Twitter

Mining and Oil Sector Image

Cage Call: Artist explores lost [mining] histories – by Laura Stricker (Sudbury Star – September 22, 2012)

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

When photographer Louie Palu set out to learn more about mining, his plan was to spend one month at a mine in Kirkland Lake. That was in 1991. Instead, 12 years, two provinces and thousands of photos later, the project came to an end.

“My dad told me about Kirkland Lake,” Palu said, speaking on the phone. “He was working up there. He’s not a miner. He was just working with some mining people.

“I’ve always been interested in these underrepresented histories and stories, especially sociopolitical ones. Suddenly from Kirkland Lake I got to Timmins, then Sudbury, Val d’Or and (Rouyn)-Noranda. There were all these sort of lost histories, these really important lost histories. I just felt like this story needed to be told.”

Since then, he’s been telling the story through two books and his photos, which have been put on display at art galleries and shows all over the world, including Sweden, France and the United States.

Read more

The belated demise of Canada’s asbestos industry – by Kathleen Ruff (Toronto Star – September 23, 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.

Kathleen Ruff is senior human rights adviser to the Rideau Institute and author of Exporting Harm: How Canada Markets Asbestos to the Developing World.

In the space of three weeks, the political support the Quebec asbestos industry has enjoyed for decades from the Quebec and Canadian governments came crashing down.

It could hardly have been more politically dramatic or more financially devastating for the tottering, bankrupt Quebec asbestos industry. After 130 years in operation, the last two asbestos mines in Quebec — the Jeffrey mine in the town of Asbestos and the mine run by LAB Chrysotile at Thetford Mines — shut down more than a year ago in the face of catastrophic financial and environmental problems.

Both mines, however, clutched to hopes of resurrection, nurtured by a $58-million loan given to the Jeffrey mine by former premier Jean Charest just before he called the recent Quebec election, as well as by the undying political support that Prime Minister Stephen Harper swore to give to the asbestos industry during the 2011 federal election campaign.

Read more

Gold junior miner takes on [Ontario] government – by Ian Ross (Northern Ontario Business – September 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. Ian Ross is the editor of Northern Ontario Business ianross@nob.on.ca.

Darryl Stretch has his Howard Beale moments. Like the ranting fictional TV anchorman, emotion can get the better of the president of Solid Gold Resources when he discusses the exploration standstill at his Lake Abitibi gold play in northeastern Ontario.

The 25-year industry veteran admits to not being very polished, media-wise, in explaining his gloves-off approach in fighting to resume drilling at his Legacy Gold Project, a 200-square-kilometre property near the Quebec border that the junior miner has held since 2007.

“Everything we do in life is a double-edged sword,” said Stretch, whose torrent of colourful press releases attacking the province, the courts and First Nations as being “bullies,” “tyrants,” and speaking with “forked tongues” is the kind of vitriol that would make his company radioactive to investors.

“Even though I have a pretty pathetic-looking stock price (at $0.035 on the TSX Venture Exchange in mid-August), most of my shareholders are pretty comfortable with what I’m doing. We’ve been left with no alternative.”

Read more

Right thing to do is ban extraction of asbestos – by David Olive (Toronto Star – September 18, 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.

The Canadian Public Health Association (CPHA) was too generous last Friday in lauding Ottawa’s announcement that day that Canada will stop objecting to the listing of asbestos as a dangerous material under the U.N.’s Rotterdam Convention on exports of hazardous materials.

“Canada has a moral obligation, backed by well-grounded evidence, to close down this [industry] and stop exporting a potentially hazardous material to countries that are ill-equipped to protect the health of workers who handle asbestos fibres,” said Erica Di Ruggiero, chair of the CPHA.

“The Government of Canada has made a good public health decision,” she said. Ottawa has done no such thing. There is nothing to stop continued exports of Canadian asbestos. The feds’ hands were forced by Quebec premier-elect Pauline Marois, who in the closing days of the recent Quebec general election, vowed to cancel a $58-million loan guarantee offered by the Charest government to revive Canada’s sole asbestos mine, in the Eastern Townships community of Asbestos.

