Diamonds – Mining, Lab-Grown and Conflict/Blood – Page 64

Attawapiskat: Lots of love, and rocks, for a young generation [PDAC Mining Matters] – by Jim Coyle (Toronto Star – January 30, 2012)

November 5, 2015January 30, 2012

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.

ATTAWAPISKAT, ONT. — At Micheline Okimaw’s White Wolf Inn, the most popular of the two motels in this remote James Bay reserve, visitors to town tend to cross paths. And in recent days, in Okimaw’s cozy confines, folks arrived trying to help the community with both its future and its past.

From the organization Mining Matters, a travelling “school of rock” in the person of Toronto teachers Barbara Green Parker, Janice Williams and Jenni Piette, came a high-energy presentation on earth sciences and how that field could lead to jobs for young people in projects like a nearby diamond mine.

From Angela Lafontaine, a member of the Moose Cree First Nation, survivor of her own difficult past, came help addressing long-standing wounds that have gone unhealed down generations and helped sabotage aboriginal aspirations.

For the Cree of Attawapiskat, each of those aims — hopeful futures, reconciled pain — is as necessary as the other.

For people of Attawapiskat, hope endures – by Jim Coyle (Toronto Star – January 27, 2012)

November 5, 2015January 28, 2012

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.

ATTAWAPISKAT, ONT.—For more than 20 years, Gilles Bisson has been visiting Attawapiskat, often flying his own small plane up to this remote Cree reserve. As much as any outsider can, he knows all the people, all the issues. Being a smart guy, he also knows how much he doesn’t know.

“Sometimes,” sighs the veteran New Democrat MPP for Timmins-James Bay. “I wonder if I really understand the community any better now than when I started.”

Attawapiskat is basically built on swamp, about 300 kilometres north of Moosonee on the James Bay coast. And the imagery fits. Lately, as the reserve became the new Canadian shorthand for native need, dysfunction and failure, its problems have seemed just as boggy and intractable.

The community is, to be sure, everything it has been portrayed as and more — a world of chronic poverty and dependence, of babies having far too many babies, of cascading generations piling up in shanties, of disheartening self-sabotage, of nepotism and decidedly imperfect governance.

Attawapiskat chief wants share of revenues from nearby diamond mine – by Bruce Campion-Smith (Toronto Star – January 26, 2012)

November 5, 2015January 26, 2012

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.

OTTAWA—Chief Theresa Spence says she has the answer to turning around her troubled aboriginal community of Attawapiskat — getting a share of the resource revenues flowing from a nearby diamond mine.

Without that, she warns that the troubling living conditions on her northern Ontario community will likely worsen and that lives may even be lost.

“Great riches are being taken from our land for the benefit of a few, including the Government of Canada and Ontario, who receive large royalty payments while we receive so little,” Spence said during a lunch speech Tuesday.

“Our lands have been stripped from us and yet development on our land area in timber, hydro and mining have created unlimited wealth for non-native people and their governments,” she said.

Strengthening the chain between First Nations and non-aboriginal Canadians – by Catherine Murton Stoehr (Toronto Star – January 26, 2012)

November 5, 2015January 26, 2012

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.

Catherine Murton Stoehr is an instructor in the department of history at Nipissing University.

On Tuesday, Assembly of First Nations national chief Shawn Atleo presented Governor General David Johnston a silver wampum belt symbolizing the relationship between the British people and the First Nations. He stopped short of saying what we all know to be true, that the chain is almost rusted out.

One of the central reasons for this breakdown is that non-aboriginal Canadians see all money and resources given to First Nations people as charity, while people in Atleo’s world see it as rent. If you’re handing out charity, you get to set conditions like submission to unelected managers. But people paying rent don’t get to interfere in their landlords’ business.

When British officials took over the land and destroyed the hunt in northern Ontario, they promised to immediately rebuild aboriginal communities’ infrastructure and then to support that infrastructure forever. In the same way that a lease remains in effect as long as a person rents a house, the treaties remain in effect as long as non-First Nations people live in Canada. Consistently fulfilling the terms of the treaties is the minimum ethical requirement of living on the land of Canada.

[Resource] Revenue sharing, education key to native self-reliance – John Ivison (National Post – January 26, 2012)

November 5, 2015January 26, 2012

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

Attawapiskat Chief Theresa Spence didn’t imagine she’d ever address the venerable Economic Club of Canada or face a bank of television cameras in the nation’s capital. “When I declared an emergency last September, it wasn’t my intention to cause embarrassment to Canada and I didn’t plan this type of exposure. I just wanted to help my community,” she told a lunchtime crowd.

Whatever her intent, she succeeded in getting millions of dollars of aid shipped into her northern Ontario reserve, in the form of 22 new modular homes, a retrofit of the community’s healing lodge and emergency supplies like water purification systems and health equipment.

But while everyone can agree Attawapiskat was a humanitarian crisis, there are divergent views on how it came about.

Judging by her remarks, Chief Spence is in no doubt – it was all Ottawa’s fault. In a classic case of blame-shift, she said the housing crisis was the result of government funding cuts and broken promises.

