Canadian Media Resource Articles – Page 649

Reject Northern Gateway, scientists urge PM in open letter – by Dene Moore (Globe and Mail – June 4, 2014)

June 4, 2014

The Globe and Mail is Canada’s national newspaper with the second largest broadsheet circulation in the country. It has enormous influence on Canada’s political and business elite.

Vancouver — The Canadian Press – A letter signed by hundreds of scientists from around the world is urging Prime Minister Stephen Harper to reject a federal panel report recommending approval of the Northern Gateway pipeline.

The federal government must announce the final decision by June 17 on the 1,200-kilometre pipeline that would link the Alberta oil sands with a tanker port on the B.C. coast.

The letter sent this week to Harper and several key cabinet ministers said the report by the joint review panel is “indefensible as a basis to judge in favour of the project.”

It was signed by 300 scientists from universities from Newfoundland to Vancouver Island, along with colleagues from international institutions including Stanford, Cornell and Oxford.

The chief concern from the group is that the panel did not look at the increase in global greenhouse gas emissions that will result from the expansion in oil sands production.

On the land: Mining and First Nations have not always gotten along, but what if they were one and the same? – by Eavan Moore (CIM Magazine – May 2014)

June 3, 2014

http://www.cim.org/en.aspx

For a long time, Hans Matthews did not connect his mining career to his background as a member of the Wahnapitae First Nation. A childhood mineral enthusiast who dug “gold” out of the road at age seven, he had risen to vice-president of a mining company without thinking much about aboriginal land issues.

But when a violent land-use standoff between the Mohawk and the army in Oka, Quebec in 1990 led mining executives to fear they would lose the ability to mine in Canada, the nightmare visions shared by his colleagues left Matthews skeptical. He quit his job, got up to speed on treaty and land claim issues, and founded an organization to inform and aid aboriginal groups asking the same question he had always had: “Why aren’t more communities involved in mining when mines are in their backyards?”

Since founding the Canadian Aboriginal Minerals Association (CAMA) and serving as its president for the last 22 years, Matthews says the conversation has changed. Most obviously, the fears of 1990 have turned into awareness among mining companies that genuinely successful mining projects depend on community cooperation. But a handful of aboriginal groups have turned that notion on its head. Why should First Nations, Inuit, or Métis groups not build their own mines?

Self-sufficiency

The Dene Nations of the Northwest Territories (N.W.T.) have become the latest to act on that vision and are the most ambitious so far. In 2013, Denen- deh Investments Limited Partnership formed an exploration and mining company and bought up brownfield mineral properties in the N.W.T. with the intent of developing and operating a metal mine.

Sentry launches proxy fight against Timmins Gold – by Peter Koven (National Post – June 3, 2014)

June 3, 2014

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

A large and traditionally passive Canadian investor has launched a proxy fight to overhaul a board, a relatively unique situation that experts believe could become more common in the future.

Sentry Investments Inc. announced plans on Monday to nominate six new directors to the board of Timmins Gold Corp., which it believes is underperforming. Sentry said it is calling for change after Vancouver-based Timmins ignored shareholder requests to allow potential acquirers to conduct due diligence.

Sentry’s portfolio managers are not to be confused with the Bill Ackmans and Carl Icahns of the world. The Toronto firm is a passive institution with more than $14-billion of assets, and has never shown interest in the nasty and very public game of proxy contests. But it owns 17% of Timmins and felt it had to do something major to create value.

Proxy fights have become common events in the Canada over the last several years, as markets have been volatile and investors have gotten increasingly frustrated with poor-performing stocks. The big Canadian institutions have not shown an appetite to lead these battles, but proxy guru Wes Hall of Kingsdale Shareholder Services said that attitude is starting to change.

The Obama coal carbon plan flies in the face of global trends – by Terence Corcoran (National Post – June 3, 2014)

June 3, 2014

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

The new Environmental Protection Agency plan to reduce U.S. carbon-dioxide emissions is being hailed by environmental activists and green industry lobbyists as “momentous,” “historic,” “the most important in history,” “a critical step,” a triumph for President Obama and, by Mother Jones magazine, as a “really big deal.” All of which is a sure sign EPS’s 650-page rhetoric-filled plan to force a 30% reduction in carbon emissions from power plants is a really bad deal.

The EPA’s regulatory shambles of a plan, in which different states in the union will face different targets, aims to cut emissions to 30% below 2005 levels by 2030. It is one of these grand schemes that is destined to fall apart before it gets off the ground. It is, in fact, more of a political gambit than a policy initiative.