Read more

Federal government won’t block efforts to limit asbestos exports – by Sarah Schmidt (Montreal Gazette – September 15, 2012)

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

OTTAWA — The Conservative government announced Friday it will no longer be a champion of asbestos on the world stage, effectively conceding the end of the asbestos industry in Quebec with a promise of up to $50 million to diversify the economy of the mining communities.
 
Industry Minister Christian Paradis, who represents a riding at the heart of Quebec’s asbestos mining region, said he didn’t want to abandon the industry, but said Parti Quebecois leader Pauline Marois left Ottawa no choice. During the summer campaign, Marois, who is now premier-designate of Quebec, promised to cancel an $58-million government loan to revive the Jeffrey Mine, signalling the end to Quebec’s long history of asbestos production.e
 
The federal government’s policy change of heart, unveiled in Thetford Mines by the government’s Quebec lieutenant, means Canada will no longer block international efforts, through the United Nations’ Rotterdam Convention, to place limits on the export of asbestos.
 
“It would be illogical for Canada to oppose the inclusion of chrysotile (asbestos) in Annex III of the Rotterdam Convention when Quebec, the only province that produces chrysotile, will prohibit its exploitation,” Paradis told reporters, saying it was clear the decision Marois is final, so it wasn’t a time for “academic” consultations.

Read more

Canada to stop defending asbestos, striking blow to once-mighty industry – by Andy Blatchford (The Canadian Press/Montreal Gazette – September 15, 2012)

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

MONTREAL – The federal government has tossed in the towel and will stop fighting international efforts to list asbestos as a dangerous substance, striking another blow to a once-mighty Canadian industry now on the verge of extinction.
 
In a sudden reversal for the Harper government, Industry Minister Christian Paradis said Ottawa will no longer oppose efforts to include asbestos to the UN’s Rotterdam treaty on hazardous materials. For Paradis, the announcement Friday was far from celebratory.
 
He hails from central Quebec’s asbestos belt and is one of the sector’s staunchest defenders. Paradis looked glum and spoke in a nearly hushed tone as he spoke in his hometown of Thetford Mines, a community still dotted with imposing tailing piles that remind locals of the industry’s once-bustling heyday.
 
He blamed the new Parti Quebecois provincial government for killing the industry and cast Friday’s move as an inevitable response.
 
In making the announcement, the Conservatives fired the first shot in what is expected to be a turbulent relationship between Ottawa and the freshly elected PQ.

Read more

Conservative government ends opposition to listing asbestos as hazardous substance – by Joanna Smith (Toronto Star – September 15, 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—The first potential clash between Prime Minister Stephen Harper and newly elected Quebec Premier Pauline Marois has come to a swift end as the Conservatives revealed they would stop defending the controversial asbestos industry.

Federal Industry Minister Christian Paradis announced Friday afternoon that the Conservative government would no longer oppose adding chrysotile asbestos to an international list of hazardous substances.

The Conservative government has stuck by the troubled industry despite strong criticism at home and abroad for downplaying the cancer-causing effects of chrysotile asbestos, but on Friday it was clear that Ottawa had seen the writing on the wall of the new political context in Quebec.

The Parti Québécois promised during the recent provincial election campaign to cancel the $58-million government loan the former Liberal government had given to the Jeffrey Mine in Asbestos, Que. this summer.

Read more

Ottawa does U-turn on asbestos mining – by Steven Chase and Les Perreaux (Globe and Mail – September 15, 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.

OTTAWA and MONTREAL — Canada is ending its much-maligned practice of defending asbestos mining on the world stage, a reversal of a stand that made it a pariah in some international circles.

The Harper government, which until Friday unflinchingly defended Canada’s right to export the cancer-causing mineral from Quebec, is blaming the incoming Parti Québécois regime for its change of heart.

Premier-designate Pauline Marois’s party,which will soon take office in Quebec, pledged during the provincial election campaign to cancel a government loan guarantee designed to resurrect the big Jeffrey asbestos mine in Asbestos, Que. It would have been the only mine operating in an otherwise moribund industry.

