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The North should prepare itself for a prime-time TV gold rush – by John Doyle (Globe and Mail – December 12, 2012)

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.

My prediction for 2013 is the victory of the proletariat.

Okay, all righty, maybe that’s not going to happen. So let’s stick with possible trends for 2013. Here’s a trend that is not entirely unrelated to the victory of the proletariat – the North.

News arrived recently that Discovery, the fabulously successful U.S. cable channel, has ordered up its first scripted project, and that drama project is called Klondike, based on Canadian writer Charlotte Gray’s book Gold Diggers: Striking It Rich in the Klondike.

Among those involved is Ridley Scott, the English director and producer responsible for the movies Alien, Blade Runner and Black Hawk Down, among other titles. In a press release Scott says, “Klondike was the last great gold rush; one which triggered a flood of prospectors ill-equipped, emotionally or otherwise, for the extreme and gruelling conditions of the remote Yukon wilderness.”

Indeed. But what matters, too, is that the decision to make Klondike follows on the ratings success of Discovery’s reality series Gold Rush (seen on Discovery Canada, Tuesdays, 9 p.m., Saturdays, 11 p.m.). Now into its third season, the series follows the key workers at four mining companies as they dig for gold in Alaska.

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Where Canadian ‘self-interest’ leads: The Congo example – by Yves Engler (Nelson Daily – December 11, 2012)

http://thenelsondaily.com/

Former Vice President of the Concordia Student Union, Yves Engler is a well-known left-wing journalist. His recenlty published book is called: THE UGLY CANADIAN – Stephen Harper’s Foreign Policy.

Thank you Julian Fantino.

The International Co-operation Minister caused a ruckus last week when he said that the Canadian International Development Agency should actively promote the country’s interests abroad rather than primarily focus on poverty reduction. Fantino defended “aid” that was given to groups partnering with Canadian companies building mines around the world. He said CIDA has “a duty and a responsibility to ensure that Canadian interests are promoted.”

While some commentators suggested the former Toronto police chief stuck his foot in his mouth, we should thank Fantino for his comments because they raise some important questions that Canadians seldom talk about.

How is Canadian foreign policy made? Which countries are we friendly towards and why? Which do we work against and why? What should be the primary purpose of Canadian foreign policy and aid?

As the author of five books on Canadian foreign policy, I know the answers to these questions can be controversial and complex. A short essay is certainly inadequate to properly address the subject.

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First Nation frustrated by mine’s toxic legacy – by Jody Porter (CBC Radio Sudbury – December 5,2012)

http://www.cbc.ca/sudbury/

Cool Minerals twice ignores clean-up orders for abandoned site near Sachigo Lake

An abandoned mine site has left a toxic legacy near Sachigo Lake First Nation, 700 km northwest of Thunder Bay, according to the community’s consultant.

Allyne Glidden said debris from a gold mine that operated at Lingman Lake is troubling for the First Nations people who live nearby.

“There’s hazardous material that has been there for upwards of 40 years,” Glidden said. “Certainly some of the concerns of the community are open shafts, open vent raises, giant old generator sets with old PCBs.”

Elevated levels of arsenic

Earlier this year, the Ministry of Northern Development and Mines burned off several barrels of fuel that were left at the site. “The emergency measures taken by MNDM’s emergency fuel incineration project have eliminated or greatly reduced the environmental impact risks of the mine site,” said Julia Bennett, the media issues co-ordinator for MNDM.

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OMA member Vale helps rocks get centre stage at a national museum

(L-R) Vale Canada representatives Cory McPhee, VP, Corporate Affairs; Audrey Leduc, Corporate Affairs Officer; and John Mullally, Director, Corporate Affairs in front of display with rock sample from Sudbury’s Vale mine. (Photo by: Jamie Kronick, Canadian Museum of Nature)

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.

After residing for almost two billion years in the Sudbury Basin, a 227-plus kilogram piece of nickel ore now has a new home as a centrepiece in the Vale Earth Gallery at the Canadian Museum of Nature in Ottawa. The new gallery was officially unveiled recently. It has 8,000 square feet of floor space and it provides a journey through billions of years of geological time and shows how geology and mineralogy connect to everyday life in the 21st century.

In 2009, Vale pledged $1 million to sponsor this gallery. A smaller phase of the Vale Earth Gallery opened in 2010. The new, larger and permanent gallery is the result of two years of planning and three months of extensive renovations. The gallery is also home to a satellite exhibit from the Canadian Mining Hall of Fame.

