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Canadian Media Resource Articles

Aboriginal women offer solution to northern Canada’s skilled worker shortages – by Daniel Bland (Vancouver Sun – August 21, 2013)

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

Daniel Bland is lead instructor for the Eeyou Mining Skills Enhancement Program, an initiative of Cree Human Resources Development, in Mistissini, Quebec.

While economists and labour market researchers agree one of Canada’s greatest challenges over the next decade will be how to solve skilled worker shortages, there seems to be no consensus about just how to do that.

The skills shortage will be particularly acute all across northern Canada, where natural resource development and mining projects are projected to grow the northern economy over 90 per cent from 2011 to 2020. Led by northern B.C.’s mining output, which will increase by a whopping 300 per cent, that is more than four times the growth rate forecast for the Canadian economy over that same period.

And while that is good news on many fronts, the fact that many of the largest mining projects are close to remote First Nation communities without particularly well skilled or educated populations, is cause for growing concern. Our work in essential skills assessment and training for mining jobs with the James Bay Cree First Nation in northwestern Quebec has taught us some valuable lessons about what employers can do to maximize human resources in remote aboriginal communities.

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Harper trumpets N.W.T. mining jobs program – by CBC News North (August 20, 2013)

http://www.cbc.ca/north/

Prime Minister Stephen Harper talked about a northern mining jobs program for the second time in as many days on Tuesday, highlighting $5.8 million in federal funding over two years to train 400 aboriginal workers for mining jobs across Northern communities.

Continuing his six-day Northern Tour, the prime minister was in Hay River, N.W.T., on Tuesday, drawing attention to funding announced in the government’s 2013 budget. The government will provide $5.8 million over two years to the Northwest Territories Mine Training Society for a new mining sector-skills training program.

“The North’s rapidly growing extractive industry is driving prosperity and creating demand for local skilled workers,” Harper said.

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Glencore takes $7.7-billion writedown as mining industry woes continue – by Eric Reguly (Globe and Mail – August 21, 2013)

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.

ROME — The falling fortunes of the global mining industry were again put on display Tuesday morning when Glencore Xstrata, the Swiss mining company and commodities trader that owns Canada’s Falconbridge Ltd. and Viterra Inc., wrote down the value of its mining assets by $7.7-billion (U.S.).

The writedown came three months after the completion of Glencore’s all-share purchase of Xstrata for $29-billion (U.S.), a deal that created a mining and trading giant capable of competing with industry heavyweights BHP Billiton, Rio Tinto, Vale and Anglo American.

Tuesday’s results, for the six months to the end of June, were the first for the combined group.

In deciding to write down the purchase price on Xstrata, Glencore took a more conservative approach to valuing early-stage and greenfield projects. It also took into account a lower commodity price outlook since the deal closed on May 2.

“We wanted to value them [Xstrata’s greenfield projects] a little bit more conservatively, noting that Glencore has no intention to develop them in the near future,” Glencore Xstrata chief excutive Ivan Glasenberg told journalists on a conference call.

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Michael Den Tandt: Harper sets up the 2015 campaign in the most unlikely spot – by Michael Den Tandt (National Post – August 21, 2013)

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

Hay River, NWT — As campaign launch pads go, it would be difficult to find one less likely than this low-slung, sprawling agglomeration of bungalows and shops clinging to the south shore of Great Slave Lake, on the southern fringe of the northern wilderness.

Hay River’s one sports bar, two grocery stores, hardware store, arena and weathered town hall have not seen the circus of a prime ministerial visit before and, quite likely, never will again.

But there it is: From this isolated outpost, more than a thousand kilometres and 12-hours drive north of Red Deer, Alta., Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s plan to win a fourth term and join the pantheon of Canada’s longest-serving leaders will unfold as night follows day. At least, that must be his hope — as his government places unprecedented emphasis on boosting economic growth in a territory whose entire population would fit inside one small central Ontario city.

Hay River, population 3,648, is, quite literally, the end of the line — the northernmost point in the North American continental rail network and the departure point to all parts northward. The village bills itself “The Hub of the North.” It is also, as of Tuesday, the epicentre of a Conservative plan to train an aboriginal workforce to match the growing need for skilled workers in the burgeoning northern mining industry.

