s North has taken a key step forward.

The Northern Corridor would link Canada’s people, goods and natural resources with overseas and southern markets, and boost sovereignty and development in vast swaths of the country that are economically isolated, concludes the first feasibility study of the concept. The idea was launched a year ago by the University of Calgary’s School of Public Policy and Montreal’s Centre for Interuniversity Research and Analysis of Organizations.

Pipelines, railways, roads, electricity and transmission lines would share the right of way that extends from the Pacific to Atlantic oceans, the Beaufort Sea to the north, as well as Hudson Bay and the St. Lawrence Seaway, connecting to existing rails, roads, pipes and ports in the southern part of Canada.

Kathleen Wynne Ridiculed By Wildrose Party During Visit To Alberta Legislature – by Dean Bennett (Huffington Post – May 27, 2016)

May 27, 2016

http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/

“Currently Ontario has the largest subnational sovereign debt
on the planet,” Fildebrandt told the house. “They’re now even
receiving equalization payments. It’s an example of what happens
when a government fails to get its spending under control.”

The Canadian Press – EDMONTON — Ontario Premier Kathleen Wynne came to Alberta to talk environment but instead found herself publicly ridiculed on the floor of the legislature as the leader of a failed, debt-ridden enterprise.

As Wynne looked on from the Speaker’s gallery during question period Thursday, the opposition Wildrose party demanded to know why Wynne, a Liberal, was invited while right-centrist and next-door-neighbour Saskatchewan Premier Brad Wall was not.

“Invite Premier Wall here! Invite Premier Wall,” Wildrose finance critic Derek Fildebrandt shouted at Premier Rachel Notley as she tried to answer a question.

B.C. mines minister ‘surprised’ by cleanup fund shortfall – by Justine Hunter (Globe and Mail – May 25, 2016)

May 26, 2016

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/

VICTORIA — B.C. mines minister Bill Bennett says he was caught off guard when he learned that the province’s mining companies are on the hook for less than half the amount that should be set aside to pay for potential cleanup costs.

More than 50 mining operations – the majority of them either permanently shut down or temporarily shuttered – have been allowed by Mr. Bennett’s ministry to provide security for only a portion of the anticipated liability for site reclamation, with a total funding gap of $1.2-billion.

The gap was highlighted by Auditor-General Carol Bellringer in a report early in May, but the ministry took several weeks to provide details on the individual companies that have not provided bonds large enough to cover environmental restoration. The breakdown shows one resource company – Teck Resources Ltd. – was responsible for $743-million of the deficit. Barrick Gold Corp. had the second-largest unpaid amount, at $212-million.

Opinion: B.C. mines threaten Alaska fisheries – by Cynthia Wallesz (Vancouver Sun – May 25, 2016)

May 26, 2016

http://vancouversun.com/

Cynthia Wallesz is executive director of the United Southeast Alaska Gillnetters.

For two years, I’ve been learning about B.C.’s mining industry and how it is threatening water, ecosystems, salmon and jobs downstream in Southeast Alaska.

It’s been shocking to realize the significant inadequacies of B.C.’s mining regulatory processes. For example, mining companies are not required to use best available technologies or practices to reduce risks, nor do they provide compensation to those affected by pollution from large-scale open-pit projects at the headwaters of world-class river systems.

These inadequacies were confirmed recently in an email I received from B.C. Mines Minister Bill Bennett in response to my question, “How would our fishing fleet be financially compensated if we suffered financial losses from real or perceived water quality contamination from B.C.’s projects?”