The giant piece of nickel ore is not alone in the new gallery. Fourteen oversized mineral samples share space with about 1,000 mineral, rock and gem specimens. The gallery also contains numerous interactive educational exhibits.

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Let’s hear from some 2012 So You Think You Know Mining winners

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.

Now that the Ontario Mining Association has launched season five of its high school video competition So You Think You Know Mining, perhaps it is a good time to hear from some of the winners from season four. These students who received their awards in June 2012 at the SYTYKM awards ceremony at the Royal Ontario Museum in Toronto are a talented and creative group of young people who are moving forward with their education and their careers. They have benefited from participation in this OMA film making initiative. Let’s see what some of them have to say about SYTYKM.

Hananeel Robertson from Don Mills C.I. in Toronto won the Best Writing Award for “OMG! Ontario Mining Girls.” “When the project was introduced to my class, the word mining just threw me off completely but when I started doing research, I was blown away. Not only did I learn from making my video but from watching others,” she said. “The whole contest opened my eyes to realizing that the necessities in our everyday lives would not be available to us without mining.”

“Winning means the world to me and it has definitely been one of the best experiences of my life,” said Hananeel. She is using her award money to help cover tuition at the University of Ottawa, where she is majoring in Communications. “I am not quite sure what exactly I want my career to be but I am leaning towards the media or public relations,” she said. “Who knows? Maybe I’ll end up in the mining industry.”

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Canadian development aid takes on corporate [mining sector] colouring – by Todd Gordon (Toronto Star – November 29, 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.

Todd Gordon is the author of Imperialist Canada (Arbeiter Ring Publishing, 2010). He teaches at Laurier University in Brantford, Ont., and can be reached at tsgordon@wlu.ca.

On Friday Nov. 23, the minister for international cooperation in Stephen Harper’s Conservative government (and former Toronto police chief), Julian Fantino, announced that Canada’s international aid program would be tied much more closely to the private sector. When he says “private sector,” he really means the natural resources industry, particularly mining. A primary goal of the Canadian International Development Agency’s (CIDA) work, Fantino proudly proclaimed, is “to make countries and people, trade and investment ready.”

The announcement, sadly, was not a surprise; it really was a reflection of the trends toward aggressively advancing the interests of Canadian multinationals in the Global South that have been taking shape within CIDA over the last couple of decades, and which have been a part of other government ministries for much longer. But it does offer a blunt reminder of what drives Canadian aid and foreign policy, if one was really needed at this point.

The initial step toward Fantino’s declaration was CIDA’s announcement a year ago that it was initiating aid partnerships with mining companies, offering financial support — roughly $27 million over five years — to the Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) initiatives of five companies with operations in Africa and Latin America.

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After Conflict Minerals Comes The Death Metal: Tin. And It’s Apple’s Fault Again.- by Tim Worstall (Forbes Magazine – November 24, 2012)

http://www.forbes.com/

Given that the well meaning types have now solved the problem of conflict minerals through the Dodd Frank act and the requirements for companies to report their use there’s obviously a new frontier needed for the well meaning to conquer. And of course the conflict minerals problem has been solved as M-23′s move into Goma shows. Now that people can’t make money out of mining in the area no one at all is fighting for control over the area are they?

The Guardian tells us all about this new frontier being staked out. It’s tin mining in Indonesia now. Much of what they actually say they get right. There is indeed a belt of alluvial tin ore ranging from Burma down to Indonesia. In the poorer countries there it is indeed mined by very primitive methods. Miners are badly paid while they do so and yes, some of them die while they do it. The poor pay and primitive methods are because the places are poor: they’re actually the exact same statement.

Just as a little background, and without too much technical guff. The only ore of tin that we care about is cassiterite. Sometimes we find vast mountains of it as in Peru. Sometimes small mountains of it as in the Erzgebirge/Krusny Hory on the German Czech border (disclosure, I’m currently waiting, rather nervously, to find out whether my application for a mining license there is going to be granted. I’m not looking for tin but for the closely related, in an ore sense, tungsten but tin will be a by-product and it’s the main product of the mine right next door.).

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Lawsuit against mining firm [Hudbay Minerals] brings Guatemalans to Toronto – CBC News (November 27, 2012)

http://www.cbc.ca/news/

Hudbay Minerals denies involvement in alleged shootings and gang rape

Five Guatemalans are in Toronto to sue a Canadian mining firm over allegations the security staff of one of its subsidiaries brought violence and death to their village.

The five, from the village of El Estor, are preparing for pre-trial questioning by lawyers for Hudbay Minerals Inc. in connection with three civil suits filed against the Toronto firm. They concern the alleged killing of community leader Adolfo Ich in 2009, a shooting that left another man paralyzed in 2009 and the gang rape of 11 women in 2007.

