Twitter
Boston-Bay-Mines-Announcement

Mining Education and Innovation

Memo to Drummond and McGuinty: Consolidate Ontario Mining Programs at Laurentian University – by Stan Sudol

Stan Sudol is a Toronto-based communications consultant who writes extensively on mining issues. stan.sudol@republicofmining.com

The Sudbury Basin itself, is the third most strategic and richest hardrock
mining centre in the world. The four combined mining clusters found in
Sudbury – mineral operations, education, research and supply and
services – are globally unique. (Stan Sudol)

Ontario’s mining industry is facing a perfect storm of skills shortages – mining engineers and geologists – at a time of severe provincial budget constraints. These fiscal problems will only diminish the mineral sector’s post-secondary education programs at a time when global economies are experiencing the most extraordinary demands for metal products in the history of mankind – a commodity super cycle.

According to the Mining Industry Human Resource Council’s (MiHR) 2010 Canadian Mining Industry Employment and Hiring Forecast report, under the baseline scenario the Canadian mining industry will need to hire 100,000 new workers by the end of 2020. This is the number of workers required to fill newly created positions and also to meet replacement demand as workers retire or leave the mining industry.

That forecast represents MiHR’s baseline scenario, if commodity prices perform better than expected (the expansionary scenario), the cumulative hiring requirements could reach nearly 135,000 workers by 2020.

Read more

[Mining Sector] Labour-short Oz poaching Canucks – by Michael Madigan (Winnipeg Free Press – May 20, 2011)

Michael Madigan is the Winnipeg Free Press correspondent in Australia. He writes about politics for the Brisbane-based Courier Mail.

They’ve ravaged Calgary and pillaged Edmonton, and Canadians can be sure to see a whole lot more of them in the years ahead. Australian mining companies are turning corporate Vikings as they grow increasingly desperate for what has become a rare and precious resource — skilled labour.

That Canadian mining companies also resemble Norse seafarers in their own desperation to feed the insatiable appetite of Canada’s resource sector doesn’t faze the Australians.

The Australian organizer of a recent jobs fair in Canada, Rupert Merrick, says the globe’s booming energy sector is crying out for skilled workers, and all is fair in love and war.

Read more

Unique partnership provides niche mine training in Kirkland Lake – by Adelle Lamour

Established in 1980, Northern Ontario Business  provides Canadians and international investors with relevant, current and insightful editorial content and business news information about Ontario’s vibrant and resource-rich North. This column was published in the April 2011 issue.

Hard Rock Miner Training program helps address shortage of skilled miners.

With a hand from Kirkland Lake Gold Inc., Northern College is helping to address the industry’s shortage of skilled miners with its Underground Hard Rock Miner Common Core training program. Created through a partnership between the school and the mid-tier gold miner, the program has provided an opportunity for those returning to the North in search of permanent full-time employment.

“It is so gratifying to see those who are highly motivated and never had a chance of getting in…this is their big break,” said Rose-Lyne D’Aoust-Messier, training consultant of apprenticeship, workforce development and training at Northern College’s Kirkland Lake campus.

It is one of two institutions in northeastern Ontario that offers this type of training for people not privately employed by a mining company. In mid-February, 12 students graduated from the program, six of which have already been scooped up by Kirkland Lake Gold.

Read more

Memo to Drummond and McGuinty: Consolidate Ontario Mining Programs at Laurentian University– by Stan Sudol

Laurentian University

Stan Sudol is a Toronto-based communications consultant who writes extensively on mining issues. stan.sudol@republicofmining.com

The Sudbury Basin itself, is the third most strategic and richest hardrock
mining centre in the world. The four combined mining clusters found in
Sudbury – mineral operations, education, research and supply and
services – are globally unique. (Stan Sudol-April 6, 2011)

Ontario’s mining industry is facing a perfect storm of skills shortages – mining engineers and geologists – at a time of severe provincial budget constraints. These fiscal problems will only diminish the mineral sector’s post-secondary education programs at a time when global economies are experiencing the most extraordinary demands for metal products in the history of mankind – a commodity super cycle.

According to the Mining Industry Human Resource Council’s (MiHR) 2010 Canadian Mining Industry Employment and Hiring Forecast report, under the baseline scenario the Canadian mining industry will need to hire 100,000 new workers by the end of 2020. This is the number of workers required to fill newly created positions and also to meet replacement demand as workers retire or leave the mining industry.

That forecast represents MiHR’s baseline scenario, if commodity prices perform better than expected (the expansionary scenario), the cumulative hiring requirements could reach nearly 135,000 workers by 2020.

