Canadian Regional Media and Web Publications – Page 233

PoV: Grits tried to fool us, but ONTC gets reprieve – by Brian MacLeod (Sudbury Star – April 6, 2014)

April 8, 2014

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

It’s impressive to watch the magnitude of the climb down the Ontario government is doing on the Ontario Northland Transportation Commission. To what end remains to be seen.

Northern Development and Mines Minister Michael Gravelle announced Friday that four divisions of the ONTC–buses, the Polar Bear Express, rail freight and refurbishment services –will continue to be government-owned and run. At issue is almost 1,000 jobs in the North, nearly 600 of which are based in North Bay.

In March 2012, the Liberals said the sale of the ONTC was a necessity that would save $266 million over three years. This would be needed to achieve some of the far-reaching cost-savings required to balance the province’s budget by 2017-18. The Drummond Report briefly alluded to the ONTC, advising that its services “could be provided more effectively and efficiently through private-sector involvement.”

The North was expected to do its part in budget savings and the ONTC was a heavily subsidized operation. Hence the storied Northlander passenger train between Toronto and Cochrane ended in September 2012. But two things happened. There was a massive and sustained revolt along the Highway 11 corridor, especially in North Bay –a Tory-held riding that was once Liberal– and in Timmins.

Opinion: Safety review draws crowd – by Carol Mulligan (Sudbury Star – April 7, 2014)

April 7, 2014

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

If the overflow crowd jammed into a small, hot room Thursday in the basement of the main branch of Greater Sudbury Public Library was an indication, Sudburians are heavily invested improving mine safety. But they haven’t finished having their say about how they believe that should be accomplished. Not by a long shot.

About 40 people attended the last of three consultations held in the city by the advisory group for the Ontario Mining Health, Safety and Prevention Review. It was a tight squeeze when you added six group members, chair George Gritziotis and four Ministry of Labour employees.

There was some question about whether the crowd was violating the fire code, which allows for a maximum 39 people in the meeting room.

Wednesday there was room to spare at two public consultations held in Georgian Room B at the Holiday Inn, which could have held 100 people easily. About two dozen attended the afternoon session and a dozen the 6 p.m. session.

Northern Ontario’s Ring of Fire far from fading – by Saul Chernos (Daily Commercial News – April 7, 2014)

April 7, 2014

http://dcnonl.com/

It’s been a burning question in mining circles the last few years – when will northwestern Ontario’s Ring of Fire see production?

Time will tell if the 5,000-square-kilometre mineral hot-spot in the James Bay Lowlands holds the kind of promise that has a couple dozen mining companies prospecting for reportedly substantial reserves of chromite, copper, nickel, gold, platinum and zinc.

Despite nearly matching Prince Edward Island in size, the Ring of Fire is lacking the hydro, roads and rail lines mines would need if they’re ever to see the light of day.

The infrastructure deficit hasn’t deterred companies from staking claims, exploring, and negotiating with local First Nations. However, progress has teetered between setbacks and incremental advancements. Late last year, citing an uncertain timeline and infrastructure concerns, Cleveland, Ohio-based Cliffs Natural Resources put Ring of Fire activities on indefinite hold.

In a statement, Cliffs said it would close its Canadian offices but would continue working with the Government of Ontario, First Nations communities and other interested parties to explore potential solutions.

ONTC divisions to remain public; Ontera to be sold – by PJ Wilson (North Bay Nugget – April 4, 2014)

April 4, 2014

http://www.nugget.ca/

The provincial government is selling the communications arm of the Ontario Northland Transportation Commission, but will keep the other four divisions of the Crown agency.

In an announcement at the ONTC bus garage on Wallace Road Friday, Northern Development and Mines Minister Michael Gravelle said the motor coach, Polar Bear Express, rail freight and refurbishment services will remain in public hands.

The decision, he said, will bring some needed sustainability to the ONTC after two years of uncertainty springing from the province’s decision to wind down operations of the company two years ago.