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BHP plans $2.6-billion potash investment in Saskatchewan – by Brent Jang (Globe and Mail – August 21, 2013)

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 — Australia’s BHP Billiton Ltd. is strengthening its commitment to a multibillion-dollar potash investment in Saskatchewan even as an industry shakeup has increased competition in the market for the key crop nutrient.

BHP announced Tuesday that it will pour another $2.6-billion (U.S.) into its Jansen project over the next three years, earmarking funds to build, with other investors, what might become the world’s largest potash mining operation.

Melbourne-based BHP has already spent $1.2-billion so far on the Jansen mine, about 140 kilometres southeast of Saskatoon. But speculation about the company’s commitment to the Saskatchewan project arose three weeks ago, when one of the potash industry’s two main marketing groups abruptly disbanded, raising the prospect of a prolonged period of low prices for the resource.

Despite today’s gloomy market conditions, BHP chief executive officer Andrew Mackenzie said his company envisages demand growth for potash will average 2 to 3 per cent a year until 2030, bolstered by population growth and the consequent need to bolster food production.

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An African gold rush slows to a crawl – by Iain Marlow (Globe and Mail – August 21, 2013)

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.

ACCRA, GHANA – On a shaded patio off a large pink and yellow building in central Accra, Kweku Boohene, a Ghanaian goldsmith with a stubbly grey beard, is watching the glowing coals of his makeshift smelter turn to white ash.

A colleague has just melted down a bit of gold, poured it into an ingot mould and returned inside to a cluttered workshop where five of them usually shape the precious metal into rings and chains with hammers and rolling mills. But for now, there is only one person working. As Mr. Boohene stands there in sandals and a loose-fitting green shirt, two others lounge in patio chairs.

“I used to make 10 rings a day, but now it’s not even one,” said Mr. Boohene, a 35-year veteran in the jewellery business.

In Ghana, Africa’s second-largest gold producer, the yellow metal is big business: Gold currently accounts for about 40 per cent of export earnings. As global gold prices have plummeted – 26 per cent in the first half of 2013 alone – the small-scale miners who supply this workshop have stopped coming by to sell the gold dust and tiny nuggets dug out of Ghana’s red earth.

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High-quality coal and house prices: A B.C. town’s second chance – by Brent Jang (Globe and Mail – August 20, 2013)

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 — Tumbler Ridge Mayor Darwin Wren predicts that the quality of British Columbia coal will keep his northeastern B.C. community afloat.

In 2001, Mr. Wren moved from Fort Nelson to Tumbler Ridge, where he bought a house for $28,000, just months after the nearby Quintette coal mine closed amid depressed prices for the commodity. Hundreds of houses were auctioned off in the fall of 2000 as the closing of Quintette triggered fears that Tumbler Ridge would turn into a ghost town.

The town persevered, however, as new coal mines opened several years later. Houses like the one Mr. Wren bought 12 years ago are now worth at least $200,000, despite a slump in coal markets since 2011 that has reduced coal production in northeastern British Columbia.

It’s a recurring theme for Canada: Despite efforts to diversify economically, prosperity rises and falls on the back of demand for what miners can pull out of the ground. More often than not, prices for these products find a floor and rebound.

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Sandy Winick: Alleged penny stock fraud kingpin arrested in Thailand – by Tony Van Alphen and Madhavi Acharya-Tom Yew(Toronto Star – August 20, 2013)

The Toronto Star has the largest circulation in Canada. The paper has an enormous impact on federal and Ontario politics as well as shaping public opinion.

Police in Thailand say they have captured Sandy Winick, alleged Canadian kingpin of one of the biggest penny stock frauds ever.

Canadian fugitive Sandy Winick, accused of masterminding a massive international stock fraud, allegedly bragged that no one would ever catch up to him.

But less than five days after U.S. authorities charged the former Torontonian and eight other individuals, he is behind bars in Bangkok, Thailand, awaiting extradition proceedings.

