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Canadian Regional Media and Web Publications

CEMI in running for $10 million research grant – by Norm Tollinsky (Sudbury Mining Solutions Journal – August 2013)

This article was originally published in the August 2013 issue of Sudbury Mining Solutions Journal.

The Centre for Excellence in Mining I n n o v a t i o n (CEMI) is one of seven finalists vying for four $10 million research grants from the federal government’s Business-Led Networks of Centres of Excellence program.

The program funds large-scale collaborative research networks that bring a wide range of research expertise to bear on specific challenges identified by industry. CEMI’s proposal is for an Ultra Deep Mining Network that will address challenges impacting resource extraction at depth.

More than 120 applications were whittled down to 54 in the first round of cuts, and then to seven. Matching funds from industry will provide CEMI with $20 million for the proposed four-or five-year research program.

“There are only two places you can go for a new mine,” said CEMI president Doug Morrison. “You can go to a remote location like the Ring of Fire (in northwestern Ontario), or you can go deep. Unfortunately, when you get down to around 2.5 kilometres, the heat and the logistical problems become very significant, so we see a need for changing the way we do things.”

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How important is innovation in the Sudbury cluster? – by Dick DeStefano (Sudbury Mining Solutions Journal – August 2013)

Dick DeStefano is the Executive Director of Sudbury Area Mining Supply and Service Association (SAMSSA).destefan@isys.ca  This column was originally published in the August 2013 issue of Sudbury Mining Solutions Journal.

Often underestimated by many small and medium sized mining companies, innovation is one of the most important engines of growth. The Sudbury mining and supply cluster members have not fully embraced the value proposition that Michael Porter has clearly described as essential for success.

I have become a disciple of Porter’s business model and have diligently looked for the appropriate ingredients including leaders to grow our important mining supply and service cluster in Northern Ontario during the past 10 years.

“Michael Porter claims that clusters have the potential to affect competition in three ways: by increasing the productivity of the companies in the cluster, by driving innovation in the field, and by stimulating new businesses.

According to Porter, in the modern global economy, comparative advantage—how certain locations have special endowments (i.e., harbour, cheap labour) to overcome heavy input costs—is less relevant. Now, competitive advantage—how companies make productive use of inputs, requiring continual innovation—is more important.”

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Nuclear waste disposal site closer to reality – Shawn Bell (Wawatay News – August 21, 2013)

http://wawataynews.ca/

A location is yet to be set and the timelines stretch 25 years in the future, but one thing seems certain: nuclear waste will be buried in the Canadian shield.

As the Nuclear Waste Management Organization (NWMO) – a not-for-profit organization established by the federal government – starts analyzing communities as part of the process of selecting a site to bury used nuclear rods, details continue to sharpen on how the project will one day look.

The first big decision – one that is well underway – is where the burial of used nuclear rods will happen. Geologists with the NWMO are looking for a specific slate of geologic features, including stable bedrock and little flowing water underground. But equally important, according to NWMO director of communications Mike Krizanc, is finding a host community willing and able to handle the growth that will come from the site.

“You can’t impose this on anyone,” Krizanc said during a recent media tour of the Darlington Nuclear Facility in Pickering, Ontario. “You need an informed and willing community before you go about doing it.” So far 21 communities across Ontario and in Saskatchewan have expressed interest in learning more about the facility. The NWMO is now working on both social and geological assessments of those communities in order to narrow the list.

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Ring of Fire makes Northern voices louder – by Darren MacDonald (Sudbury Northern Life – August 20, 2013)

http://www.northernlife.ca/

Province listening as mayors join forces to push their priorities

The mayors of the five biggest cities in Northern Ontario hope speaking with one voice will convince the province to act on some of the longstanding issues they say has held the region back for decades.

And with the Ring of Fire representing the biggest single economic development opportunity in the province, the government is listening, says Greater Sudbury Mayor Marianne Matichuk.

Matichuk, Al MacDonald of North Bay, Debbie Amoroso of Sault Ste. Marie, Tom Laughren of Timmins and Joe Virdiramo, acting mayor of Thunder Bay, unveiled their Northern Priorities document Tuesday at the Association of Municipalities of Ontario meeting in Ottawa.

The annual event offers Ontario’s 444 municipalities access to provincial cabinet ministers, opposition leaders – and even representatives from the federal government. Local politicians normally schedule one-on-one meetings with ministers and make a pitch for their city’s priorities.

But in an unprecedented move, the leaders of the North’s five biggest cities made a collective pitch, calling on the province to focus on six areas they say are key to economic development.

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Feds should pursue stronger EA on Ring of Fire – by Steve May (Sudbury Star – August 21, 2013)

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

Letter to the Editor

Kenora MP Greg Rickford, minister of Science and Technology, with responsibilities for FedNor and the Ring of Fire, was in Greater Sudbury last week to discuss resource development in northwestern Ontario.

Rickford says he wants to push partisan politics aside and begin a process of “thorough consultation”. This new approach from Stephen Harper’s Conservative government is long over due.

