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Canadian Media Resource Articles

Clark’s mining push meets resistance – by Mark Hume (Globe and Mail – March 27, 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 — Premier Christy Clark’s push for new mines in British Columbia is becoming mired in growing controversy.

On Wednesday, a delegation from Alaska was in Washington, D.C., to lobby the U.S. government concerning five proposed mines in northwest B.C. that are on watersheds draining into southeast Alaska. The delegation, representing 40 businesses, tribes, commercial fishing groups and environmentalists, claims the mines pose unacceptable risks to Alaska’s salmon fishery.

“We’re really worried about where this is going to go,” Brian Lynch, executive director of the Petersburg Vessel Owners Association said about the proposed development of the mines near the Alaska border.

Mr. Lynch said he’s worried because the B.C. government seems to be simultaneously fast-tracking several mines without providing adequate resources for environmental reviews. “I doubt any agency could handle that work load,” he said. “The money is just not there to do that kind of work – and that scares us.”

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Gold bugs invade Northern Ontario – by Marilyn Scales (Canadian Mining Journal – March 26, 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.

It’s already bug season in Northern Ontario – gold bug season that is. The numbers of junior exploration companies eager to drill the region are almost as many as there will be blackflies when the weather warms up. Well … maybe not quite as many, but the winter drilling programs are promising for some.

Toronto’s Harte Gold Corp. is examining its Hemlo style Sugar zone property, located 60 km east of the Hemlo camp, between White River and Hornepayne. Having discovered what it calls the “Peacock Boulder” with gold values up to 87 g/t, Harte has mounted surface and airborne surveys. The next step is to conduct an induced polarization and magnetic survey to targets for additional drilling. The Sugar zone gas a 43-101 compliant indicated resource of 1.12 tonnes grading 8.41 g/t and an inferred resource of 417,000 tonnes grading 7.13 g/t. (HarteGold.com)

Lake Shore Gold has identified new, high grade structures near the current mining at the Bell Creek Labine deposit in the Timmins area. The previously untested gap in the North A zone and two hanging wall structures returned 14.12 g/t over 10.2 metres, 8.41 g/t over 12.0 metres, and 7.01 g/t over 10.7 metres. Near the active 685 level mine workings, core assayed 11.42 g/t over 3.6 metres, 8.47 g/t over 4.6 metres, 7.76 g/t over 8.7 metres, 5.96 g/t over 6.5 metres, and 6.38 g/t over 6.0 metres.

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Mining, fertilizer and chemical groups present myths about the rail industry – by Michael Bourque (National Post – March 27, 2014)

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

Michael Bourque is President of the Railway Association of Canada.

Additional intervention to a sector that is already heavily regulated has the potential to undermine good business practices and successful economic outcomes.

It’s not every day that a group of customers co-author an article in which they claim that their service providers “deliberately” provide poor service. That’s exactly what the heads of three major industry associations–mining, fertilizer and chemical interests–did this week in a commentary on this page. “Railways should serve all customers,” said the headline.

Another modest statement in the commentary was hard to argue with. “Simply, a railway should meet the customer’s needs.” Sure, the customer comes first; the customer is always right and we exist to serve our customers. But let’s unpack what is behind this statement, which has a lot of history in the long historical debate between commercialization and regulation of railways in Canada.

Canada’s railways operate with a view to serving all customer needs. One analogy is that we operate a bus route, where each customer’s needs are met by operating efficiently and in a predictable fashion.

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Oil sands’ clean-tech clash: Jim Balsillie looks to innovate as Tom Steyer sticks with pipeline putdowns – by Claudia Cattaneo (National Post – March 27, 2014)

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

Green the oil sands or kill the oil sands?

Those are the clashing views of two clean-tech advocates — Jim Balsillie, the Canadian co-founder of Research In Motion, now BlackBerry Ltd.; and Tom Steyer, the U.S. clean-tech promoter, former hedge fund billionaire and leading man in the campaign against the Keystone XL pipeline.

