Mining and Oil Sector Image – Page 10

Young and dying: the scandal of artisanal mining [in Africa] – by Geoffrey York (Globe and Mail – August 18, 2012)

August 18, 2012

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.

With his Hulk cartoon T-shirt and his solemn face, Stephane Kapenda looks even younger and smaller than his 12 years. He knows he shouldn’t be here. But for years he has hauled tainted soil from this toxic waste pit into dirty pools of water so that he can search for bits of copper.

“It’s bad,” he says quietly. “I would like to leave it and go to school.” Asked what is the worst thing about the work, he thinks for a moment and then whispers: “The sickness.”

Twice, the effects of heavy-metal contamination have been so severe that he needed hospital treatment. Yet he keeps at it, alongside his siblings, to scrounge a tiny income for his parents – impoverished farmers who could not otherwise survive.

About 200 to 300 children toil daily in this vast open pit, a bleak wasteland outside a copper and zinc mine at Kipushi in the southeastern corner of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, near the Zambian border.

The Oil Sands PR War – by Chris Turner (Marketing Magazine – August 13, 2012)

July 30, 2012

http://www.marketingmag.ca/

For a column about the dismal image of Canada’s mining sector by Stan Sudol, click here: http://republicofmining.com/2011/11/29/the-horrible-image-of-canada%e2%80%99s-mining-sector-%e2%80%93-by-stan-sudol/

The down and dirty fight to brand Canada’s oil patch – Chris Turner

Not long ago, a half-page ad appeared on page three of The Globe & Mail. Over an image of a bucolic forest glade lit by a golden sunrise, a headline read, “Energy the world needs. The approach Canadians expect.” The ad was short on specifics—a block of smaller type spoke of Canada’s perception in the wider world and “a constant effort to improve our environmental performance.” The only appearance of the word oil was in the URL for the campaign’s website: OilSandsToday.ca.

The ad had been placed by the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers (CAPP), and it was the latest effort in an ongoing, two-year campaign to improve the public image of Canada’s oil industry—particularly the lucrative but much-maligned bitumen extraction business in the oil sands of northern Alberta. The bucolic forest glade, the ad’s fine print noted, was a “reclaimed mining operation” in Alberta’s vast boreal forest, executed by Syncrude.

If Globe readers didn’t come away from their morning scan thinking of CAPP’s golden meadow, that might be because it wasn’t the only story about Canadian oil in the front section of the paper that day. “Spate of spills pushes Alberta to harder look at pipeline safety,” read a front-page headline.

Anti-exploration NIMBYs win in Whitehorse, but elsewhere perhaps not so – by Kip Keen (Mineweb.com – July 20, 2012)

July 20, 2012

www.mineweb.com

Mineral explorers in urban areas come up against NIMBY (Not In My Back Yard) opposition as the will of mineral explorers meets with the will of the public, but economic necessity is turning the tables in some areas of the world.

HALIFAX, NS – If you had plans to stake a claim in downtown Whitehorse, the capital of the Yukon, forget it, at least for the next five years. The Yukon territorial government, after prodding from the Whitehorse City Council, has put a moratorium on staking of hard rock claims in one of North America’s more storied gold jurisdictions. Whitehorse, after all, was a prospector’s hub during the Yukon Gold Rush and, indeed, a launching point for Yukon’s recent gold renaissance. But Whitehorse is no more the dusty turn-of-the-19th-century town where, for the most part, destitute men descended to make their fortunes, of which a few did and many did not. It is now a growing city centre – if minuscule by global standards with about 25,000 inhabitants – with a populace that has more than mining on their mind.

Indeed the banning of claim staking in Whitehorse has for years been an issue. Of all banner bearers, one of the more vocal has been the Whitehorse Country Ski Club. With the prospect of mineral development in the city’s parks and ski trail system, it has demanded a ban on claim staking in town. It is a rather surreal issue that might befuddle a Parisien, Londoner or even Vancouverite for that matter: to find wooden posts with small metal tags nailed to their tops stabbed into the earth at, say, a local park.