The extraction of mineral resources in the remote Ring of Fire represents a multibillion-dollar enterprise, potentially creating thousands of jobs throughout the North. The challenges are significant –but the boost to the North’s economy (and the province) may be worth the investment of public dollars on capital projects, such as a rail or road access.

With comparisons being made between the Ring of Fire and Alberta’s oil sands, it’s no wonder that environmentalists and First Nations communities are wary of runaway development decisions being made by governments without due consideration of future impacts.

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Mayors want Northern Ontario summit – by Laura Stricker (Sudbury Star – August 21, 2013)

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

In an effort to put life into Northern Ontario’s economy, the region’s five largest municipalities will host a summit with the province later this year. “We’re looking towards the end of the year (for the Northern Ontario Summit). We’re just looking at the logistics now,” Mayor Marianne Matichuk said Tuesday from Ottawa, where she’s at the annual Association of Municipalities of Ontario (AMO) conference.

The three-day conference brings together 1,600 people from across Ontario. Councillors Fabio Belli, Claude Berthiaume, Doug Craig, Evelyn Dutrisac, Terry Kett and Andre Rivest are there as well.

Matichuk, along with the mayors of Timmins, North Bay, Sault Ste. Marie and Thunder Bay, presented their Northern Priorities Document to seven provincial government ministers.

The document includes six items the mayors believe are necessary for Northern Ontario to thrive: A cohesive relationship between municipalities and all government ministries, reliable infrastructure funding, affordable energy, workforce development with a focus on immigration, more money for research and resource revenue sharing.

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FedNor minister optimistic about Ring of Fire “legacy” project – by Lindsay Kelly (Northern Ontario Business – August 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.

Greg Rickford has only been in his new role a month, but he vows he will do things differently as minister of state, science and technology, FedNor and the Ring of Fire. But FedNor’s mandate will stay the same.

“With respect to FedNor, we will continue to remain focused on our core principles: community economic development, business growth and innovation, and economic development initiatives,” said Rickford, who was appointed to his new role after a July cabinet shuffle, during a stop in Sudbury at a Chamber of Commerce luncheon.

By a show of good faith, he’s hired on a Northerner in the newly created role of senior policy advisor, who will answer directly to Rickford’s chief of staff. Mark Wright, a Lakehead University grad and the former director of the Thunder Bay Port Authority, will be exclusively focused on Northern Ontario, FedNor and the Ring of Fire, which Rickford deems “a legacy project.”

With a value of $93 billion in 2012, products from Canada’s mineral industry make up more than a fifth of the country’s exports, Rickford said. Projects like the development of the Ring of Fire chromite deposit, located in the James Bay Lowlands, are poised to add even more value to that sector.

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Group fights for passenger trains – by PJ Wilson (North Bay Nugget – August 20, 2013)

http://www.nugget.ca/

Canada’s National Dream may have been derailed by politicians, but a grassroots organization is trying to get it back on track.

The Northern and Eastern Ontario Rail Network (NEORN) was launched at the Discovery North Bay Museum – the former CP Rail station – Monday in North Bay to not only unite rail supporters in the province, but to try to revive Ontario Northland’s Northlander passenger service.

“Rail service is in trouble in this country,” Peter Miasek, president of Transport Action Ontario, the umbrella organization, said to a small crowd of supporters.

In all the Group of Eight countries, Canada is the only nation that is not investing heavily in rail service, Miasek said. “Even in the United States, (President Barack) Obama is investing heavily in Amtrak” passenger train service, Miasek said.

The federal and provincial governments, he said, are trying to sink rail freight service through subsidies to the trucking industry, while “on the passenger rail side, the situation is even more dire.”

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Glencore expected to writedown billions – by Reuters/Star Staff (Sudbury Star – August 20, 2013)

http://www.thesudburystar.com/

Glencore Xstrata is expected to write down the value of assets inherited from Xstrata by as much as $7 billion when it reports first-half earnings on Tuesday — the first full set of results since the takeover that created the mining giant in May.

Glencore’s management, no strangers to Xstrata given the trader’s 34% stake in the miner, have been reviewing Xstrata’s assets as owners over the past three months and they had been expected to book a hit alongside maiden results.

Analysts and an industry source said the group writedown, mostly on the value of former Xstrata assets, would likely amount to $5 billion to $7 billion.

Nickel assets — including Xstrata’s $5 billion Koniambo operation in New Caledonia — are likely to take the brunt of the pain as nickel prices languish at less than a third of their 2007 highs and supply continues to exceed demand.

Glencore’s local operations, now officially known as the Sudbury Integrated Nickel Operations, include Fraser Mine and Nickel Rim South Mine, Strathcona Mill and the Sudbury smelter. Nickel and copper are its main products.

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Ring of Fire a ‘legacy project’: Minister – by Laura Stricker (Sudbury Star – August 17, 2013)

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

Ottawa remains committed to helping develop the so-called Ring of Fire, but it will do so carefully, the government’s Northern Ontario cabinet minister said in Sudbury on Friday.

Greg Rick-ford, Canada’s new science and technology minister, made the promise during his first visit to Sud-bury since taking on the title.

