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Canadian Regional Media and Web Publications

What’s with the bears [northern Ontario]? – Thunder Bay Chronicle-Journal (October 1, 2013)

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

ANOTHER bear attack; another call for resumption of the spring bear hunt; another defence of bears that are baited by shooters sitting in tree stands. It’s been 14 years since Ontario banned spring hunting for bears hungry after winter hibernation. In that time there have been a remarkable number of bear attacks on humans.

Is there a direct connection? Hunting advocates insist it is obvious while the Ministry of Natural Resources points to variations in natural food sources and carelessness by humans increasingly living or travelling in the forest.

The latest incident occurred Sunday near Peterborough. A 53-year-old woman is recovering after being attacked and mauled by a bear while walking her dogs on a trail. The dogs were also injured when they came to the woman’s rescue.

Bear attacks, including many fatalities, have increased with North American population growth and recreational intrusion into the wilderness. Most of the deadly attacks — 86 per cent — have occurred since 1960. In more than a third of those cases, improperly stored food or garbage likely attracted hungry bears. Which leaves almost two-thirds of cases unexplained.

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Northern MLA’s: Lead now or leave [northern Ontario stainless steel] – by David Robinson (Northern Ontario Business – October 2013)

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 

Northern MP’s have come to a time of reckoning. They hold the balance of power in Ontario. The five NDPers and one conservative can change the North. In the next few months we get to see if they have the vision and the guts to act.

The provincial legislature has 107 members. There are 50 Liberals. Any four Northern members can make a deal with Catherine Wynne: Give us one really big win for the north and we’ll give you one more year of power.

There are several policies that are worth breaking party lines for. Leaving resource revenues in the north, creating a regional government, control of Ontario Northland and northern transportation policy, and especially the big one, creating a stainless steel industry for the North based on the Ring of Fire.

If Northern MLA’s deliver any one of these changes they will be heros. They will own their election seats for the next 100 years. If they don’t even try, northerners should throw the toothless pussycats out. They will have thrown away the North’s future.

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Northlander: A solemn anniversary – by PJ Wilson (North Bay Nugget – September 28, 2013)

http://www.nugget.ca/

There is still a feeling the axe is going to fall on Englehart, a year after the Northlander passenger train made its final run. “We’re all still very nervous,” says Val Kennedy, a union representative for Ontario Northland.

The small community midway between North Bay and Cochrane was devastated when former Northern Development and Mines minister Rick Bartolucci announced the province was going to sell the Crown corporation in March, 2012.

At the time, Ontario Northland employed about 1,000 people in Northeastern Ontario. More than 10% of those employees worked out of Englehart. The community has been hard hit by the uncertainty. “Who’s going to buy a car?” Kennedy asks.

A general store, in business a number of years, is closing down, she says. She blames its loss on the nervousness and fear in the community. On Sept. 28 last year, the Northlander made its final run, one passenger train southbound from Cochrane to Toronto, the other northbound from Toronto to Cochrane.

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Getting better all the time – Thunder Bay Chronicle-Journal Editorial (September 27, 2013)

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

THE GLASS in Thunder Bay and Northwestern Ontario appears to be half-full and then some. Economic prospects are being touted, even on the once-dicey forestry front which is making a nice comeback after a recessionary bust. We will not see the same kind of forest industry any more. Instead, we will see advanced versions of traditional forestry and new ways to use trees. In a region where an estimated 60,000 jobs were lost to a perfect storm of economic, political and market challenges, any news of improvement is good news. There was some of that at a conference in Thunder Bay this week.

Where all but the hardiest pulp, paper and sawmills closed in the face of the 2008 recession, new growth is under way in innovations like biofuel. The Ontario generating station in Atikokan, for example, is being converted from coal to burn wood pellets and forestry in that region is rebounding to provide them.

The big pulp mill in Terrace Bay that thrived for years making traditional pulp for longtime owner Kimberly Clark’s Kleenex tissues, then closed, has been purchased by an Indian company that is converting it to produce dissolving pulp instead. The rayon ingredient is in high demand for textiles — everything from rayon to cellophane to tire cord — and specialty paper products like filters, among other products.