Gravelle also announced that the province will pump $6.2 million into the company over three years to purchase new motor coaches, as well as $17 million for the refurbishment of the Polar Bear Express rolling stock.

The announcement, Gravelle said, will also pave the way for serious discussions between the ONTC and Crown agency Metrolinx on a new strategic alliance for the refurbishment of GO Transit equipment.

KWG V-P blames province for stalling Ring of Fire development – by Jonathan Migneault (Northern Ontario Business – April 4, 2014)

April 4, 2014

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.

The province was “blinded” by Cliffs Natural Resources’ promises to invest in the Ring of Fire to the detriment of the project’s development, said Moe Lavigne, KWG Resources’ vice-president of exploration and development.

“At least from the provincial point of view, they were enamoured with Cliffs, and the fact Cliffs had $3.5 billion in their pockets ready to invest, and they shuttered out everything else,” Lavigne said at a Sudbury Chamber of Commerce event, April 3. “Now that has blown up.”

In 2009, the Toronto-based junior miner began staking mining claims in the Ring of Fire for a future railroad from its isolated Big Daddy chromite deposit in the James Bay lowlands, heading south for 328 kilometres to a point on the Canadian National Railway’s main line, just west of the village of Nakina in northwestern Ontario.

Both KWG and the Ohio mining giant were development partners in the Ring at one time, but had a falling out. Later, when Cliffs approached KWG to gain access to its transportation corridor, KWG refused and the matter went to the Ontario Mining and Lands Commissioner.

Mine review: Workplace mental health stressed- by Carol Mulligan (Sudbury Star – April 4, 2014)

April 4, 2014

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

If Tammy Eger could start work on a research project tomorrow to improve mine safety, it would be on mental health in the workplace.

A researcher at Laurentian University’s Centre for Research in Occupational Health and Safety, Eger gave one of seven presentations to the advisory group for the Ontario Mining Health, Safety and Prevention Review.

The last of three public consultations to the group was held Thursday afternoon in a small, crowded room in the basement of the main branch of Greater Sudbury Public Library.

The mining review was announced late last year by the Ministry of Labour after a push by Sudbury labour groups for a public inquiry into mine safety in Ontario. That call came after an investigation into the June 2011 deaths of Jason Chenier and Jordan Fram at Vale’s Stobie Mine.

Eger told the group that good mental health in workplaces is “absolutely critical” to work safety, and being productive and healthy on the job.

Ring of Fire: Rail, natural gas power KWG plan – by Carol Mulligan (Sudbury Star – April 4, 2014)

April 4, 2014

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

Maurice Lavigne’s obligation, as a mine developer, is to optimize economic stability. And that’s what the vice-president of exploration and development with KWG Resources Inc. says his company will do with its plans to build a railroad and process chromite ore with natural gas from its holdings in the Ring of Fire.

You have to keep your costs low with any project, let alone a project on this scale, Lavigne said in Sudbury on Thursday. A “railroad drives down your cost, the gas drives down your costs,” Lavigne told reporters after speaking to a noon crowd at a luncheon held by the Greater Sudbury Chamber of Commerce.

“We’re going to make this project economically robust and we owe that to society.” Lavigne said KWG doesn’t want to build a fragile industry that “shuts down one year and opens the next year and creates chaos in the communities.

“You’ve seen that, you know that movie, we don’t want to do that,” he said. Nor does his company want to go to government and taxpayers looking for subsidies to electricity rates, he said. Lavigne said he came to Sudbury, at the invitation of the chamber, knowing he was coming to “Cliffs-friendly territory.”

Input from United Steelworkers dominates mine safety review – by Jonathan Migneault (Sudbury Northern Life – April 03, 2014)

April 3, 2014

http://www.northernlife.ca/

Fear of reprisals stifles health and safety progress: Steelworkers

To improve health and safety standards in Ontario’s mines, workers must not face reprisals if they bring issues forward to management, said Nick Larochelle, mines co-chair with United Steelworkers Local 6500.

