Twitter

Mining and Oil Sector Image

Plan to stanch flow of ‘conflict minerals’ from Congo causes turmoil – by Geoffrey York (Globe and Mail – October 22, 2011)

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.

JOHANNESBURG – The campaign began as an idealistic effort to halt a horrific epidemic of rape and murder in the heart of Africa. It burgeoned into a powerful consumer movement, culminating in a planned U.S. regulation that is terrifying some of the world’s biggest corporations.

And now, with companies such as Apple Inc. and Motorola desperately seeking an ethical stamp of approval for their latest tablets and smart phones, activists like Joanne Lebert of Ottawa are finding themselves in an unexpected position of influence. Their new certification scheme could help solve a political dilemma that is inflicting turmoil on thousands of African miners and Western corporations.

At the centre of this global battle are the “conflict minerals” – tin, gold, tantalum and tungsten – that have fuelled vicious wars and ruthless militias in the Democratic Republic of Congo, one of Africa’s biggest and poorest countries. Their proceeds are financing the warlords and armies that are responsible for millions of deaths and sexual assaults over the past decade in one of the world’s bloodiest conflicts.

Read more

MININGWATCH NEWS RELEASE: ATTEMPT TO REVIVE PROPOSED PROSPERITY MINE MUST END NOW Oct 19, 2011

 Source: http://www.newswire.ca/en/story/861389/attempt-to-revive-proposed-prosperity-mine-must-end-now

Posted on behalf of the Tsilhqot’in National Government-MiningWatch

[MiningWatch is providing logistical support to the Tsilhqot’in during their Ottawa vist and will continue to support them with techncial reviews of the project and communications support.]

Company submits option already reviewed and found to be worse than original plan

OTTAWA, October 19, 2011: The Tsilhqot’in Nation, supported by BC and national chiefs, today called on the Canadian Environmental Assessment Agency (CEAA) and the federal government to reject the re-bid Prosperity mine project without further waste of time and tax dollars.

“The company is on record admitting this new option is worse than the one that was rejected last year, and a CEAA review panel has already agreed with that assessment,” said Chief Joe Alphonse, Chair of the Tsilhqot’in National Government, which represents six First Nations.

Read more

Open Letter: UBCIC Supports Tsilhqot’in Nation and Call for Rejection of “New Prosperity” Mine (October 19, 2011)

The Union of British Columbia Indian Chiefs was founded in November, 1969, by a majority of Indian chiefs in BC, partly in response to the federal government’s 1969 White Paper, which was a blueprint for assimilating Canada’s First Peoples, and partly as an inevitable outcome of a growing conviction of many of our people that our survival in the face of such policies depended upon our ability to work together. The goal of the UBCIC is to support the work of our people, whether at the community, nation or international level, in our common fight for the recognition of our aboriginal rights and respect for our cultures and societies.

October 19, 2011

Prime Minister Stephen Harper
Government of Canada

Premier Christy Clark
Province of British Columbia

Dear Prime Minister Harper and Premier Clark:

Re: UBCIC Support for Tsilhqot’in Nation and Call for Rejection of the “New Prosperity” Mine

We are writing with respect to Union of BC Indian Chiefs (UBCIC) Resolution 2011-35, “UBCIC Support for Tsilhqot’in Nation and Call for Rejection of the “New Prosperity” Mine” which was presented, affirmed and passed by consensus at the UBCIC’s 43rd Annual General Assembly on September 15, 2011.

Read more

Documents detail Mulroney-era efforts to block U.S. asbestos ban – by Gloria Galloway (Globe and Mail – October 19, 2011)

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.

Anti-asbestos lobbyists say former Canadian politicians, ambassadors and bureaucrats abandoned their morals when they successfully lobbied two decades ago to prevent the carcinogenic material from being banned in the United States.

Laurie Kazan-Allen of the International Ban Asbestos Secretariat, a group based in Britain, told a news conference Tuesday that, “as a consequence of the legal and political actions mounted by Canadian interest, a further 300,000 tons of Canadian asbestos was used in the United States and vast amounts of asbestos-containing products were incorporated into the United States infrastructure.”