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OPINION: Chromite chronicles – by J.R. Shermack (tbnewswatch.com – September 27, 2013)

http://www.tbnewswatch.com/

Happy days are here again, or at least they soon will be if we can believe Mayor Hobbs. Once that Ring of Fire thing kicks in we will all be rich. It’s just a matter of time before the dividend cheques start rolling in – should be around 2015 or so.

The Ring of Fire will pay for new infrastructure and solve our social problems, all while respecting the environment and turning us into chromite millionaires. This promise of a golden future is being dangled in front of our noses while we dance like monkeys on a string, imagining all the things we could buy with the money.

Mr. Hobbs has a vision. He can foresee a day when Thunder Bay is the new Fort McMurray. Imagine that. Minister Michael Gravelle couldn’t agree more. He envisions a whole new generation of prosperity with thousands of new jobs and new, improved infrastructure for all.

Who knows what highways he’ll be twinning next? At the federal level, Minister Tony Clement called the Ring of Fire the economic equivalent of the Athabasca oil sands.

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PoV: Hudak’s plan for the North worthy of good debate – by Brian MacLeod (Sudbury Star – September 28, 2013)

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

A Progressive Conservative government in Ontario under Tim Hudak would shift policy heavily towards development in the North, but it is questionable whether this would play out as explained in his newest white paper: Paths to Prosperity — A Champion for Northern Jobs and Resources.

Much of what’s contained isn’t a surprise.

Hudak would try to expedite development of the Ring of Fire by speeding up construction of an all-season transport ring; he would aim to permit 10 mines over the next five years, give First Nations a portion of mining royalties and stumpage fees, stop the sell-off of the ONTC, give the North more say in how its lands are used, reel in the power of conservation authorities, repeal the Far North Act and scale back the power of the Endangered Species Act by placing the final decision of what species are added to the list in the hands of a cabinet minister.

There are also plans for more inexpensive power, modernizing the trail system and changing the Highway Traffic Act to accommodate off-road recreational vehicles.

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From Big Bang to No Wimper: A historical book review – by Dieter K. Buse (Sudbury Star – September 30, 2013)

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

To order a copy of “From Meteorite Impact to Constellation City”, please click here:  http://www.wlupress.wlu.ca/Catalog/saarinen-meteorite.shtml

In 1980, a disgruntled person who had moved from Sudbury to Edmonton, Alta., published a long piece in the Edmonton Journal proclaiming the demise of the city he had left and ranting at length about its problems.

Yet, 30 years later, despite a mess at city hall — though not matched by the Ford brothers show in Toronto or rotation of mayors in Montreal — and crumbling infrastructure as everywhere, Sudbury seems to be more than surviving. With every passing year it becomes a more attractive place to live due to its physical setting among lakes, its increasingly diversified economy (research institutes, medical school) and the limited stresses of a mid-sized regional service centre.

The lengthy book under review, Oiva W. Saarinen’s From Meteorite Impact to Constellation City: A Historical Geography of Greater Sudbury, is the most comprehensive account of Sudbury’s past published to date and helps to explain its survival despite the many odds aligned against it. The author underscores the importance of space and place to understanding the city’s long-term development and its continued difficulties.

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Inuit employment in Nunavik mines still weak – by Sarah Rogers (Nunatsiaq-on-line.ca – September 27, 2013)

http://www.nunatsiaqonline.ca/

Only 175 Inuit work at the Raglan nickel mine

Nunavik Inuit still make up only 13 per cent of the work force at the region’s only fully operational mine. At the Raglan nickel mine complex, in operation since 1998, only 175 of 1,292 workers are Inuit — well under the 20 per cent initially targeted for the region.

And those numbers haven’t changed much since 2012. “The data for Xstrata mine site is very similar to last year,” said Margaret Gauvin, director of the Kativik Regional Government’s sustainable employment department, during a regional meeting earlier this morning.