In New Control Over Diamonds, Smugglers Pay in Mozambique – by John Eligon (New York Times – January 6, 2012)

January 16, 2012

http://www.nytimes.com/

ESPUNGABERA, Mozambique — The last time Mike Phiri was on his hands and knees, clawing through the rough rock of the diamond fields just across the border in Zimbabwe, he dared a soldier to shoot him.

Mr. Phiri and his fellow diamond smugglers had gotten into an argument with the soldier because, for the second consecutive night, he had directed them to a patch of the rich fields where there were no diamonds to be mined. And so they refused to pay him a bribe for allowing them onto the fields, in an area known as Marange. The soldier threatened force.

“If you want to shoot, shoot,” Mr. Phiri recalled barking at the soldier. “But I’m not paying.”

Mr. Phiri and his comrades walked away unharmed, but in more than three months he has not dared return to the fields, an acknowledgment of the increasing dangers for the black-market miners who once dominated an area that may be one of the world’s most lucrative diamond troves.

Friggin’ Freezin’ – by Bill Braden (Canadian Mining Journal – January, 2012)

January 13, 2012

The Canadian Mining Journal is Canada’s first mining publication providing information on Canadian mining and exploration trends, technologies, operations, and industry events.

Bill Braden is the Northern Correspondent for the Canadian Mining Journal

Renowned winter road readies for really big traffic

Just about every winter brings a new “first” of some kind to the NWT’s storied Tibbitt to Contwoyto Winter Road, the frozen lifeline to three major mines now harvesting approximately 18 per cent (by value) of the world’s gem-quality diamonds.

Now in its 32nd year, the world’s longest-ever ice road will see what could be its longest-ever shipments: the 35-m long blades for a quartet of giant wind turbines to be installed at the Diavik Mine, owned by Rio Tinto and Harry Winston Diamonds Inc.

“They’re not heavy, but they’re big and long and awkward and very sensitive,” said Ron Near, Director of Winter Road Operations, in a recent News/North article. “There’s huge logistics involved in ensuring they get to the mine in a safe way.”

MINING WATCH NEWS RELEASE: Diamonds and Development: Attawapiskat and the Victor Diamond Mine

November 5, 2015January 4, 2012

http://www.miningwatch.ca/

Thursday, December 15, 2011

In the last two weeks there has been an intense media storm around the current housing crisis in Attawapiskat, a remote Cree community on the coast of James Bay. The crisis is occurring in the context of many long-standing issues that are certainly not unique to Attawapiskat. Hopefully, the current attention will provide some immediate relief for the situation in Attawapiskat but also help drive an eventual resolution to the root issues that are causing the current crisis.

One element of the story that’s getting some attention and is of particular interest to MiningWatch is the fact that the community is ‘host’ to DeBeers’ Victor diamond mine, located 90 km west of the community, upstream on the Attawapiskat River, within the traditional territory of the Omushkego Cree. The juxtaposition is stark: a diamond mine producing millions of dollars of a sparkling luxury item, next to the poverty and infrastructure deficits in Attawapiskat. It has led people to ask us: if there are millions of dollars of diamonds being taken from their traditional territory, why aren’t the conditions in the community improving?

After Attawapiskat, what? – by Jim Foulds (Toronto Star – December 29, 2011)

November 5, 2015January 3, 2012

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.

Jim Foulds is a freelance writer in Thunder Bay. He was the MPP for Port Arthur from 1971 to 1987.

When Canadians first saw the news about Attawapiskat they knew that no matter who is at fault, nobody in Canada should be using a plastic bucket for a toilet and have to dump it outside on a regular basis. Nobody should be calling a shack with mould on the walls home. And nobody in Ontario should be paying $23.50 for six apples and four small bottles of juice.

With little evidence, Prime Minister Stephen Harper charged that the funds that the federal government had transferred to the reserve over several years had been mismanaged. With no consultation he put the band under third party management.

(Earlier this year several flooded towns along the Assiniboine River called for provincial and federal help. Think how the municipalities would have reacted if, immediately after asking for aid, they had been placed under third party management.)

The Harper message to Attawapiskat was clear. Blame the victims; discredit the messenger; and sow doubt in the minds of Canadians.

Building Canada’s Epic Ice Road (Popular Mechanics – December 18, 2009)

December 28, 2011

http://www.popularmechanics.com/

“If you want to learn about Canadian ice roads, sooner
or later you have to talk to John Zigarlick.”

The truckers who haul 70-ton rigs hundreds of miles across Canada’s frozen lakes aren’t afraid of much — except warm weather.

The temperature: 10 below zero. The location: the middle of frozen Waite Lake in the Northwest Territories, 1000 miles north of the U.S. border. I’m with six Canadian ice-road experts on the shoulder of a highway that curves from the powder-frosted shoreline forest, across the lake and into the distance. In the pale light of winter, even the sun seems frozen.