Ms. Kazan-Allen obtained documents from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to show that former Conservative prime minister Brian Mulroney lobbied his friend, then-U.S. president Ronald Reagan, in the mid-1980s about the EPA’s plan to ban asbestos.

Read more

Creating Jobs & Prosperity: Canada as a Resource Superpower – Speech by The Honourable Joe Oliver, P.C., M.P. Minister of Natural Resources (October 13, 2011)

This speech was given by The Honourable Joe Oliver, P.C., M.P. Canada’s Minister of Natural Resources  at the Toronto Board of Trade, Toronto, Ontario, October 13, 2011

Check against delivery

Thank you, Carol, for your kind introduction. Good morning, ladies and gentlemen.

I am pleased to be back at the Toronto Board of Trade, which has been such an important organization in representing and generating ideas for the business community in the GTA and beyond.  Toronto is an economic engine with a world-class capital market and banking industry that finances our abundant natural resources and related industries right across the country.  The relationship between our resources and the economy is – not surprisingly – what I want to talk to about this morning.

This summer and fall, I have traveled across Canada and the United States. I co-chaired the federal-provincial Conference on Energy and Mining in Kananaskis. I attended the APEC Conference of Energy and Transportation Ministers in San Francisco a few weeks ago and met with business leaders, legislators and government officials in Sacramento, LA, New York and Washington.  Last week, I visited Washington and Calgary again.

Read more

RIM goes as silent as its BlackBerrys – by Warren Kinsella (Toronto Sun – October 16, 2011)

The Toronto Sun is the city’s daily tabloid newspaper. warren.kinsella@sunmedia.ca

A lesson for the mining sector? – Stan Sudol

When disaster strikes, when mistakes happen, what’s the best corporate response? Well, to respond, for starters. Not to pretend nobody’s noticed.

Last week, as you are certainly aware, was The Great Berry Crash of 2011, and plenty of folks noticed. Across Europe, Africa, Asia and the Americas, millions of us peered at our inert BlackBerry screens for day after interminable day, cursing. 

Cursing one of the all-time Canadian business success stories, BlackBerry’s Research in Motion (RIM).  Cursing the company’s near-total silence about a system-wide collapse that inconvenienced — or hurt — countless businesses and individuals around the globe.

Read more

MININGWATCH NEWS RELEASE: Federal Decision Ignores First Nations and Public Input: Likely to Hinder Development in Ontario’s “Ring of Fire”

Oct 13, 2011

The Canadian Environmental Assessment Agency recently announced that Cliffs’ proposed chromite mine, the first for a remote area of northern Ontario, will undergo a ‘comprehensive study’ environmental review despite the request of two First Nations councils and several non-governmental organizations for a public panel review.

The proposed project is a massive and complex undertaking that includes a mine and new infrastructure for transportation, power, and processing. The Matawa and Mushkegowuk First Nations representing 13 individual communities as well as MiningWatch Canada, Ecojustice, Wildlands League, and the Wildlife Conservation Society have all recommended that the project be evaluated through a joint federal-provincial review panel. Friday’s announcement indicated that this will not be the case and that the project will be reviewed through the less rigorous – and less participatory – comprehensive study process.

Cliffs’ project is the most advanced of several projects being developed in the much-touted “Ring of Fire”. If approved, Cliffs’ project would open the entire region and establish the infrastructure for future developments.

Read more

MININGWATCH NEWS RELEASE: What Kind of Environmental Assessment for Ontario’s “Ring of Fire”?

Oct 12, 2011

The “Ring of Fire” is an area of northern Ontario that has seen a rapid growth in mineral exploration and potential developments in recent years. Two projects, Cliffs’ chromite project and Noront’s copper-nickel project, have filed descriptions with federal authorities – the first step in initiating an environmental assessment. The proponents of the projects have also volunteered to have their projects designated under the Ontario Environmental Assessment Act (mining projects are not required to undergo an EA in Ontario).

Both projects are large and complex with massive infrastructure development, power supply, and processing facilities that are part of the proposed developments. The projects each propose a different permanent road corridor and a there is a third proposal for a railway.