In that case, green enthusiasm may also be more political strategy than a genuine belief that the government of the world’s biggest and most dynamic economy is going to begin an internal war on relatively inexpensive coal-generated electricity at a time when the rest of the world is heading in the other direction.

Just about everywhere, including coal-free Ontario, the goal of curbing coal use in electricity production generated billions in costs for consumers at zero benefit to the climate.

Ontario’s Power Trip: Irrational energy planning has tripled power rates under the Liberals’ direction – by Parker Gallant (National Post – June 3, 2014)

June 3, 2014

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

Ontario Hydro may well have been a mess. But it was a mess that produced less expensive electricity

In the summer of 2003, just before Dalton McGuinty’s Liberals gained power in Ontario, 50 million people in the U.S. Eastern Seaboard and Ontario suffered an electricity blackout caused “when a tree branch in Ohio started an outage that cascaded across a broad swath from Michigan to New England and Canada.”

Back in 2003 Ontario’s electricity prices were 4.3 cents a kilowatt hour (kWh) and delivery costs added 1.5 cents per kWh. An additional charge of 0.7 cents — known as the debt retirement charge to pay back Ontario Hydro’s legacy debt of $7.8-billion — brought all-in costs to the average consumer to 6.5 cents per kWh.

The McGuinty Liberals claimed the province’s electricity sector was in a mess when they took over in 2003. The Liberals’ first Energy minister, Dwight Duncan, said then that he rejected the old Ontario Hydro model. “It didn’t work. We’re fixing it. We’re cleaning up the mess.”

Fast forward 11 years. Today, Ontario electricity costs average over 9 cents per kWh, delivery costs 3 cents per kWh or more, the 0.7-cent debt retirement charge is still being charged, plus a new 8% provincial sales tax. Additional regulatory charges take all-in costs to well over 15 cents per kWh.. The increase in the past 10 years averaged over 11% annually. Recently, the Energy Minister forecast the final consumer electricity bill will jump another 33% over the next three years and 42% in the next 5 years.

COMMENT: KWG wades into Ontario election – by Marilyn Scales (Canadian Mining Journal – June 2, 2014)

June 3, 2014

Marilyn Scales is a field editor for the Canadian Mining Journal, Canada’s first mining publication. She is one of Canada’s most senior mining commentators.

We have many times in the past seen the mining industry’s efforts to sway public opinion. Usually this has to do with improving the industry’s image; attempting to make city dwellers aware of how much mining contributes to this country’s economy and how modern technology makes this a much more eco-friendly and safe endeavour.

Trying to get the general public to raise its opinion of the mineral industry and its needs has proven frustrating. It seems the city folks just can’t understand how much mining contributes to their lifestyle.

Now Toronto-based KWG Resources is wading into the Ontario election scheduled for June 12. The company has advanced exploration projects – the Big Daddy chromite deposit, the Koper Lake nickel-copper project and the Black Horse nickel-copper deposit – in the Ring of Fire that it would like to develop to the benefit of its shareholders and the region around those properties.

KWG has long advocated for a railway into the region that could ship not only its concentrates but also those from other nearby projects. These include the Eagle’s Nest copper-nickel-PGM and the McFaulds Lake nickel-copper property belonging to Noront Resources and the Black Thor and Black Label deposits belonging to Cliffs Natural Resources.

VIOLENCE: MINING CONFLICTS IN GUATEMALA ARE ERUPTING IN VIOLENCE – by Giles Clarke (Vice Magazine – March 27 2014)

June 3, 2014

http://www.vice.com/en_ca

In 2000, engineers from Radius Gold, a Vancouver-based mining company, discovered a belt of gold deep inside the Tambor mountains in southern Guatemala. The Guatemalan government promptly issued the company an exploratory license, and for more than a decade, Radius studied the region as a possible base of operations. The proposed mine lies just a few miles from the village of San José del Golfo and from San Pedro Ayampuc, a small city.

Few locals, most of whom are of indigenous Mayan descent, were consulted before Radius moved in. Few of them knew anything was happening at all. They certainly didn’t know they were living atop what would become a literal gold mine.

It wasn’t until early 2012 that townspeople began to grasp the scope of what was happening just down the road. They watched as truck after truck, loaded with heavy equipment, rumbled down the winding jungle roads that were normally used as routes for colectivo buses and small pickups carrying crates of chickens. In February 2012, Radius obtained final permission from the government to build its mine, which it hoped would pump out as many as 52,000 tons of gold a year.

Fearful of what might happen if a big foreign developer started digging into their soil, the community decided to intervene. They formed a human roadblock, manned in rotating shifts by people sitting on plastic chairs. They held banners, and cooked on-site meals for protesters in a makeshift kitchen under a lush canopy of vegetation.