At San Lorenzo Church in north Toronto last week, Rosa Elbira choked back tears as she recounted the day in 2007 when she says she was repeatedly raped by nine men including police, soldiers and security officers for a mining company.

Beside her, holding her hand in support, sat German Chub Choc, 23, who’s paralyzed from the waist down, a bullet still lodged near his spine. He admitted to moments despair since the day in 2009 when he says he was shot by the head of the same mining company’s security detail.

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Canada’s last asbestos mine may have future as Mars stand-in – by Peter Rakobowchuk (Globe and Mail – November 25, 2012)

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 Canadian Press – Canada’s last asbestos mine, now winding down its operations, may have a new celestial calling — as a stand-in for planet Mars. Quebec’s Jeffrey Mine hosted nearly two-dozen scientists recently for a simulated Mars mission initiated by Canada’s space agency.

The scientists from four universities made a pair of trips to the Asbestos region, this year and last year, accompanied by a micro-rover. “There are definitely areas (on Mars) that are much more like what we have at Jeffrey Mine,” said Ed Cloutis, a University of Winnipeg professor who participated in the project. The new vocation won’t exactly replace the once-mighty asbestos industry as an economic lifeblood for the region.

The mine had been counting on a $58-million government loan to renovate and keep operating. The simulated Mars mission, on the whole, cost $800,000 — and some local officials, including an alderman and the town’s director general, didn’t even appear to be aware of the project when contacted by The Canadian Press.

The goal of the project was to simulate as closely as possible a Mars rover mission to detect the presence of, and determine the source of, methane on Mars.

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Mining magnate emerges as major U. of Utah donor – by Brian Maffly (The Salt Lake Tribune – November 5, 2012)

http://www.sltrib.com/

Pierre Lassonde » After a career that included environmental and stockholder controversies, the Canadian gold guru is expanding entrepreneurship efforts at the U.

At his inauguration last month, new University of Utah president David Pershing highlighted gifts from the Huntsman and Noorda families, who have long-standing ties to the state. Other donor names familiar to Utahns — Eccles, Marriott, Sorenson, Skaggs and others — are emblazoned on buildings and programs throughout campus.

But it’s Canadian mining-magnate-turned-philanthropist Pierre Lassonde, far less known and with a more distant connection to Utah, who is now emerging as one of the U.’s most generous donors.

Pershing devoted the most literal “face time” to images of Lassonde during his inaugural address, hailing his “unbelievable commitment” to turning students into entrepreneurs. His latest gift will fund the proposed Lassonde Institute, which would provide housing for up to 400 students interested in adding entrepreneurship to their majors, whether or not they are focused on business.

After earning a master’s in business administration at the U. 30 years ago, Lassonde became an astute gold analyst and investor.

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The invisible gold rush – by Sean Phipps (The McGill Daily – November 5, 2012)

http://www.mcgilldaily.com/

Sean Phipps is a U2 Latin American Studies and Environment student. He can be reached at sean.phipps@mail.mcgill.ca.

Canadian imperialism and the gold mining boom

As I write this the price of gold is $1,776.80 an ounce, the highest it’s ever been, up from $1,023.50 in 2008 and $282.40 in 1999. Global economic instability has fueled this dramatic spike, and along with it a massive increase in gold production, an expansion that some have termed “an invisible gold rush.”

In Canada we – or at least some of us – directly benefit from this expansion. 75 per cent of the world’s mining companies (in both production and exploration) are Canadian registered, and several of the industry’s biggest players such as Barrick, Goldcorp, and Kinross are Canadian. And, with a government increasingly working to reflect the needs and interests of the extractive industry, these companies have emerged as key dictators of our country’s economic and foreign policy.

As a country, we are increasingly tied to gold. It is with this in mind that I chose to look at the long and often brutal history of gold mining, the way in which we have viewed gold over time, and to help piece together our strange relationship with this mineral.

Why gold? What has led us to value it above all other substances? Looking at a sample in the display cases in the Redpath Museum, it is hard to deny its beauty. However, gold’s real power has always been symbolic, for gold is wealth itself.