The concerns about the proposed projects are many and include:

•The way that these first developments will open up the region to additional developments and the cumulative effects of these projects.
•Meeting infrastructure needs of remote First Nations communities;
•Providing meaningful economic development opportunities for First Nations; and northern communities;

Read more

Mining magnate’s $100M gift launches ‘Canadian Rhodes’ – by Tristin Hopper (National Post – October 14, 2011)

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

With $100-million — the second-largest endowment to Canadian academia in history — mining magnate Seymour Schulich is inaugurating what he hopes will be the Canadian equivalent to the Rhodes Scholarship.

“It’s about trying to create leaders,” said Mr. Schulich, 71. “If you call people leaders and give them 60 grand, some of them are going to turn into leaders.”

Dubbed the Schulich Leader Scholarships, when fully implemented by 2014 the award will grant $60,000 over four years to students enrolling in science, technology, engineering or mathematics programs.

A noted philanthropist, Mr. Schulich’s name already adorns schools of business, music, medicine and engineering. This time around, he felt it was time to put money into the sciences.

“Business gets enough support, medicine gets enough support, but I haven’t really done a straight science benefaction,” he said.

Read more

NEWS RELEASE: Australian-based Mining IQ puts RepublicOfMining.com on Top 10 Mining Blog list

News Release

October 13, 2011

www.republicofmining.com

Toronto – Australian-based Mining IQ, a mining guide and international learning and communications portal, has put RepublicOfMining.com on its list of Top 10 Mining Blogs, one of only two Canadian sites to be included.

Mining IQ says, “This blog [RepublicOfMining.com] aims to build awareness among the media, the general public and political decision makers about the economic and social benefits of sustainable mining practices in the 21st Century. It has a really admirable mission statement and it rings true with the content on the site.”

RepublicOfMining owner/blogger Stan Sudol says, “My Blog has been on the Web for almost four years and I am incredibly honoured to be recognized half-way around the world by Australian-based Mining IQ, located in one of the great mining nations on the planet. It shows the enormous global impact that Blogs have in their ability to communicate important and balanced information about a much maligned industry.”

Mining IQ continues, “We especially like the variety of categories available on the site with commentary from aboriginal mining to mining education and from women in mining through to green mining. Stan Sudol has hit the nail on the head with his enlightened approach.”

Read more

There will be litigation [Keystone XL Pipeline] by Sheldon Alberts (National Post – October 8, 2011)

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

Her voice faltered and her speaking notes wobbled in trembling hands, but Susan Luebbe kept her nerves in check long enough Friday to tell the Obama administration exactly what she thought about Calgary-based TransCanada Corp.’s plan to build the Keystone XL oil sands pipeline across her land.

“It is an all-out war to battle TransCanada and keep them off our property,” said Ms. Luebbe, whose family raises black Angus cattle on a 1,200-acre ranch in the Sand Hills of Nebraska. “It is not in the national best interest for anyone except the money hungry, greedy corporation of TransCanada.”

Ms. Luebbe’s statement – at once angry and determined – was typical of the emotionfilled testimony U.S. State Department officials heard on both sides of the Keystone XL issue during a raucous public hearing into the $7-billion project.

Several hundred people – from labour union supporters to anti-oil environmentalists and alienated landowners – crowded into a basement auditorium of the Ronald Reagan Building to make a final plea for approval or rejection of the 2,700 kilometre pipeline.

Read more

Europe out to lunch [Oil Sands] – by Claudia Cattaneo – (National Post – October 8, 2011)

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

When French peasants were starving because of widespread bread shortages during the reign of Louis XVI, his extravagant wife, Marie-Antoinette, is said to have proposed: “Let them eat cake.”

The same arrogance was on display in Europe this week, when amid desperate protests, climbing unemployment and draconian austerity measures to fix crippling state debt, the European Union pushed forward two policies marshalled by the environmental elites: a costly plan forcing airlines flying into Europe to buy credits and reduce emissions, and a plan to discriminate against oil from Canada’s oil sands as part of a new fuels quality directive it can hardly afford.