“The decision to close down the industry has already been taken by Mrs. Marois,” Industry Minister Christian Paradis said on Friday. He said Canada will no longer block international efforts to add chrysotile asbestos to a United Nations treaty called the Rotterdam Convention, a global list of hazardous substances. Being on the list places restrictions on trade of the mineral.

Read more

Environment and economy – Thunder Bay Chronicle-Journal Editorial (September 11, 2012)

The Thunder Bay Chronicle-Journal is the daily newspaper of Northwestern Ontario.

THE battle between industry and the environment — between progress and pollution — is being waged across Canada and around the world. A generation ago, the modern environmental movement was born to fight specific threats — against whales in the world’s oceans, old growth forests in Ontario and British Columbia, air and water surrounding industrial sites and populous shoreline areas. Lake Erie once was declared “dead” and the restoration of its water quality is an important measure of the ability of governments to jointly act in the public interest on issues that can seem overwhelming.

Since then, global economic challenges have intensified the battle between industry and environment. But this time, governments have to contend with the fact that in order to revive economies and reinstate people’s futures, new industrial activity is essential now despite environmental concerns.

Thus, in Canada we have oilsands and shale gas developments that cause unprecedented environmental disruption, and plans to ship the products in new pipelines despite growing accounts of pipeline spills — all of it encouraged by a federal government that is stripping Canada of parts of its regulatory catalogue.

Read more

Teck admits operations polluted U.S. waters – by Dene Moore (Globe and Mail – September 10, 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.

VANCOUVER — The Canadian Press – Canadian mining giant Teck Resources Ltd. has admitted in a U.S. court that effluent from its smelter in southeast British Columbia has polluted the Columbia River in Washington state for more than a century.

Teck subsidiary Teck Metals made the admission of fact in a lawsuit brought by a group of American Indian tribes over environmental damage caused by the effluent discharges dating back to 1896.

The agreement, reached on the eve of the trial initiated by the Colville Confederated Tribes, stipulates that some hazardous materials in the slag discharged from Teck’s smelter in Trail, B.C., ended up in the Upper Columbia River south of the border.

Specifically, the company admitted: “Trail discharged solid effluents, or slag, and liquid effluent into the Columbia River that came to rest in Washington state, and from that material, hazardous materials under (U.S. environmental laws) were released into the environment,” Dave Godlewski, vice-president of environment and public affairs for Teck American, said in a telephone interview.

Read more

B.C. mining giant [Teck Resources Ltd.] admits polluting U.S. waters – The Canadian Press/CBC News.com (September 10,2012)

http://www.cbc.ca/news/
 
Teck Resources acknowledges fouling Columbia River for more than 100 years
 
Canadian mining giant Teck Resources Ltd. has admitted in a U.S. court that effluent from its smelter in southeast British Columbia has polluted the Columbia River in Washington for more than a century.
 
Teck subsidiary Teck Metals made the admission of fact in a lawsuit brought by a group of U.S. Indian tribes over environmental damage caused by the effluent discharges dating back to 1896.
 
The agreement, reached on the eve of the trial initiated by the Colville Confederated Tribes, stipulates that some hazardous materials in the slag discharged from Teck’s smelter in Trail, B.C., ended up in the Upper Columbia River south of the border.
 
Specifically, the company admitted: “Trail discharged solid effluents, or slag, and liquid effluent into the Columbia River that came to rest in Washington state, and from that material, hazardous materials [under U.S. environmental laws] were released into the environment,” Dave Godlewski, vice-president of environment and public affairs for Teck American, said in a telephone interview.

Read more

Shattering the conventional wisdom on asbestos – National Post Editorial (September 10, 2012)

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

If political strategists have any capacity for introspection, they should be asking themselves some serious questions about the Parti Québécois’ late-innings promise to cancel a $58-million government loan to the Jeffrey Mine in the Estrie, and to end all exports of chrysotile asbestos from Quebec.
 