Both were hard at work this week. In a speech in Vancouver Wednesday, Mr. Balsillie, now chairman of Sustainable Development Technology Canada (SDTC), said framing the debate as “for or against the oil sands” is unproductive and will “keep us from moving forward in a meaningful way.”

It’s innovation that will “truly put ourselves on a path towards sustainability,” he said. “Given our current capacities, radically reversing our natural resource policies is tantamount to economic and political suicide.”

Of course it is. The oil sands grew in the past couple of decades to become a Canadian economic stalwart. How? Through innovation that turned oil-soaked sand into a resource that could be sold to an energy-hungry world at an economic cost.

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Taseko launches second legal action over federal rejection of B.C. mine – by Peter Koven (National Post – March 27, 2014)

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

Taseko Mines Ltd. is taking the federal government to court for the second time in four months, claiming its rejection of the New Prosperity project was based on a highly unfair process that included inappropriate meetings with opponents of the mine that it only learned about through Facebook.

The Vancouver-based miner said these meetings were documented in Facebook posts by a First Nations chief. It claims the government declined to talk about them or let Taseko respond to what was discussed.

Taseko filed an application for a judicial review on Wednesday to try to force the government to reconsider New Prosperity, based on its belief that Ottawa did not run a fair process. It launched a separate judicial review in federal court back in December, claiming there was a key technical error in a review of the British Columbia project that influenced Ottawa’s decision.

“The process was flawed,” said Brian Battison, Taseko’s vice president of corporate affairs. “The findings were wrong and the decision to deny the project was certainly wrong. We expect to prove that in court.” The $1.5-billion New Prosperity has been controversial from the start.

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Ontario, First Nations ink RoF regional framework agreement – by Henry Lazenby (MiningWeekly.com – March 26, 2014)

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

TORONTO (miningweekly.com) – The province of Ontario and Matawa-member First Nations on Wednesday took an important step to move development of the province’s vast northernmost mineral wealth forward, by reaching a landmark regional framework agreement that will ensure First Nation communities benefit from the proposed Ring of Fire (RoF) mining camp.

The agreement is a first step in a historic, community-based negotiation process, which began in July last year at the request of nine Matawa-member First Nations.

“This regional framework agreement is a landmark achievement in community and regional discussions. I am proud that our collaborative work with Matawa-member First Nations continues to progress.

“Together, we are moving forward on realising the RoF’s potential and making important advancements on regional, environmental and economic developments,” Northern Development and Mines Minister Michael Gravelle said.

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Railways should serve all customers — not just one industry – by Pierre Gratton, Roger Larson and Richard Paton (National Post – March 26, 2014)

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

Pierre Gratton is President and CEO, Mining Association of Canada; Roger Larson is President, Canadian Fertilizer Institute; and Richard Paton is President and CEO, Chemistry Industry Association of Canada.

Rail services do not operate on normal market conditions

On March 18, the Railway Association of Canada defended its members’ service failures this winter to the grain sector (No way to run a railroad). Chemicals, mining and fertilizer have also experienced poor service that go beyond cold weather and are systemic and deliberate in nature.

Canada requires a customer-responsive rail network. The federal government has a key role to play in establishing and ensuring a well-functioning rail system that serves all of its customers’ needs.

While we understand and sympathize with what motivated the federal government to issue an Order-in-Council compelling CN and CP to transport certain volumes of export grain shipments, we are concerned about the effects of meeting one industry’s needs by allocating rail capacity at the expense of other industries.

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Desperate junior miners ‘Breaking Bad’ to stay afloat – by Armina Ligaya and Peter Koven (National Post – March 26, 2014)

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

Canada’s hundreds of tiny mining companies have had such a rough ride, with metal prices tanking and financing drying up to a trickle, that some have simply resorted to drugs. Medical marijuana, to be exact.

Canadian resource companies such as Next Gen, Sartori Resources, and, most recently, TSX Venture-listed Cavan Ventures Inc., have floated the idea of a foray into medical marijuana industry, with the buzz often sending their stocks to a (very temporary) high.