Last month in a speech in Calgary, Mark Carney, the Governor of the Bank of Canada remarked, “Commodity markets are in the midst of a supercycle. …Rapid urbanization underpins this growth. Since 1990, the number of people living in cities in China and India has risen by nearly 500 million, the equivalent of housing the entire population of Canada 15 times over. …Even though history teaches that all booms are finite, this one could go on for some time.”

Read more

Engineering shortage after recession – by Adelle Larmour

Established in 1980, Northern Ontario Business  provides Canadians and international investors with relevant, current and insightful editorial content and business news information about Ontario’s vibrant and resource-rich North. This article is from the April, 2011 issue.

Retiring workforce and declining immigration creating gaps in engineering sector

An aging and retiring workforce, coupled with declining immigration rates, has increased the demand for engineers as the economy picks up speed. There appears to be a gap in several areas, led by civil engineers, according Daniel Young, acting CEO for the Ontario Society of Professional Engineers, a member- service organization representing almost 10,000 members.

“As we come out of the recession, there is a tremendous need for engineers, particularly in the manufacturing sector,” said Young, adding that as industry gears up, there are not enough engineers to fill the demand.

He pointed out that civil engineers are in huge demand because of the large number of retirements, a slowdown in immigration, infrastructure initiatives, and the fact that the universities have not graduated enough of them. As a 40-year veteran of civil engineering, Young said it is the most diversified of all the disciplines, which may be another reason for the demand compared to other engineering services.

Read more

Time for Ontario Universities to Specialize in Programs They Do Best: [Ontario Provincial] Report – by Ciara Byrne (October 26, 2010)

About the Higher Education Quality Council of Ontario

The Higher Education Quality Council of Ontario is an arm’s-length agency of the Government of Ontario dedicated to ensuring the continued improvement of the postsecondary education system in Ontario.  The Council was created through the Higher Education Quality Council of Ontario Act, 2005. It is mandated to conduct research, evaluate the postsecondary education system, and provide policy recommendations to the Minister of Training, Colleges and Universities with a view to enhance the quality, access, and accountability of Ontario’s higher education system.

The report is available here: TheThe Benefits of Greater Differentiation of Ontario’s University Sector

Ciara Byrne, The Canadian Press: Tuesday, October 26, 2010

TORONTO – Ontario universities should play to their strengths instead of trying to be everything to everyone, the head of an advisory body on higher learning said Tuesday, as he called for schools to focus on the programs they do best.

A report commissioned by Ontario’s deputy post-secondary education minister by the Higher Education Quality Council is calling on universities to pick a specialty and stick with it, meaning Specialty U could be the future in Ontario.

“You will have the institutions doing what they do best, not trying to do what everybody else is doing,” council president Harvey Weingarten said Tuesday.

Read more

Ontario Report: The Benefits of Greater Differentiation of Ontario’s University Sector – Executive Summary and Preamble

Greater Differentiation actually means the consolidation of university programs throughout Ontario’s post-secondary system in order to save money and improve quality. The study supports my past columns about the need to consolidate Ontario’s University mining programs in Sudbury and turn Laurentian University into the Harvard of the Hard-rock mining sector. – Stan Sudol

About the Higher Education Quality Council of Ontario

The Higher Education Quality Council of Ontario is an arm’s-length agency of the Government of Ontario dedicated to ensuring the continued improvement of the postsecondary education system in Ontario.  The Council was created through the Higher Education Quality Council of Ontario Act, 2005. It is mandated to conduct research, evaluate the postsecondary education system, and provide policy recommendations to the Minister of Training, Colleges and Universities with a view to enhance the quality, access, and accountability of Ontario’s higher education system.

The report is available here: The Benefits of Greater Differentiation of Ontario’s University Sector

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

The Ontario university sector is already somewhat differentiated. A policy decision to increase the differentiation of the postsecondary system brings the following benefits:

• Higher quality teaching and research programs
• More student choice with easier inter‐institution transfer and mobility
• Greater institutional accountability
• A more globally competitive system
• A more financially sustainable system

Ontario’s postsecondary system can transition seamlessly and incrementally to greater differentiation with the judicious and strategic use of funding strategies already familiar to government. This transition to a more differentiated university sector is guided by principles including:

• Equal value on the teaching and research functions of universities
• Forging a contemporary relationship between Ontario’s colleges and universities
• Linking the differentiation policy to funding decisions
• More effective use of multi‐year accountability agreements and performance indicators to evaluate whether universities are meeting expected goals and targets

Read more

Who will pay the bills for the education dream? – by Don Drummond and Daniel R. Woolf (Toronto Star-April 1, 2011)

The Toronto Star, which is the largest circulation newspaper in the country, has an enormous impact on Canada’s federal and provincial politics as well as shaping public opinion.