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Historical photos make mining career a tough sell: critics – CBC Radio Sudbury (November 2, 2012)

Miners drilling a cross-cut on a ramp with jackleg drills, 1750 foot level, Kerr Mine, Virginiatown, Ontario. From the book Cage Call: Life and Death in the Hard Rock Mining Belt by photographer Louie Palu. An in-depth project spanning over 12-years examining communities in one of the richest mining regions in the world located in Northwestern Ontario and Northeastern Quebec in Canada.

http://www.cbc.ca/sudbury/

Click here for a selection of Canadian photographer Louie Palu’s mining photography: CAGE CALL: LIFE AND DEATH IN THE HARD ROCK MINING BELT

Sudbury art gallery exhibit explores roots of mining, but some find images troubling

Some say a photo exhibit on mining in Sudbury is perpetuating stereotypes about the industry and keeping young people from choosing mining as a career.

The exhibit Cage Call — currently on display at the Art Gallery of Sudbury — features underground photos from across northern Ontario. Thursday night, the gallery hosted a panel discussion on the image of the modern miner.

Mine Mill union president Richard Paquin said he knows a lot of the people in the photos hanging on the art gallery walls, as do his members — some of whom were not crazy about what they saw. “Some of them didn’t like [it] because it reminded them of the injuries we used to have,” he said.

“A lot of the pictures you see people missing things — missing an arm, one of them’s missing a foot.” There are also photos of miners in dirty coveralls, another, smoking cigarettes and drinking beer.

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Amnesty International Film Festival: Canadian conquistadores exposed in Under Rich Earth – by Martin Dunphy (Georgia Straight – November 1, 2012)

http://www.straight.com/

Villagers in a remote Ecuadorian valley band together to repulse rapacious Canucks

The documentary Under Rich Earth, screening at this year’s Vancouver Amnesty International Film Festival, has been in release for a couple of years now, but don’t let that stop you from checking it out if you haven’t already done so.

Popular docs such as Ai Weiwei: Never Sorry and Big Boys Gone Bananas!*, both of which are also part of this latest installment of Amnesty’s local exposition, do a good job of uncovering government and corporate malfeascence.

The appeal of Under Rich Earth—which details the struggle in Ecuador, a putative democracy, of poor farmers against police, politicians, and paramilitaries in the employ of a Canadian mining company—is how it fits into the part of Amnesty’s mandate that commits the volunteer-activist organization to fight against political killings and disappearances.

Neither of those outrages are inflicted on those portrayed here, but the film details the myriad small steps—including corporate spin-doctoring, police co-optation, economic suasion, the division of communities, and, finally, threats, bogus legal charges, and physical intimidation and harm—that often lead to those ultimate violations of human rights.

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Mining’s golden rule: transparency – by Joseph Ingram and Karin Lissakers (Globe and Mail – September 24, 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.

The labour strife in South Africa’s mines and the adoption of new disclosure rules for U.S. mining companies by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission have cast renewed light on a global industry that affects the Canadian economy.

Every year, Canadian mining operations generate billions of dollars of revenue overseas. In fact, Canadian companies are some of the most globally active. More than 1,000 Canadian exploration companies work in more than 100 countries, from Mongolia to Peru to Tanzania. Canada’s mining investments in Africa alone have grown from $2.8-billion in 2001 to $30-billion in 2012.

The taxes and royalties that Canadian companies pay to countries that play host to them have the potential to transform economies. As we’ve seen in resource-rich countries such as Botswana, Chile and Malaysia, natural resource revenues paid to governments can be invested in roads, health care and education as well as business development and social services, leading to massive reductions in poverty. What’s more, Canadian operations can spur local economic development by creating jobs and financing community projects.

Yet, too often, these revenues are either not collected or not transformed into tangible benefits, leaving countries with more violent conflict and weaker growth than expected. In many instances, environmental destruction and loss of livelihoods, coupled with inadequate compensation, have left regions worse off than before.

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Asbestos products still being imported to Ontario – by Marco Chown Oved (Toronto Star – September 24, 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.

Despite recent announcements in Ottawa and Quebec that suggest asbestos will soon be a thing of the past, products made of the cancer-causing mineral are still being imported and used in Ontario today.

While the carcinogenic insulation is now being removed from buildings across the province, two new products that contain asbestos — brake pads and cement pipes — are being brought in.

Statistics Canada reports that $2.6 million worth of asbestos-containing brake pads were imported into Canada last year. Of that, more than half arrived in Ontario.

While Ottawa announced last week it would reverse its long-standing position and declare asbestos a dangerous material, and the new government in Quebec cancelled a loan that would have revived the defunct asbestos mining industry, the problem in Canada is far from over.

“Because we don’t mine, because we don’t use it in manufacturing, we are under the false impression that it’s gone,” said Liberal MPP Liz Sandals (Guelph), who introduced a private member’s bill earlier this year to ban brake pads containing asbestos in Ontario.

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