The FBI confirmed Monday that the Royal Thai police had captured the elusive Winick, 55, in his room in the city’s Marriott Empire Place hotel during the weekend.

Police have now arrested eight of nine individuals in what the U.S. Justice Department calls one of the biggest international penny stock frauds and advance fee schemes “in history.”

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Chilly Arctic history bodes ill for Energy East pipeline – by Earle Gray (Toronto Star – August 20, 2013)

The Toronto Star has the largest circulation in Canada. The paper has an enormous impact on federal and Ontario politics as well as shaping public opinion.

Reserves of Canadian Arctic gas remain in the ground decades after their discovery

Winning approval to build TransCanada Corp.’s proposed $12-billion Energy East pipeline to move oil from Athabasca to the Atlantic could be the easiest part. Consider the four-decade history of government-approved plans of TransCanada and others to pipeline gas from the Arctic.

They were launched by the 1968 discovery of North America’s largest accumulations of both crude oil and natural gas. Most of the oil at the Prudhoe Bay field on Alaska’s northern Arctic coastal plain has now been produced, but Prudhoe Bay’s recoverable natural gas — equal to a third of all the known remaining recoverable gas in hundreds of fields in western Canada — remains frozen in place. So, too, do substantial gas and oil reserves in the Mackenzie River delta and Beaufort Sea, 600 kilometres east of Prudhoe Bay.

One year after the Prudhoe Bay discovery, TransCanada and two U.S. midwestern gas utilities began feasibility studies for a pipeline to move the Prudhoe Bay and Mackenzie delta gas to consumers across Canada and the United States.

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Northern Promise: Home of the world’s richest gold mine braces for coming headwinds – by Peter Koven (National Post – August 20, 2013)

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

Northern Promise is a six-part series that explores the pace and progress of development in Canada’s remote communities. In this second instalment Peter Koven visits the home of the world’s richest gold mine

Fifty-four hundred feet below the surface, roughly underneath the local airport, a massive drill is pounding out a path to Red Lake’s latest set of riches.

Workers stand back and protect their ears as the driller carefully targets the sheer rock wall up ahead and begins to break it apart. It is slow and careful work; the horizontal drill makes about 15 to 23 feet of progress per day, sometimes less. But it is closing in on the destination, which will be reached later this year after more than three years of work.

The end result will be a five-kilometre drift connecting Goldcorp Inc.’s existing operations here with the Bruce Channel, a high-grade discovery that will be a flagship of the company’s Red Lake operations for decades to come. The ore from Bruce Channel (or Cochenour) will be hauled back to Goldcorp’s Campbell mill via an underground tram system, which is already running and is being expanded as fast as the drillers up ahead can open up the drift.

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Harper heads north to promote resource development – by Steven Chase (Globe and Mail – August 19, 2013)

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.

OTTAWA — Stephen Harper has kicked off his annual tour of Northern Canada with a focus on resource development and the jobs it brings for locals. But the Prime Minister arrives in Yukon just as controversy erupts over efforts to recruit foreign workers to the territory.

Yukon’s government recently launched a temporary foreign worker program to fill positions in tourism and mining, only weeks after 100 Yukon mine staff lost their jobs.

The territorial measure is billed as a response to chronic labour shortages but it contrasts starkly with Ottawa’s efforts in recent months to discourage the use of overseas workers wherever possible after public anger over a B.C. mining company’s plans to bring in up to 200 Chinese workers.

Mr. Harper didn’t mention the Yukon program by name as he kicked off his northern tour with a brief speech in Whitehorse. However, the Prime Minister made a point of noting his government wants economic projects in northern regions to benefit locals.  “As Conservatives, we have pledged that northern development will mean northern prosperity,” he said. 

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Ontario’s power policies an example of what not to do – Gwyn Morgan (Globe and Mail – August 19, 2013)

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.

The political firestorm raging in Ontario about the cost of cancelling two natural-gas-fired power plants reminds me of a conversation I had with then-premier Dalton McGuinty in 2005. At the time, I was head of Encana Corp. and we were co-chairing a Public Policy Forum event.