Don Drummond is Matthews Fellow in global public policy at Queen’s University. Daniel R. Woolf is principal and vice-chancellor of Queen’s University.

We have reached the point in the post-secondary education system where significant
new thinking is required to reconcile a higher participation rate with the reality of finite
government resources. This will require willingness to rethink a system that cannot be
sustained. (Don Drummond and Daniel R. Woolf – April 1, 2011)

In this knowledge-based era, the economic spoils are increasingly going to those with higher education. In recognition, Canadian governments are setting ambitious targets for post-secondary education. Commitments to higher education are a part of every federal party’s campaign platform and this week’s Ontario budget includes funding for more than 60,000 new post-secondary education spaces over the next five years.

But owing to governments’ fiscal woes, students and their families will continue to bear a rising portion of the total costs of a quality post-secondary education. For many, this will remain manageable and the return will be a lifetime of higher earnings and increased quality of life. But without dramatic reforms to Canada’s financial supports for students, more and more will find the path to higher education blocked by financial obstacles. The damage will carry across generations because a key determinant of pursuing higher education is parents’ level of education.

About 70 per cent of the jobs of the future are projected to require some form of higher education.

Read more

Facing record debt, Ontario appoints Drummond to revamp public services – by Rob Ferguson (Toronto Star-March 29, 2011)

The Toronto Star, which is the largest circulation newspaper in the country, has an enormous impact on Canada’s federal and provincial politics as well as shaping public opinion.

Queen’s Park Bureau

Faced with $10.3 billion in annual interest payments on its record debt, Ontario is scrambling to revamp its public services by appointing respected economist Don Drummond to lead the effort.

And the government is looking at an expanded privatization of its ServiceOntario operations, which now provide documents like birth and marriage certificates, to see if more private-sector innovation could lead to improvements.

Finance Minister Dwight Duncan tasked Drummond — formerly the chief economist of TD Bank and once a senior finance official with the federal government — to advise on ways to speed the paydown of next year’s $16.3 billion deficit, which will boost Ontario’s net debt to $241.4 billion.

Read more

To fix Ontario’s finances, Drummond ‘absolutely’ has to consider health care, education – by Richard Blackwell (Globe and Mail-March 29, 2011)

The Globe and Mail is Canada’s national newspaper with the second largest broadsheet circulation in the country. It has enormous impact and influence on Canada’s political and business elite as well as the rest of the country’s print, radio and television media. 

The economist in charge of figuring out how to wrestle Ontario’s budget deficit to the ground says he will look at every aspect of the province’s spending, including the key sectors of health care and education.

Don Drummond, a former Toronto-Dominion Bank chief economist who has advised federal and provincial governments many times in the past, has been appointed chairman of a commission with a mandate to figure out how to rejig the province’s public service so it is more efficient.

The province, in its budget tabled on Tuesday, said the Commission on the Reform of Ontario’s Public Services “will not make recommendations that would increase taxes or lead to the privatization of health care or education.” And Finance Minister Dwight Duncan said Mr. Drummond has “rejected the slash and burn approach.”

Read more

U of T’s forestry school faces the axe – by James Bradshaw (Globe and Mail-April 2, 2011)

The Globe and Mail is Canada’s national newspaper with the second largest broadsheet circulation in the country. It has enormous impact and influence on Canada’s political and business elite as well as the rest of the country’s print, radio and television media. 

After 104 years of seeing the forest for the trees, dwindling enrolment has left the future of the faculty of forestry at the University of Toronto in doubt.

It was Canada’s first forestry faculty, and North America’s second, but is now also one of the smallest, with a dozen faculty teaching fewer than 80 graduate students. For that reason, the administration has deemed it “not financially viable,” said dean Sandy Smith.

Canada has 10 per cent of the world’s remaining forest cover, and a quarter of its undisturbed frontier forest, but enrolment in forestry programs has dropped across the country, as well as outside it. In a 2009 survey of 65,000 graduating high school students, just six chose forestry as their preferred discipline.

Read more

OMA member profile: CAMIRO – research for mining’s future

This article was provided by the Ontario Mining Association (OMA), an organization that was established in 1920 to represent the mining industry of the province.
 

Ontario Mining Association member the Canadian Mining Industry Research Organization (CAMIRO) has been leading a scientific approach to improving sector workplaces for decades.  Sudbury-based CAMIRO, which officially started in 1996, has actually been operating since 1975 under various banners as an industry collaborative research broker. 