Junior miners’ increasing interest in the medicinal plant is “symptomatic of how difficult it has become in this sector,” said John Kaiser, mining analyst and research director of Kaiser Research Online.

It’s similar to the ploys by resources companies in the late 1990s and early 2000s to jump on the dot-com boom amid a similar tough economic environment, he said. “To me it has this smell of an end times type of mentality,” he said. “Where nothing means anything any more, [and] it’s hopeless to raise money for real stuff in the resource sector.”

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Despite what seems, the U.S. in a much better position than Russia after Putin’s Crimean adventure – by John Ivison (National Post – March 26, 2014)

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

President Barack Obama threatened Vladimir Putin with “broad-based” sanctions that would target the energy and financial sectors, if Russia continues to gobble up the territory of its neighbours. Mr. Putin, who knows that western Europe relies on his $160-billion in oil and gas exports, was probably not quaking in his boots.

At a press conference in The Hague Tuesday, Mr. Obama was asked if the threat was hollow, coming from an America whose influence is declining. The tone of much of the commentary is that a resurgent Russia is thumbing its nose at an impotent and waning United States.

But, according to one of the world’s foremost energy experts, the map of world energy is being redrawn in front of our eyes — and not to Mr. Putin’s advantage.

Daniel Yergin, the Pulitzer Prize winning author of The Quest – Energy, Security and the Remaking of the Modern World, said the energy revolution in the United States has created a “new dimension” to American foreign policy, while “the bloom is off the rose” of Russian energy production, in part because of the flight of capital in the wake of Mr. Putin’s Crimean adventure.

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Goldcorp chairman confident in $2.8-billion hostile bid for Osisko – by Peter Koven and Nicolas Van Praet (National Post – March 26, 2014)

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

TORONTO/MONTREAL – The shares of Osisko Mining Corp. are trading well above his offer price, and investors and analysts are clamouring for a higher bid. But Ian Telfer maintains everything is going “extremely well.”

The chairman of Goldcorp Inc. remains confident his company’s $2.8-billion hostile offer for Montreal-based Osisko will succeed. In an interview in Toronto Tuesday, he pointed out that Osisko is running out of time to find a white knight bidder, and added that the “Just Say No” defence almost never works.

“Because there’s no other bidder, we see no reason to bid against ourselves,” he said in an interview. “You can’t have an auction with only one bidder.”

Osisko delayed Goldcorp’s hostile approach with a lawsuit that got settled this month. Mr. Telfer said Goldcorp got “exactly what we wanted” out of the settlement as it eliminated Osisko’s poison pill and will allow Goldcorp to do more due diligence starting next week on Osisko’s Canadian Malartic mine in Quebec. It is his understanding that Osisko’s board pushed its management team to settle with Goldcorp.

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Canadian firms in Russia push Ottawa for support – by RACHELLE YOUNGLAI, JEFF GRAY AND RICHARD BLACKWELL (Globe and Mail – March 25, 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.

Canadian companies operating in Russia are pleading with Ottawa to ensure they aren’t sideswiped by sanctions as the federal government puts global security ahead of commercial interests in the region. On Monday Prime Minister Stephen Harper said commercial interests are now secondary in the consideration of responses to the Russian moves.

“We don’t like seeing disruption to investment or to markets or to trade but the fact of the matter is when you are looking at it from the standpoint of a greater national interest … this is not something we can subordinate to economic interests,” Mr. Harper said.

One Canadian company with significant operations in Russia, Kinross Gold Corp., has told the federal government that Ottawa needs to take into account the impact on Canadian employees and shareholders when it takes action in response to the Russian annexation of Crimea. About 27 per cent of Kinross’s production comes from Russian mines.

“We have communicated to the government of Canada our desire to see a balanced approach to resolving this situation in a way that considers Canadian interests in Russia,” Kinross spokeswoman Andrea Mandel-Campbell said.

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Goldcorp to consider Osisko Mining spinoff to sweeten offer – by Rachelle Younglai and Boyd Erman (Globe and Mail – March 25, 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.