As we chatted privately before the dinner, he said: “As a gas producer, you must be happy we’re going to close our coal-fired power plants.” I replied: “Well, it’s not a big deal in the context of our North American gas markets, but you’d better make sure those gas power plants are built before you shut the coal plants.”

Eight years later, Ontario power consumers are stuck paying $585-million for two gas-fired plants that were never built. That’s just the tip of the iceberg. Mr. McGuinty’s decision to shutter the coal-fired plants was followed in 2010 by his government’s Green Energy and Economy Act, aimed at replacing some of the coal-fired power with highly subsidized wind and solar energy while, supposedly, turning Ontario into the green power capital of North America.

Ontario offered so-called feed-in rates almost four times the existing system rates for wind, and more than 10 times for solar power. Like bees to honey, wind and solar companies rushed to sign 20-year, rate-guaranteed contracts. 

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Temporary Yukon foreign worker program launched after mine layoffs – by Genesee Keevil (Globe and Mail – August 17, 2013)

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.

WHITEHORSE – The Yukon government has launched a temporary foreign worker program to meet demand in mining and tourism, just weeks after more than 100 Yukon mine employees lost their jobs.

Prompted by chronic Yukon labour shortages, the new one-year pilot is designed to help local businesses facing seasonal upswings fill short-term positions when Canadian workers are unavailable. And while some small business owners, including members of Yukon’s burgeoning Filipino population, are welcoming the new program, others are questioning it in the face of widespread layoffs.

The federal government took several steps in April aimed at making it harder and less economically attractive to import temporary labour, after revelations that Royal Bank of Canada was outsourcing IT jobs and a B.C. mining company planned to import as many as 200 Chinese workers. But although Ottawa called the measures the biggest changes to the program in a decade, labour groups said they didn’t go far enough.

In Yukon, the government is moving in the opposite direction.

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B.C. mining companies digging up rage abroad – by Paul Luke (The Province – August 17, 2013)

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

Vancouver’s Eldorado Gold stayed calm in the face of rage triggered by the mine it’s building in Greece.  The company didn’t expect everyone in Aristotle’s birthplace in northeastern Greece would ­shower it with love. It knew that protests against everything from austerity to a U.S. pizza chain’s hiring policies are common in a region with a 35-per-cent jobless rate.

Eldorado’s gold project has the support of 12 of 16 villages in the area. It has a crucial environmental permit from the central government to start production at Skouries.  Opponents say the Skouries mine will trash the environment. ­Eldorado has offered detailed ­reassurances that it won’t.

Protesters say the mine will ruin the region’s tourism industry. “It’s not a big tourism area at all,” Eldorado spokeswoman Nancy Woo says.  But in the wee hours of Feb. 17, mine opponents went too far. About 50 people stormed the mine site, assaulted two Greek security guards and torched construction offices, trucks and heavy equipment.

“We fully condemn any activities that put the safety of our ­employees, contractors and assets at risk,” Eldorado CEO Paul Wright said in deploring the violence. 

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The decline and fall of Canada’s global corporate superstars – by Eric Reguly (Globe and Mail – August 17, 2013)

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.

ROME — Here’s a depressing exercise: Scan the upper reaches of the Top 1000 companies in the July-August issue of Report on Business magazine and try to spot Canada’s global winners. You could call them Canada’s corporate ambassadors, if they existed.

The short list is exceedingly short: Barrick Gold, Bombardier, Magna International, Thomson Reuters, Potash Corp. of Saskatchewan, Suncor and BlackBerry (formerly Research In Motion). Sadly, strong arguments can be made to strike most of them.

Barrick, the gold industry’s top producer, has deftly employed a series of costly, self-inflicted wounds to more than halve its share price.

Bombardier is truly a global player and has fine brand recognition within the aerospace and train industries. However, the thrice-delayed C Series jet, its most ambitious aircraft, could yet prove to be a dud. Potash Corp., the top fertilizer company, has global sales but is largely a Canadian producer. Ditto Suncor. That leaves Magna, Thomson Reuters and BlackBerry.

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