Objectively, this is a no-brainer. The industry is paltry; exports in 2011 amounted to just $41-million, or 0.07% of Quebec’s total. Even in the town of Asbestos, it employs an insignificant fraction of the population.
 
For that meagre payoff, Canada gets a black eye on the world stage by joining Kazakhstan, Vietnam and Kyrgyzstan in opposing even the addition of warning labels to exports: In June, Postmedia news obtained a briefing memo to Environment Minister Peter Kent indicating that the government had in the past “acknowledged all criteria for the addition of chrysotile asbestos to the [Rotterdam] Convention [on hazardous substances] have been met,” but it nevertheless continues to oppose its addition.
 
Some continue to insist that chrysotile can be used safely. But the conclusively and disturbingly documented fact is that in the developing nations that buy the bulk of Quebec’s asbestos — notably India — it is not used safely.

Read more

Behind a mining monopoly [Canada mining reputation] – by Aljazeera (The Stream – August 27, 2012)

Beneath Canada’s mines in Latin America lies an unregulated industry.

Canada is seen as a friendly nation but many indigenous communities say they have a dirty secret. Canada’s mining industry, the largest in the world, controls a majority of Latin American mining. Activists say they pollute and violate human rights without accountability from the Canadian government. Mining companies argue they build schools, health centres, roads and provide jobs.
 
In this episode of The Stream, we speak to Meera Karunananthan (@meerakar) from the Council of Canadians and John McKay (@johnmckaylib), Canadian Member of Parliament. Members of The Stream community also join via Google+.

Home to 70 per cent of the world’s mining companies, Canada’s mineral extraction economy is more robust and expansive than any other nation’s. Although its operations span from Ontario’s Ring of Fire to the Congo, Canadian mining companies are the most active in Latin America. The diagram below compares the exploration budgets of large Canadian mining companies with those of other countries. 

Read more

Time to extract responsibility from the African mining industry – by Samantha Nutt (Globe and Mail – August 22, 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.

Samantha Nutt is executive director of War Child and author of Damned Nations: Greed, Guns, Armies and Aid.

Few things rankle Canadians like a debate about the mining industry. Perhaps it is because 70 per cent of the world’s mining companies are headquartered here, and throughout this lingering global recession we have enthusiastically (yet graciously, we’re Canadian after all) hitched ourselves to the resource economy wagon. It has protected us with titanium-grade, cadmium-laced, copper-plated armour from Wall Street’s profligacies. And from Greece. And from having to conjugate “austerity” as a verb.

But mining is, in the most literal sense, a dirty business. You cannot pan for gold and not get muck under the nails, as a poignant feature story by Geoffrey York examining the rampant exploitation of children in mining reminded us. It provided a moving portrait of children working as artisanal miners in one of the Democratic Republic of Congo’s many open-pit calamities, risking their lives with each toxic breath. The mine is owned by Vancouver-based KICO – not the “surface” rights to the land the kids scavenge, but the minerals beneath their shoeless feet.

Read more

South Africa mine shooting leaves 34 dead and a nation reeling – by Geoffrey York (Globe and Mail – 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.

One of the bloodiest police shootings since the days of apartheid has killed 34 miners and injured 78 at a South African platinum mine, leaving the nation in crisis and searching its soul over the rising levels of violent protest and police brutality.

South African President Jacob Zuma cut short a foreign tour, abandoning a regional summit in Mozambique to rush to the mine site. Politicians condemned the shooting, while the South African media called it a massacre and analysts accused the police of an excessive response to the striking mineworkers.

Mr. Zuma later announced that he will set up a commission of inquiry into the shootings at the Lonmin mine near Rustenburg. He said the entire country was “saddened and dismayed” by the “shocking” deaths. “The inquiry will enable us to get to the real cause of the incident,” he said.

The police opened fire with automatic rifles and pistols on Thursday when confronted by an advancing mob of mineworkers. Early reports suggested that as many as 18 people were killed, but on Friday the police announced that 34 were killed, 78 injured and 259 were arrested.

Read more