“Contract companies have a harder time getting Inuit workers, and that brings the percentage down.” A number of companies like Katinniq Transport, Iglu Construction and Nunavik Construction are contracted to work at the Xstrata site. But increasing Inuit employment in the mining sector remains a priority for the KRG, which wants to encourage students to stay in school or return to school in areas related to mining, Gauvin said.

More than $10 million over the next two years is targeted at mine training in Nunavik — to respond to a growing number of mining projects in development and to address fears among Nunavimmiut that they are being left out of the process.

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Is Cliffs ready to cash out in the Ring? – by Ian Ross (Northern Ontario Business – September 26, 2013)

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.

Cliffs Natural Resources is not throwing in the towel in the Ring of Fire but the clock is ticking. After a recent Ontario Mining and Lands Commissioner’s decision that denied Cliffs road access to its Ring of Fire chromite property, the Ohio miner is evaluating whether to keep spending millions each month on a remote deposit that doesn’t have overland access.

“We’re not hanging it up right now but this (decision) is a possible showstopper,” said Bill Boor, Cliffs’ senior vice-president of global ferroalloys. Cliffs was seeking an easement to cross the mining claims of KWG Resources, a rival company in the Ring, in order to build a road into its Black Thor deposit in the James Bay lowlands.

KWG staked a string of claims to set aside a corridor for a future railroad stretching 328 kilometres from its Big Daddy chromite deposit – of which Cliffs is a 70 per cent owner – to the Canadian National Railway’s main line in northwestern Ontario.

In a ruling released Sept. 10, the independent government tribunal said granting Cliffs an easement would interfere with KWG’s ability to work its claims. The ruling has bitterly disappointed Cliffs.

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Make up your minds [Thunder Bay generating station] – Thunder Bay Chronicle-Journal Editorial (September 25, 2013)

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

WITH the fate of the Thunder Bay Generating Station occupying so much public and political attention these days, the ongoing crisis situation at the Regional hospital is unfortunately being shunted aside on the political agenda. The issue of hospital crowding is much worse because it is potentially life-threatening whereas a decision on the generating plant, though needed now, can take time to carry out.

Both crises demonstrate government indecisiveness on multiple pressing issues.

Queen’s Park twice reversed itself on converting the Mission Island generating station from coal to gas and currently has the matter on hold again while it awaits an analysis by the Ontario Power Authority on how best to serve the electricity needs of the Northwest. The region will need significantly more power when a pending mining boom occurs and it takes time to build transmission capacity.

Here, too, the province is dawdling on the central theme of how to get ore out of the Far North to processing plants. A legal tussle over whether it should be a road or a railroad needs provincial intervention on behalf of the entire region which stands to receive a major economic jolt once mining begins. Instead, the province is waiting and seeing while the lead company warns it is running out of time.

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Tories consider return of spring hunt – by Ron Grech (Timmins Daily Press – September 26, 2013)

The Daily Press is the city of Timmins broadsheet newspaper.

TIMMINS – The provincial party that cancelled the spring black bear hunt is now considering including its reinstatement as a campaign promise. At the Progressive Conservative policy convention held in London this past weekend, Tory delegates voted in favour of having its policy team consider the hunt’s reinstatement as part of the party’s next platform.

The motion was put jointly forward by three Northern Tory candidates including Steve Black of Timmins-James Bay riding and Peter Politis of Timiskaming-Cochrane. The other delegate was Randy Nickel of Kenora-Rainy River.

“Three Northern associations recommended the spring black bear hunt be reinstated mostly due to the dangerous shift in bear behavior,” Black told The Daily Press. “That was a large focus. We discussed what’s transpired in Cochrane this year, the fact bears are now seen entering homes and the increased bear-human interactions.”

The idea would be reinstate a spring hunt in which only male black bears would be targeted, mirroring the policy of the previous hunt before it was cancelled.

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Inco retiree reflects on past days of riding the ‘rails’ in Sudbury – by Mary Katherine Keown (Sudbury Star – September 26, 2013)

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

As a younger man, Fred Baston lived on Riverside Drive. Each morning the Inco employee set out, sometimes while it was still dark and bitterly cold, to catch the streetcar near Regent and Lorne streets. His 12-hour shift at the Copper Cliff smelter ran from 8 a.m. to 8 p. m

“It was a good, cheap ride to work,” he says. The year was 1949 and it cost 25 cents to ride the streetcar, or five tickets for a dollar. Convenient enough, but not always comfortable. “They were noisy; you could hear them coming on the rails,” Baston, now 86 and living at Pioneer Manor, says.