Canada needs a steel strategy – by Marty Warren and Leo W. Gerard (National Post – November 5, 2014)

June 3, 2014

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

Although steel consumption and imports are on the rise, Canadian steel production and exports have not kept pace since the recession — far from it

Last week, U.S. Steel announced that it will permanently end steel production at its Hamilton plant. Is steelmaking a “smokestack industry” suffering from inevitable decline, or a strategic industry that Canada should seek to defend and develop?

Steel is an indispensable material for every aspect of our traditional economy, including bridges, buildings and cars, but also our growing sustainable economy, from transit vehicles to wind turbines.

Canada needs steel and we have been importing more of it. Last year, our steel imports rose to $12.2-billion — the highest level in Canadian history except for $12.4-billion in 2008, at the height of the commodity boom.

Although steel consumption and imports are on the rise, Canadian steel production and exports have not kept pace since the recession — far from it. We imported $4.6-billion more steel than we exported last year, tying 2006 for the largest steel trade deficit in Canadian history.

Saskatchewan and the politics of pink gold: An insider’s account of the potash world – by Will Chabun (Regina Leader Post – June 2, 2014)

June 2, 2014

http://www.leaderpost.com/index.html

An insider’s account of potash world

Within a few days of reporting for work in Saskatchewan’s Industrial Development Office, John Burton heard about this fabulous pink mineral that supposedly was going to make Saskatchewan rich.

That was back in 1951. This shows potash is not something new – and that Burton has been around it, on the policy and political side, on and off, for most of his adult life.

It’s a professional interest that has turned into a book, Potash – An Inside Account of Saskatchewan’s Pink Gold (University of Regina Press). Surprisingly, it is the first book on Saskatchewan and potash, Burton believes.

It’s no academic tome, but a lively little volume with a history of the industry’s development. It’s studded with gossipy anecdotes about how flooding almost wrecked the potash industry (until engineers beat it by freezing the water-bearing rock formation) and how Regina’s Hill family was approached to be part of a consortium to buy the government’s potash corporation in the mid-1980s.

But that’s getting ahead of Burton’s story, which begins with Imperial Oil’s discovery of potash during oil exploration drilling in the Second World War.

Barack Obama’s new rules on coal underline the hypocrisy of U.S. emissions policies – by Kelly McParland (National Post – June 2, 2014)

June 2, 2014

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

President Barack Obama is to unveil a new environmental policy today, to curb U.S. greenhouse gas emissions by establishing a national standard for the reduction of carbon production by power plants.

It’s a big deal, even though the White House is making little noise about it because it’s likely to upset a lot of people, Democrats and Republicans alike. The New York Times, in a weekend article, heralded it as possibly “[Obama’s] last, most sweeping effort to remake America,” and “a chance to transform the nation’s energy sector and, at the same time, his own presidency.”

It may be good news for Canada, in a backhanded kind of way. With no plan of its own, Washington has spent a good deal of time complaining that Canada lacks an adequate strategy to address the emissions issue. Coal is by far the dirtiest way to produce electricity, and Canada uses far less of it than the U.S. – and is farther ahead in reducing its usage – yet Washington keeps citing Canadian emissions policies as a significant reason Mr. Obama hasn’t been able to bring himself to make a decision on the Keystone XL oil pipeline. Now that the U.S. has an actual plan on the table, maybe it will quit beefing about Canada and focus on whether its own efforts are adequate.

The prospects on that front aren’t promising. The key to the Obama plan will be strict restrictions on emissions levels, forcing power plants to find ways to lower their output. The White House wants producers to adopt alternative means of generating electricity, such as solar and wind power, or greater use of natural gas.

Are Harper’s dreams of Canada as energy superpower going up in smoke? – by Jeff Rubin (Globe and Mail – June 2, 2014)

June 2, 2014

The Globe and Mail is Canada’s national newspaper with the second largest broadsheet circulation in the country. It has enormous influence on Canada’s political and business elite.

Are Prime Minister Harper’s dreams of Canada becoming an energy superpower going up in smoke? In the last decade, his Conservative government has done everything but roll out the red carpet for the energy sector. Whether it’s multi-million dollar advertising campaigns in the United States, gold-plated junkets to foreign energy markets, or muzzling opposition from domestic environmentalists, never before have we seen Ottawa shill so unabashedly for a single industry.

Such unbridled support is more than a little ironic. In theory, Harper’s brand of free market conservatism should have him recoiling at the thought of a government trying to pick winners. Either that or the rest of us just missed the chapter in the Wealth of Nations that made an exception for Big Oil. Ideology, I suppose, is great until it becomes inconvenient.