While the aviation scheme affects a multitude of countries, discrimination against the oil sands is a shot at Canada alone. It comes only a year after another patronizing EU move, a ban on seal products, that was vigorously protested by Canadians.

Read more

$US 44 Million for the Boreal Forest & Mining “Reform.” Why Is Pew Spending So Much Money in Canada? – by Vivian Krause (Fair-Questions.com – September 27, 2011)

Vivian Krause is a Vancouver-based independent researcher and writer who investigates the environmental movement’s lobbying efforts in Canada and their sources of funding. www.fair-questions.com

In previous blog postings, Vivian Krause stated that, “According to my preliminary calculations, since 2000 USA foundations have poured at least $300 million into the environmental movement in Canada.” Currently, she estimates that about $50 million a year is being funnelled into Canadian environmental organizations from U.S. sources.

The Pew Charitable Trusts (“Pew”) is one of the largest charitable foundation’s in the United States. In its annual report for 2011, Pew reports that it has $4.9 billion in assets that originated from the founders of Sun Oil, an American oil company.

 Pew recognizes boreal forests and the need to protect them in Russia, South America, Indonesia and Africa but the place where Pew is investing more far more money than anywhere else, is Canada.

Pew considers that about 60 percent of the entire national territory of Canada is boreal forest. Of that, 12 percent is already protected by Canada. For Pew, however, that’s not enough.

Since Canada has the world’s largest temperate rainforest and the world’s largest boreal forest, global interest is natural.  But lets not forget, Canada’s forests are also home to some of the world’s largest deposits of energy and minerals.  This fact is not lost on Pew.  In fact, some of Pew’s grants for the Boreal Forest Initiative are titled, “British Columbia mining.” 

Read more

Battlefield Nebraska: A pipeline plan stirs emotions – Nathan Vanderklippe (Globe and Mail – October 1, 2011)

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.

STUART, NEB.— Next to a sun-stained red flag that marks the planned route of the Keystone XL pipeline, Leon Weichman kneels on his Nebraska hay field. Moisture spots his jeans. It has barely rained in 30 days in this arid part of the central U.S., yet the grasses are thick and green. The soil is black and damp.

This field is naturally irrigated by the subterranean reaches of a vast underground formation called the Ogallala Aquifer that underlies the heart of America. It is half the size of British Columbia and filled with freshwater.

Mr. Weichman says he has slept uneasily for three years, knowing that the red flag portends a time when up to 830,000 barrels of oil could course through his field each day. “If we couldn’t use this water, this area would just be vacated.” Mr. Weichman says. “We couldn’t raise livestock here. We couldn’t use crops here. It would just be done.”

Now the Ogallala has inspired a fierce battle over oil, turning Keystone XL into a symbolic dividing line for opponents and supporters of Canada’s oil sands. The red flags marking the route have come to delineate an increasingly bitter fight between those who tout the economic and strategic benefits of a giant resource of North American crude and those who see the oil sands as an unacceptable environmental threat.

Read more

Let Canada’s oil flow – Conrad Black (National Post – October 1, 2011)

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

There has been good, as well as disappointing, economic news for Canada in recent days.

On the positive side: All indications are that the impenetrable mysteries of the American political and regulatory process will finally overcome ecological hysteria and approve the transmission of oil from the Alberta oil sands to the Gulf of Mexico through the yet-to-be-completed Keystone XL pipeline.

It is nonsense, of course, that this project has been so long delayed, a fact that is due to the pitched, hand-to-hand combat necessary to win the heart and mind of the U.S. President and administration over to its national interest from tired environmental pieties. Apart from being good news in itself, it is good to have Canada on the side of the adults on such an issue.

This has been a more complicated process than it should have been, as the usual suspects, led by Desmond Tutu and the Dalai Lama, signed the inevitable petition against the oil sands. One more time we see the inadvisability of clergymen, like opinionated actors and legitimate cultural figures, meddling in matters they know nothing of.

How a South African Anglican minister and a Tibetan national religious leader in exile imagine this is any concern of theirs, or that they have any standing to express an opinion about it, fortunately has finally escaped the comprehension of those who have the responsibility to decide the issue.

Read more