The industry-based, not-for-profit organization with a membership of mining companies and those with an interest in the mining sector has three divisions – exploration, mining and metallurgical processing.  CAMIRO strives to have multiple members sponsor specific research initiatives with the results broadly shared.  Many OMA members are involved in CAMIRO.  The collaborative nature of how CAMIRO operates facilitates government funding assistance without appearing to favour any specific company.

“We reach into the industry’s needs and figure out what we should be working on to benefit everyone,” said Charles Graham, Managing Director of CAMIRO’s Mining Division.  “CAMIRO carries out the administrative functions of research – we act as brokers to get funding before we spend it on research projects and we farm out specific aspects of the project to the most likely to succeed whether universities, independent researchers, mining companies or government.”

Read more

A call to all Canadian Mining Associations – by Russell Noble

Russell Noble is the editor for the Canadian Mining Journal, Canada’s first mining publication. This column is from the February/March 2011 issue. rnoble@canadianminingjournal.com

Most industry associations aren’t worth a damn and that unfortunately holds true for many of those involved with mining here in Canada. They’re good at collecting dues and putting on Annual Meetings for their fraternity but aside from those events, little is done throughout the year for the good of their members at large and, more importantly, the industry they serve and represent.

To support my opinion, when was the last time you heard of any association affiliated with mining make headlines beyond their own Newsletter telling about all the good they are doing on behalf of the mining industry as a whole?

Sure we hear about meetings with various government officials or other regional dignitaries where “position papers” are given on the price of electricity or the importance of water, air and the rest of the environment, but what about concerns on a broader, national scale involving mining people and the growing scarcity of them?

What are the “mining associations” doing to address this problem?

Read more

Sudbury Calls the Shots, Says [Vale’s] John Pollesel – by Carol Mulligan

Carol Mulligan is a reporter for the Sudbury Star, the City of Greater Sudbury’s daily newspaper. cmulligan@thesudburystar.com

“As a matter of fact, in the North Atlantic, we are the centre of excellence for
underground mining globally for Vale. Vale’s operations are mostly open pit,
big iron ore mines. However, if we’re to develop a deposit in Africa … they will
come to us for mining expertise.” (Vale’s John Pollesel January 20, 2011)

The head of Vale’s North Atlantic operations isn’t putting much stock in rumours that Roger Agnelli could be on his way out as chief executive of Vale’s parent company in Brazil.
John Pollesel, chief operating officer for Vale in Canada and the UK , said a report that a majority shareholder in Vale is trying to replace Agnelli is unfounded.

When asked if things might change in Sudbury if Agnelli were replaced, Pollesel said: “Sudbury directly may not feel the effects of something like that, but that’s just a rumour. There’s no, in speaking to (Vale CEO) Tito (Martins) earlier this week, he explained to us that … that’s just a rumour.”

Another frequent comment that is untrue is that Vale operations in Canada are being run out of Brazil, Pollesel told The Sudbury Star in an editorial board meeting this week.

“We hear often, and I get a little frustrated when I hear this, that things are being run out of Brazil. Well, no, that’s not the case,” said Pollesel.

Read more

Rio Tinto Invests $10 Million in Sudbury’s Centre of Excellence in Mining Innovation – Mark Henderson

Mark Henderson is editor of Research Money.

“We are attempting to establish a centre of excellence that can compete in the R&D space and collaborate with centres in Brazil and Chile … Our mandate is to establish R&D and innovation excellence in Ontario and Canada by bringing industry money together with people doing research and who can commercialize the work.” – CEMI President and CEO Dr. Peter Kaiser

Boost to growing mining cluster
 
Sudbury’s quest to become a major centre of mining R&D received a significant boost with a decision by Rio Tinto to invest $10 million in a Centre for Underground Mine Construction (CUMC), the fifth and final centre in its global research network. The centre is part of Rio Tinto’s Mine of the Future program as the British-Australian mining giant banks on innovation to transition from open pit to underground mining by developing deeper underground mines to meet soaring demand for minerals.

To be based at the Centre of Excellence in Mining Innovation (CEMI), located at Sudbury’s Laurentian Univ, the Rio Tinto centre marks the first time a foreign-based multinational has committed to funding mining R&D through CEMI.

The decision may signal a reversal in Canada’s flagging reputation as an innovative mining nation — a status that has been threatened by a rash of foreign takeovers of some of Canada’s biggest mining enterprises. For instance, the former Falconbridge was acquired by Xstrata based in Zug Switzerland, while Inco was absorbed by Vale Ltd, based in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.

Rio Tinto’s CUMC will be set up as a division of CEMI with a steering committee to direct R&D initiatives.

Read more