Unfortunately for Canadians, it’s becoming clear that despite the Prime Minister’s best attempts at economic intervention, their government is playing a losing hand. While everyone from poker players to fund managers can tell you that sometimes you need to cut bait on a bad position that’s not what’s happening here. Even as the rest of the world is realizing that it must wean itself off fossil fuels, the Harper government wants to double down on the resource.

Canadians have been force-fed the idea that the energy sector is the engine of economic growth for the nation.

Why Canada’s junior mining sector is going to pot — literally – by Peter Koven (National Post – May 31, 2014)

June 2, 2014

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

Nick Brusatore wanted to create a leading Canadian medical marijuana company. So he turned to a logical source: a hopeless junior mining company.

He bought a controlling interest in Affinor Resources Inc. in March, and then met with the management team. His pitch was simple: the great marijuana gold rush of our generation is just starting, while the junior mining gold rush is pretty much dead. The Affinor team listened and loved what they heard.

“They were clearly looking for something to do with this shell that they’d been keeping on the market, because the mining thing just kind of went bust,” Mr. Brusatore said in a matter-of-fact tone.

Affinor followed his lead, and was wise to do so. Its stock price has shot up an astounding 2,600% in the nine weeks since the company moved into pot, meaning its market cap has jumped to roughly $50-million from less than $2-million. Quitting the mining universe was clearly the smartest thing this company ever did, but it’s not the only one doing it.

More than a dozen Canadian mining companies have announced shifts into medical marijuana. Given that raising capital for exploration is impossible for most juniors, the moves make sense if they want to do something productive.

The long, slow decline of the nation’s industrial heartland [southwestern Ontario] – by Adam Radwanski (Globe and Mail – May 31, 2014)

June 2, 2014

The Globe and Mail is Canada’s national newspaper with the second largest broadsheet circulation in the country. It has enormous influence on Canada’s political and business elite.

‘My dad worked at Chrysler, and he made a call to get me into Chrysler,” Ken Lewenza says, recalling his introduction to the auto industry at the age of 18. “I did the same for my son, and now that’s it.”No one can make that call for his granddaughter, even if, until a few months ago, Mr. Lewenza was president of the Canadian Auto Workers, because she is at the end of the line.

Not so long ago, the Big Three auto companies were the relatively stable backbone of Windsor’s economy. Now even Chrysler, the last to maintain any significant local presence, is down to a work force of about 4,600 – and nobody is especially confident about how long those jobs will be around.

I was raised in Kitchener and spent summers playing in vacant lots, balancing on rusted railway tracks and throwing rocks at abandoned factories. The three days I spent photographing the ghosts of Ontario’s manufacturing heyday gave me a chance to reflect on my hometown. I shot in black and white to express the nostalgia that came to me when I saw places like the shuttered GM plant in Windsor and the streets of London and Kitchener.

I wanted to offer the viewer a small part of the emotions felt by someone who grew up in these places. I also worked to make a connection with the next generation growing up in struggling industry towns. These are the kids who were raised on blue-collar incomes but will likely never experience a day of work on an assembly line.

Indonesian export ban not a hangup for Vale N.L. – by Ashley Fitzpatrick (St. John’s Telegram – May 30, 2014)

May 30, 2014

http://www.thetelegram.com/

Long Harbour first nickel expected by end of second quarter

A ban by Indonesia on the export of unprocessed ores containing nickel will not affect the startup of Vale’s new hydromet processing facility in Long Harbour.

As previously reported, the plan for the facility in Newfoundland and Labrador is to use nickel matte from Indonesia during startup, before transitioning to ore from the Voisey’s Bay mine in Labrador as a main feed. Workers inspect equipment at Vale’s hydromet nickle processing facility in Long Harbour. — Telegram file photo

The Indonesian nickel matte, at about 78 per cent nickel, is considered less likely to cause difficulties for the Long Harbour commissioning in comparison to the material from Voisey’s Bay, at about 20 per cent nickel, as individual parts of the multibillion-dollar plant are checked and made ready for regular use.

According to Vale’s vice-president of corporate affairs in Toronto, Cory McPhee, the mining giant has been conscious of the potential for the ban on raw exports from Indonesia for years, as the company has multiple processing facilities in that country.

“The Indonesian restrictions on exports of unprocessed ore were first signaled by the Indonesian government years ago with the 2009 Mining Law which included stipulations calling for value-added domestic processing,” McPhee said in an emailed response to questions Thursday.