The Sudbury-Copper Cliff and Creighton Electric Railway was founded in 1903, but the first streetcar made its inaugural run in 1912. It took 30 minutes to make the journey from Elm and Durham, to the terminal in Copper Cliff. More than 14 km of track were laid. The last carriage to run between Sudbury and Copper Cliff made its journey on Oct. 1, 1950.

As a kid, Baston was “bumming” it on trains. As he got older, he took to the hobo life, riding the rails westward. At 22, the young man left his hometown of Bathurst, N.B., 350 km north of Saint John on Chaleur Bay. He tucked himself into an open-air train car and hid from the view of ticketing agents.

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Economic potential Northwestern Ontario – by Matt Vis (tbnewswatch.com – September 25, 2013)

 http://www.tbnewswatch.com/

Economic prospects for Northwestern Ontario are looking strong, say experts attending the fourth annual Prosperity Northwest conference.

The event, a one-day forum and trade show, was hosted by the Thunder Bay Chamber of Commerce at the Valhalla Inn Wednesday and featured speeches from business executives as well as a collection of business exhibits.

François Lecavalier, vice-president of acquisitions and partnerships in the mining and metallurgy department of Montreal-based SNC-Lavalin, was one of the invited speakers. Lecavalier addressed the divisive Ring of Fire development and stressed the need for all parties to be operating on the same page.

“The Ring of Fire has the potential to help economic growth in Canada and Ontario over the next decades, but it won’t happen if there isn’t the necessary infrastructure to get the resources out,” Lecavalier said prior to his presentation.

“This will only happen if there is real partnership between the mining companies, both levels of government and the First Nations communities.

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Vale fine should go to families, Steelworkers prez says – by Heidi Ulrichsen (Sudbury Northern Life – September 24, 2013)

http://www.northernlife.ca/

The $1,050,000 fine imposed by the courts on Vale last week in the 2011 deaths of two miners should be directed to their families, said Steelworkers Local 6500 president Rick Bertrand.

Vale will be paying the fine to the City of Greater Sudbury. That’s because the company was charged and pleaded guilty to three offences under the Occupational Health and Safety Act, which are tried in Provincial Offences Court.

Provincial offences were downloaded to the city in 2001, and as such, any fines meted out by the courts are paid to the city.

Jason Chenier, 35, and Jordan Fram, 26, were killed June 8, 2011 after they were buried by an uncontrolled released of muck, sand and water from an ore pass at the 3,000-foot level.

“With the $1 million that’s going to be coming to the city, the first thing that goes through my mind is that the families should be compensated somehow,” said Bertrand, whose union represents Vale miners.

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Fifty Shades of Gold – by Frank Holmes (Frank Talk – Insight For Investors – September 23, 2013)

http://www.usfunds.com/

Goldman Sachs created a stir recently when it forecasted that gold would fall to $1,000 an ounce by the end of 2014, as the firm expected the Federal Reserve to reduce its bond buying program. Goldman also suggested that gold miners might want to hedge their output, locking in 2013 prices.

HSBC analysts have also been bearish on gold, although the firm admits that lower gold prices tend to draw out tremendous demand from emerging markets, especially China. Because of that demand, HSBC believes gold will end 2014 at around $1,435 an ounce, says MarketWatch.

Keep in mind that “Goldman Sachs does things that are good for Goldman, not you,” says Bryon King from Agora Financial. Things can change quickly in the gold market, as investors saw when, only days after Goldman’s assertion, the Federal Reserve surprised everyone by announcing it would continue purchasing $85 billion worth of bonds. Gold investors cheered as the precious metal shot up the most in 15 months.

Unlike many commodities, there are many shades to gold, such as the Love Trade’s buying gold for loved ones and the Fear Trade’s purchasing gold as a store of value.

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