Fifty yards away, a tanker truck hauling 40 tons of fuel oil inches forward, its huge diesel rumbling. I’m startled to hear the ice beneath our feet make a sound like shattering window glass, but no one else seems to notice. Apparently, ice that’s 3 ft. thick behaves this way when you drive a massive truck over it.

But something else I notice is definitely not normal. A few yards from the road, Waite Lake’s smooth surface rears up in jagged shards; beyond is a pool of black water.

Millions From Diamonds Go to Mugabe, Observers Say – by John Eligon (New York Time – December 16, 2011)

September 5, 2016December 27, 2011

http://www.nytimes.com/

JOHANNESBURG — Tens of millions of dollars in diamond profits — perhaps more — are being secretly extracted from state-owned mines in eastern Zimbabwe, bypassing the nation’s treasury and raising fears that President Robert Mugabe is amassing wealth to help extend his 31-year reign, according to monitoring groups, diplomats, lawmakers and analysts.

Even if Mr. Mugabe’s allies in the mining ministry are telling the truth about the number of diamonds produced, the treasury was still shortchanged by at least $60 million last year, according to a budget report by the finance minister, one of the president’s chief opponents.

But the amount of money being withheld from the nation’s coffers may be much larger than that. Experts, and even some members of Mr. Mugabe’s own party, say the president’s allies are lowballing the nation’s diamond figures by millions of dollars, hoping to hide the fact that profits are being diverted for personal and political ends.

The Victor Mine: Description of De Beers Canada’s Success – by Canadian Business Ethics Research Network (CBERN)

November 5, 2015December 23, 2011

Canadian Business Ethics Research Network (CBERN)

The Canadian Business Ethics Research Network (CBERN) aims to promote knowledge-sharing and partnerships within the field of business ethics and across private, governmental, voluntary and academic sectors. CBERN also aims to support work from inception to dissemination, from graduate student research and fellowship opportunities to promoting the projects of established professionals. http://www.cbern.ca/home/

The Victor Mine: Description of De Beers Canada’s Success

• The following sections provide insight into the strategy pursued by De Beers and important facts about the Victor project and nearby communities, while providing additional context to the agreements between the company and communities.

In contrast to the conflict-ridden and failed development of exploration claims by Platinex, the recent development and opening of the Victor diamond mine by De Beers Canada has been heralded as “a shining example of responsible development in northern Ontario” (DBC, 2006). Although it has taken years of hard work, De Beers has successfully engaged with nearby First Nations to garner their acceptance and even support of mining operations at Victor.

This acceptance is best exemplified by the signing of three Impact and Benefit Agreements (IBAs) with the First Nations along Ontario’s James Bay coast. In order to better understand the relationship between the company and communities, the following sections provide insight into the strategy pursued by De Beers and important facts about the Victor project and nearby communities, while providing additional context to the agreements between the company and communities.

Step forward for local [Sudbury] gem industry – by STAR STAFF (Sudbury Star – December 21, 2011)

December 21, 2011

The Sudbury Star is the City of Greater Sudbury’s daily newspaper.

Sudbury will continue to shine as one of Canada’s few diamond cutting and processing facilities because of a new agreement with the Government of Ontario.

Sudbury MPP Rick Bartolucci announced Tuesday that Vancouver- based Crossworks Manufacturing Inc. will receive the 2012-2015 allocation of diamonds from Victor Mine.

Crossworks runs the diamond processing facility in downtown Sudbury, employing 29 people to cut and polish the precious gems. The number of employees will increase to 50 during the next three years, said Bartolucci, who is minister of Northern Development and Mines.

Under an agreement between De Beers, which owns Victor Mine, and the Ontario government, 10% of diamonds mined at Victor must be processed in Ontario.

Transport Infrastructure and Ontario’s North: Floating New Ideas – by Livio Di Matteo (December 15, 2011)

December 15, 2011

Livio Di Matteo is Professor of Economics at Lakehead University in Thunder Bay, Ontario. Visit his new Economics Blog “Northern Economist” at http://ldimatte.shawwebspace.ca/

One of the persistent themes in Northern Ontario economic history is transportation and access. From the days of the fur trade, to the arrival of the railroad and later on the onset of modern highways and air travel, transportation has been essential to accessing natural resources and getting them out to market. Yet, Northern Ontario’s transport network has borne the marks of being tailored to economic resource exploitation rather than linking together people. The network has been designed to move resources and goods out of the region rather than facilitate travel and communication within the region. This has been a factor in the regional divisions within a vast and sparsely populated region.

A new report by the Conference Board of Canada titled Northern Assets: Transportation Infrastructure in Remote Communities highlights the challenges of northern Canadian transportation in general and particularly the new changes being wrought by climate change such as permafrost degradation. While the report focuses on a case study of Churchill, Manitoba, many of the issues also apply to remote rural resource communities in Northern Ontario particularly with respect to the dawn of resource exploitation in the Ring of Fire.

According the report, transportation infrastructure is more expensive to build and maintain in Canada’s North and climate change is disrupting existing rail and winter-road links.