Canada & Miners ‘Guilty’ but Economy Thrives – by Jon Nadler (Resource Investor – July 20, 2012)

July 20, 2012

http://www.resourceinvestor.com/?ref=nav

The final trading session of this once again indecisive week in gold commenced with a price drop. The yellow metal erased Thursday’s gains and retreated to under $1,575 in slow pre-market action as the US dollar picked up some steam following its visit to near two-week lows on the trade-weighted index yesterday. Also contributing to the decline in bullion prices were the softer euro (falling to under $1.22 against the dollar once again) and the losses in crude oil (it fell 1.4% to $91.35 per barrel). As of this writing, gold appeared set to close out the week with a half-percent loss in value but the final tally remains to be ascertained later on in the day.

The euro suffered in the wake of once again rising Spanish borrowing costs and declining demand for that country’s bonds. Major Spanish unions have called for a nationwide protest against the government’s drastic austerity measures. The post EU meeting euphoria that was in the air just a few weeks ago appears to have dissipated with the summer thermals over in the Old World.

Silver spot prices dropped by almost 40 cents to trade at $26.92 per ounce on the bid-side in New York this morning. Analysts at Standard Bank (SA) note that silver stockpiles remain high (especially in China) and that demand from the industrial sector for the white metal is tepid at best. China has only imported 779 tonnes of silver in the year-to-date as against the 1,153 tonnes that it took in last year in the same timeframe.

The Jeffrey Mine loan makes sense, demand for asbestos is high – by John Aylen (Montreal Gazette – July 20, 2012

July 20, 2012

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

John Aylen is a spokesman for the Jeffrey Mine

Alana Wilson’s opinion piece of July 19 (“The asbestos bailout: your tax dollars, not well spent”) draws conclusions based on erroneous facts. As with any argument based on misconceptions and half-truths, the conclusions that follow do not hold.

One of the principal assertions Ms. Wilson makes is that the market for chrysotile is declining. Nothing could be further from the truth. Chrysotile asbestos is in high demand as an effective, low-cost and safe material used in the production of cement roofing tiles and pipes. Throughout the developing world (60 per cent of the world’s population), the need and ability to put a low-cost roof over the heads of the poorest of the poor is steadily increasing.

The demand for chrysotile has risen since 2008, and this fact was a key consideration in the reopening of the Jeffrey Mine and in the Quebec government’s decision to provide a loan to the venture.

The asbestos bailout: your tax dollars, not well spent – by Alana Wilson (Montreal Gazette – July 19, 2012)

July 20, 2012

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

Alana Wilson is a senior research analyst at the Fraser Institute’s Global Centre for Mining Studies (miningfacts.org)

Canada’s mining industry is globally competitive, and has long succeeded without much in the way of government subsidies. It even thrived in the last recession by responding to market demand. Yet instead of letting markets drive mining investment in Quebec, the provincial government is bailing out the asbestos industry using taxpayer money – and this for a product that is harmful to human health.

In recent years, market demand for chrysotile asbestos produced in Canada shrank dramatically, which led to a halt of chrysotile mining. But instead of letting mines stay closed, taxpayer funds are now being used to gamble against markets and reopen an unprofitable chrysotile mine.

Premier Jean Charest recently approved a $58-million loan to allow the Jeffrey asbestos mine to reopen. This follows months of negotiation and several extensions of the government loan offer to give private partners more time to raise money.

In Panama, Locals Protest Canadian Copper Mines – PBS News Hour – July 17, 2012

July 19, 2012

Watch In Panama, ‘New Conquistadors’ Protest Canadian Copper Mines on PBS. See more from PBS NewsHour.

http://www.pbs.org/newshour/

Transcript

JEFFREY BROWN: Next, new battle lines are being drawn in the rain forests of the Americas, and billions of dollars are at stake. Canadian mining companies hold about 1,400 properties in developing nations from Mexico to Argentina.

One of those is in Panama, where local groups have teamed up with environmental activists to halt the building of new mines.

Our story is a collaboration with CBC News in Canada and the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting. The producer is Lynn Burgess. The reporter is Mellissa Fung.

MELLISSA FUNG, Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting: Deep in the Panamanian rain forest, more than three hours northwest of Panama City, small agricultural communities dot the landscape, places that have remained unchanged for generations.

Carmelo Yanguez has lived in this town of Coclesito for more than 40 years. A subsistence farmer, he lives on what he grows, planting coffee, rice and beans and fish from nearby rivers. But his peaceful life, he fears, is changing.