Larochelle made his case Wednesday afternoon at the first public consultation in Sudbury as part of the Ministry of Labour’s year-long review of health and safety in the mining sector. Under section 50 of the Occupational Health and Safety Act employers cannot discipline their employees for refusing to do unsafe work or bringing their health and safety concerns forward.

But Larochelle said some of his members have been fired for complaining to their supervisors about health and safety issues.
He said employers use the guise of insubordination when they discipline workers for pointing out holes in their occupational health and safety practices.

The fear of reprisals, he said, has created an environment where mining companies’ internal responsibility systems are not as effective as they should be.

Inquest recommendations should be law: Widow – by Carol Mulligan (Sudbury Star – April 3, 2014)

April 3, 2014

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

Legislation must be enacted to compel companies to implement recommendations from coroners’ inquests, otherwise there is no point in holding them, says a woman whose husband was killed on the job in 2006.

Faye Campeau shared how her husband, Raymond, 47, was killed May 25, just hours after they had spoken on the phone and said they loved each other, with a group whose mandate is to make Ontario mines safer.

Campeau spoke Wednesday evening to a second session of public consultations being heard by the advisory group of the Mining Health, Safety and Prevention Review. Campeau’s was one of about 10 presentations made to the group, most of them on the internal responsibility system, employee training and the merits of the review itself.

Campeau represented the lobby group MINES (Mining Inquiry Needs Everyone’s Support), which campaigned for a full-blown inquiry into mining practices in Ontario after the June 2011 deaths of two men at Vale’s Stobie Mine. Campeau’s husband was a contractor working for Dynatec who was killed after the jumbo drill he was operating came loose.

First Nations must be equal partners in Ring of Fire: Rae – by Jonathan Migneault (Northern Ontario Business – April 2, 2014)

April 2, 2014

Ontario has lagged behind other provinces – namely Quebec and British Columbia – when it comes to its dealings with First Nations, said Bob Rae. The former Premier of Ontario became the chief negotiator for the Matawa First Nations – representing nine Native governments – last year.

In his first role outside of the political arena on Parliament Hill, Rae has worked to develop a framework that would form the basis for a partnership between the Ontario government, the Matawa First Nations and the companies seeking to profit from the Ring of Fire.

Prior to a March 6 speech at Laurentian University, Rae said that Quebec and BC have have been much more open than Ontario to sharing management decisions with First Nations and granting authority to regional governments.

“If you look at the kinds of agreements that have been signed in other provinces you see very clearly that you’re looking at a way of not simply consulting with First Nations, but of giving First Nations the ability to take real responsibility for the building and management of infrastructure, the making of economic and social decisions, and participating fully in decisions affecting the natural environment,” Rae said.

Bob Rae, John Nash and innovation in the Ring of Fire – by David Robinson (Northern Ontario Business – April 2014)

April 1, 2014

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. Dave Robinson is an economist with the Institute for Northern Ontario Research and Development at Laurentian University.drobinson@laurentian.ca

My students should have paid me for giving them the chance to see Bob Rae in action. Not just because Rae is a professional negotiator and the class deals with Nash Bargaining theory. Rae himself is an historic figure and he is dealing with historic treaty issues in the face of an historic mineral development. I brought history into the classroom. Of course, hardly any students knew what they were getting.

Rae’s visit offered students a glimpse of something like the Canada-Sweden Olympic rematch in hockey. Back in the 1840s, a report by Douglass Houghton, Michigan’s first state geologist, set off a copper boom in upper Michigan and Isle Royale in Lake Superior.

The Family Compact of Upper Canada began selling mining properties to promoters on the north shore of Superior and Huron. When chiefs like Shingwaukonse of Garden River objected to southerners selling lands they occupied, the leader
of the Family Compact sent his brother, William Benjamin Robinson, to get the 3,000 Northerners to give up their rights.

Mining review goes public – by Carol Mulligan (Sudbury Star – April 1, 2014)

April 1, 2014

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

Large trade unions and big mining companies are expected to prepare extensive submissions for the province’s Mining Health, Safety and Prevention Review.