Goldcorp Inc. would consider spinning off Osisko Mining Corp.’s exploration assets into a separate company as a way to sweeten its unsolicited offer for the smaller gold miner, people familiar with the matter said.

Montreal-based Osisko has rejected Goldcorp’s $3-billion cash and stock offer and is courting a range of suitors for its large Canadian Malartic mine in Quebec.

With a spinoff, Osisko shareholders would not only get a stake in the much larger Goldcorp but also retain ownership in some assets with growth potential, such as Osisko’s deposits in Ontario’s Kirkland Lake area.

Getting a friendly deal would ensure that Goldcorp locks up an asset it has coveted for more than five years before Osisko signs up to sell to another bidder. It is not just a rival bidder that Goldcorp has to consider. There is the possibility that Osisko shareholders simply say no.

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Agrium eyes asset sale as new CEO narrows focus – by Boyd Erman (Globe and Mail – March 25, 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.

Agrium Inc.’s last chief executive officer loved to buy. The new CEO is open to selling assets – and one that could end up on the market is the fertilizer company’s phosphate production operation.

In his first months on the job, Chuck Magro has made a point of saying his main priority is to “optimize” the businesses that his very acquisitive predecessor, Mike Wilson, made in his 10 years in the role. Mr. Wilson, say deal makers who know him, liked to be in everything.

Calgary-based Agrium now owns facilities producing the three big crop nutrients – potash, nitrogen and phosphate – as well as a big retail network that can sell those products and more to farmers.

Mr. Magro is not so sure the company has to be everywhere. The retail business and the North American nitrogen business are as big as anybody’s in their respective games. The potash business is relatively small, but it has advantages such as as a low cost base. Phosphate is a tougher question, Mr. Magro said in an interview in Toronto.

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Oil sands foes ignore the facts as cancer claims dealt a blow by study – by Claudia Cattaneo (National Post – March 25, 2014)

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

Much like other claims made by opponents of oil sands development, shocking stories about higher cancer rates among aboriginals living near such projects are falling apart with close scrutiny.

After reviewing the incidence of cancer in the Fort Chipewyan, Alta., aboriginal community between 1992 and 2011, Alberta’s Chief Medical Officer of Health, Dr. James Talbot, said Monday the overall cancer rate in the community is not significantly higher than elsewhere — 81 cases, compared with 79 that would be expected in the rest of Alberta.

While three types of cancer — cervical cancer (four cases), lung cancer (eight cases) and bile duct cancer (three cases) — are slightly more prevalent, the first two are preventable through vaccination and less smoking, he said. The third is more complicated and has been linked to such risk factors as obesity, diabetes, alcohol, viral hepatitis and family history.

“There isn’t strong evidence for an association between any of these cancers and environmental exposure,” Dr. Talbot told reporters after releasing the report in Edmonton. “The perception is that there is more cancer, and to some extent the perception is correct, but it’s not unique to this community,” he said.

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Business leaders plug Canada to Brazilian companies – by Stephanie Nolen (Globe and Mail – March 22, 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.

RIO DE JANEIRO — Canada is a stable, predictable country where “some of the rules are tough, but you know what they are,” and Brazilian companies will find it astoundingly easy to set up shop here, an audience of business leaders heard in Rio de Janeiro this week. That ringing endorsement came from no less an authority than Luciano Siani, chief financial officer of Vale SA, which has the highest-profile Brazilian investment in Canada.

Mr. Siani described his company’s move to set up potash operations in Saskatchewan in 2009: “We were promptly welcomed by a central agency of the government that provided us in a few months with a contract for gas, water, energy – there was no difficulty whatsoever to get all of the logistics for the project. And these are things that would have taken several years here in Brazil … it would be a nightmare.”

Mr. Siani made this unexpected plug for Canada at an event organized by the Canadian consulate in Rio, which brought BMO Financial Group vice-chairperson Kevin Lynch to town to talk up Canada as its “investment champion.” Canada’s trade with Brazil is currently $6-billion a year. That’s up 25 per cent from where it was five years ago, but it is still only the equivalent of four days of Canada-U.S. trade, Mr. Lynch noted.

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