Timmins miners perform on Canada Sings – by Liz Cowan (Northern Ontario Business – July 2012)

July 16, 2012

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.

Timmins 100th anniversary special

They may not win any Grammys for their singing but the glee team from Dumas Mining in Timmins put tremendous heart and soul into their performance on Global TV’s Canada Sings in early June. The emotional effort paid off. “I was really happy that we won,” said team captain Terry Rickard.

“That part was exciting for me and I would do it again.” The winning performance each week means the charity of the team’s choice receives $25,000. The Dumas team chose CNIB’s Lake Joe Family Camp located near Mactier in Muskoka. For Rickard, the camp holds special significance since he lost his sight at 23, only to gain it back 18 years later.

When the team first got together and was told it had to pick a charity, a few ideas were tossed around. “Nobody had any real idea of what charity to agree to but one day we sat down with the production company and my friend told them that I had an interesting story,” he said. “I said the CNIB would be a good choice and then after I told my story, everyone agreed.”

Kicking up some dust over Quebec’s Asbestos loan – by Antonia Maioni (Globe and Mail -July 9, 2012)

July 9, 2012

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.

Asbestos looms large in Quebec politics. Both the ore and the town it created have been mired in controversy, most recently the announcement of a $58-million loan to help reopen the fabled Jeffrey Mine. On the line are 400 full-time jobs in a region dependent on the industry for more than a century, despite clear warnings about the persistent health and environmental danger of asbestos, a fibre that provides superior insulation but that in some forms has been linked to cancer.

While the industry has suffered a dramatic decline worldwide because of these concerns, Canada continues to actively promote its trade and defy multilateral efforts warning of its hazards. Asbestos is already banned in most countries that Canadians consider their peer group: the European Union, Australia, Japan. In the U.S., the industry is entangled in extensive litigation, bankruptcy filings and class-action suits. The export targets are, instead, countries such as China and especially India, where building booms are fuelling demand for asbestos for use in cement and infrastructure.

The fallout from the announcement reflects a decades-long conflict between the industry and health experts, but also larger questions about the trade-off between local jobs and public health, and the tension between money and science.

Mayor of Asbestos says misunderstood town’s history is ‘a source of pride’ – by Graeme Hamilton (National Post – July 7, 2012)

July 8, 2012

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

When a government preparing for an election has a job-creating investment to announce, it does not usually schedule it for a Friday afternoon before a long weekend. But when the announcement is in Asbestos, Que., and the funding will revive a dormant mine producing the carcinogenic fiber that gives the town its name, officials prefer not to make too big a splash.

So it was last week, as Quebec’s Liberal government announced a $58-million loan to the Jeffrey Mine to convert the open pit to an underground operation that is expected to yield chrysotile asbestos for another 25 years beginning next June.

The timing could not completely stifle the backlash, and the government has come under fire from health professionals and environmentalists — the head of Quebec’s association of community-health physicians said the loan amounts to subsidizing cancer.

For Hugues Grimard, Mayor of Asbestos, such attacks are nothing new. Last year his town was made a laughingstock by the American TV program The Daily Show, whose interviewer asked the mine’s president, Bernard Coulombe, whether the word asbestos meant something different in French. “Because in English it means slow, hacking death.”

Asbestos gets a new lease on death – by Colin Kenny (Montreal Gazette – July 6, 2012)

July 8, 2012

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

Senator Colin Kenny is former deputy chair of the Senate Standing Committee on Energy, the Environment and Natural Resources

If students want to fight injustice why haven’t they taken to the streets over the government’s latest decision?

Canada’s notorious asbestos industry has been given a new lease on death. A $58-million loan guarantee from the Quebec government will allow the town of Asbestos to resume shipments of this documented killer to developing countries, where impoverished construction workers will be forced to gamble with its deadly potential to tear apart their lungs.

Where are Quebec student protesters when Canada really needs them? In their focus on tuition fees, they never were quite able to make the case that the Charest government is morally bankrupt. Now that the Quebec government has agreed to bankroll asbestos exports denounced by medical experts around the world in order to restore 425 jobs in rural Quebec, it should be a lot easier to make the case.

The use and abuse of asbestos goes way back to the ancient Greeks and Egyptians. The Greeks used its fibres to make fabrics more enduring, as did the Egyptians, who embalmed pharaohs in it. Since it was so fire-resistant, the Persians wrapped bodies for cremation in it, the better to gather the ashes of the deceased.