But it is individuals whom the Ministry of Labour is looking to hear from, their stories and suggestions about how to make mining safer and healthier, when it holds three public consultation sessions in Sudbury this week.

The review’s advisory group, led by Ontario chief prevent officer George Gritziotis, will meet Wednesday at 2:30 and 6 p.m. at the Holiday Inn and Thursday at 2:30 p.m. at the main branch of Greater Sudbury Public Library on Mackenzie Street.

It’s too late to register to make an oral presentation, but people are invited to attend them to listen to what others have to say. Comment sheets will be distributed after each session and people will be invited to submit suggestions for the advisory group’s consideration.

“We’re here to hear from you, so let us know what you want us to know,” said Wayne De L’Orme, director of the Mining Health, Safety and Prevention Review.

Alphonse and Gaston meet the Ring of Fire – by (Troy Media – March 30, 2014)

March 31, 2014

http://www.troymedia.com/

Frank Dabbs is a veteran business and political journalist, author of three biographies and a contributor, researcher or editor of half a dozen books. Frank worked in print, radio and television in Alberta for 40 years. Since 2006, he has been a print and television freelancer in Ontario.

None of the players involved in the development of Ontario’s economic salvation is willing to be the first to commit

ANNAN, ON, Mar 30, 2014/ Troy Media/ – Alphonse and Gaston were two newspaper cartoon characters created in the 1920s by Frederick Opper, and the “glacial” progress of Ontario’s Ring of Fire harks back to them.

Alphonse and Gaston were two waiters who never got anything done because they were too polite. “After you Alphonse,” Gaston said. “No, you first, my dear Gaston,” replied Alphonse.

It’s very reminiscent of what is happening with Ontario’s Ring of Fire, a massive planned chromite mining and smeltering development project in the mineral-rich James Bay Lowlands of Northern Ontario. No one seems willing to be the first to launch the $60 billion mineral discovery in the area.

Ont. ‘on roadway’ to dialogue on resource extraction – by Carol Mulligan (Sudbury Star – March 31, 2014)

March 31, 2014

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

A lawyer, who has represented both companies and First Nations in negotiating impact benefit agreements, says he’s encouraged by the regional framework agreement signed last week by the province and the Matawa chiefs for the Ring of Fire.

Bill Gallagher of Waterloo, an experienced strategist in the area of native, government and corporate relations, who has written a book on the subject, says it wouldn’t have been easy to achieve that outcome.

It would have been a challenge for former Ontario New Democrat premier Bob Rae, who represented the nine Matawa councils, and retired Supreme Court justice Frank Iacobucci, representing the government of Ontario, to reach the deal.

For Rae to get the chiefs working in a cohesive manner would, to some extent, “be like herding cats,” said Gallagher in an interview last week from Winnipeg where he was speaking at a conference along with Rae.

Rae is a lawyer whose clients are giving him instruction, he’s giving them advice and it seems to be working, said Gallagher.

Mine safety worth celebrating – by Wayne Snider (Timmins Daily Press – March 28, 2014)

March 31, 2014

The Daily Press is the city of Timmins broadsheet newspaper.

TIMMINS – Mining has a history of being a profession with risks for workers. Much has changed during a century of mining in Timmins. Progress continues to be made to this day, with technology being applied in new and different ways to ensure the safety of the industry’s most valuable resource: Its workers.

But there is more to safety than high-tech solutions. Sometimes it is just passing down a culture of common sense. Stephane Whissel attributes his impressive mine safety record to his upbringing and lessons his father Maurice taught him.

“It’s something that comes with the culture (in which) I was raised,” Whissel explained prior to the Porcupine Northeastern Ontario Mine Safety Group’s annual awards dinner at the Porcupine Dante Club Thursday night. “See, my father was also in mining and I started with him at a young age and I would go out with him.

“He was working out on diamond drills and I would go out in the bush with him. He would show me the proper way of working and going home safe.”