Asbestos mine loan gives Charest ‘good reason to be ashamed’ – by Les Parreaux (Globe and Mail – July 3, 2012)

July 3, 2012

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.

MONTREAL — The announcement was described as a national embarrassment, the crass political manoeuvre of a desperate Quebec government trying to hold on to a Liberal seat at the cost of public health.

Critics lined up with speed and in number on the long weekend to blast Premier Jean Charest for green-lighting a $58-million loan to Canada’s last asbestos mine late on the Friday of the unofficial start of summer vacation season.

The loan stunned environmentalists, the medical community and cancer-fighting groups while promoters of the controversial relaunch of the Jeffrey Mine were more difficult to find. Even the province’s own public-health doctors are outraged.

Mr. Charest “has good reason to be ashamed,” said Yv Bonnier Viger, head of Quebec’s association of public-health specialists. “He is relaunching the exploitation of an extremely dangerous material that will cause the suffering and death of thousands of people in poor countries, at only marginal benefit to a desperate community.”

The New Conquistadors [Canadian Miners Conlfict/Image in Panama] – Mellissa Fung, Paul Seeler and Lynn Burgess (CBC National News Documentary – June 18, 2012)

April 5, 2015June 20, 2012

Click here to watch the documentary “The New Conqistadors”: http://www.cbc.ca/thenational/thenewconquistadors/

Starting in the early 16th Century, Spanish explorers arrived in Central and South America in search of gold, silver and spices. While the term “Spanish Conquistadors” references an era of great Spanish power and influence, for the indigenous people living in the lands the Conquistadors reached, it was considered a time of exploitation, disease and oppression.

Five hundred years later, there are some – particularly in the indigenous communities of Latin America – who are seeing this as new era of economic conquest, one with significant environmental and social consequences. This time, the new “conquerors” are Canadian mining companies.

These “new conquistadors” have generated enormous wealth for Canada and the countries in which they do business. Canadian mining companies often have “sustainable development” programs that provide a range of opportunities for locals and attempt to offset the negative environmental effects of mining. However, the economic, environmental and social changes these mines bring to rural communities have generated considerable debate in Latin America. This project is intended as a catalyst for discussion.

Axing outdated views: Mining Week gets an overhaul in Sudbury – by Lindsay Kelly (Northern Ontario Business – May 2012)

May 30, 2012

When it comes to modern-day mining, the pickaxe and shovel are out and robots and technology are in.

It’s a message the organizers of Sudbury Mining Week worked hard to promote this year as students from across the city participated in the annual event designed to raise the awareness of the importance of mining to the area and enhance its profile amongst would-be future miners.

The shift from traditional mining to a high-tech version has been occurring over a number of years, but many in the community aren’t aware of it, said Nicole Tardif, Sudbury Mining Week chair. The city needs to change long-held, outmoded perceptions of the industry if it wants to interest the next generation in mining as a viable career option.

“We have all these great companies and all these great things that are happening in our city,” Tardif said. “If we want those to continue when our baby boomers retire, who better to replace them than the people who have grown up in this area?”

‘Mining Truth initiative’ wants to ‘educate’ Minnesotans about mining – by Dorothy Kosich (Mineweb.com – May 24, 2012)

June 19, 2013May 24, 2012

www.mineweb.com

Minnesota environmental special interests say their latest initiative aims to engage all Minnesotans, including miners, “in a respectful, open, fact based dialogue” about sulfide mining.

RENO (MINEWEB) – A coalition of three environmental organizations Wednesday announced it has launched a statewide sulfide mining initiative in Minnesota. Two mining companies, PolyMet and Twin Metals, are developing two mines in Minnesota’s lake country.

“Today, there is little awareness about sulfide mining-it’s very different from the iron ore mining that is more familiar to Minnesotans,” said Paul Danicic, executive director of Friends of the Boundary Waters Wilderness and founding member of the initiative Mining Truth. “This is a complex issue with long-term economic and environmental implications. We need a broad conversation about this.”

“The evidence shows there is reason to be cautious about effects on our lakes, rivers and groundwater, but we also recognize that the immediate need for jobs in Northern Minnesota is real,” said Paul Austin, executive director of Conservation Minnesota and founding member of Mining Truth.