Rickford, who is also responsible for FedNor and the Ring of Fire, spent two days in Greater Sudbury, making a funding announcement at NORC AT and a speech to the Greater Sudbury Chamber of Commerce.  The visit is part of a Northern Ontario tour that included visits to Thunder Bay and North Bay.

During both local stops, he affirmed the federal government’s commitment to pushing forward on the Ring of Fire — but carefully.  “I fully expect that we will begin a process of thorough consultation,” Rickford, the MP for Kenora, said Friday morning, shor tly before announcing funding for jobs for recent graduates. 

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1919 was a watershed year for Timmins – by Karen Bachmann (Timmins Daily Press – August 16, 2013)

The Daily Press is the city of Timmins broadsheet newspaper.

TIMMINS – Can you believe that summer is almost over – and if you are wondering “what summer?” I concur completely. In just a scant few weeks, everyone will be returning to school, be it for the first time or for the last, or for somewhere in between.

The rest of us will just “get on with it,” and enjoy the fall and the return to busy days. However, today is still mid-August, we have a few weeks of lollygagging left to us, so I will not spoil things just yet.

In keeping with the last lazy days of the season, I give you a totally irreverent article focusing on small town happenings back in 1919.

As always, a little context – the Great War to End All Wars came to an end on Nov. 11, 1918, so slowly but surely the armies were standing down and the young men and women who survived the conflict were finally on their way home.

Your heart has to go out to Pte. Manley Cole, a resident of Timmins. He served in all four years of the war, was wounded in battle not once but twice, each time recuperating quickly. 

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Time to build a road to prosperity in the Far North – by Mark Quinn (Troy Media – August 13, 2013)

http://www.troymedia.com/

An all-weather road would increase economic development and provide a better quality of life

OTTAWA, ON, Aug 13, 2013/ Troy Media/ – Over the last decade Canadians have become increasingly aware of a number of First Nation communities that have been in serious crisis.

The plight of communities like Attawapiskat, Pikangikum, and Kashechewan are well known in the national media but what is less well known is that they are all in the same region, Northern Ontario.

These communities are three of the approximately 30 First Nation communities in Ontario’s Far North. Most of these communities have much in common and are facing remarkably similar challenges. The Far North – comprising some 42 per cent of Ontario’s landmass (approximately 420,000 square kilometers)  – has more in common with the arctic than with the rest of the province. Consider the following:

• it has virtually no community infrastructure;
• there is little access to the hydro grid in the region;

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Taking the province to task – by Ian Ross (Northern Ontario Business – August 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.

For northwestern Ontario community leaders, if there’s a physical symbol of the glacial pace of provincial power planning, it’s the dormant Thunder Bay Generating Station.

Last November, Ontario Power Generation stopped work on converting the coal-burning plant to natural gas. The final decision whether to resume or not is expected at the end of summer. “Why are they dragging out this decision on Thunder Bay?” asked Hebert, the former general manager of Thunder Bay Hydro.

Frustrated by the province’s inertia, Larry Hebert, now the chairman of Common Voice Energy Task Force, reminded Ontario’s two leading energy planners last month that the mining boom is coming and they need to hurry up on building power infrastructure.

There’s major concern whether new mines will come into production before an East-West transmission corridor is finished and whether the mothballed Thunder Bay Generating Station will be kept in service.

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Mining review not good enough: Steelworkers – by Carol Mulligan (Sudbury Star – August 14, 2013)

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

United Steelworkers Local 6500 president Rick Bertrand, and union health and safety representatives will meet Thursday with Labour Minister Yasir Naqvi to press their demand a full inquiry be called into mine safety in Ontario.

USW officials will go into the meeting convinced that Premier Kathleen Wynne and her Liberal government have “officially rejected” the call for a full-blown inquiry and are planning to announce a mining review be held instead.

The union said a senior government source informed them of Wynne’s decision not to hold an inquiry, similar to the one under way now into the June 2012 collapse of the Algo Centre Mall in Elliot Lake, in which two women were killed.

The source told the union the Liberals will instead announce plans for a review of mining practices “that falls short of the scope and standards of a commission of inquiry,” USW said in a news release.

The announcement about a review could come as early as this week, said the union. Bertrand called a review “an unacceptable alternative” to an inquiry. “It’s a disgrace this government believes it can placate miners, our families and our communities with its watered-down plan for a review,” said an angry Bertrand on his way to Toronto for the meeting with Naqvi.

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Nunavik mine owes $72 million to creditors; Chinese owners turn project over to Toronto bank – by Jane George (Nunatsiaqonline.ca – August 14, 2013)

http://www.nunatsiaqonline.ca/

Canadian Royalties Ltd. owes $53.6 million to eight Nunavik companies

Canadian Royalties Ltd.‘s Nunavik Nickel mine, which was to be Nunavik’s second operating mine, spinning out minerals for hungry markets abroad, appears so far to have left a trail of debt throughout Nunavik.

The creditors owed a total of nearly $54 million by the Chinese-owned mine include Nunavut Eastern Arctic Shipping, Desgagnés Transarctik Inc., the fuel division of the Fédération des Coopératives du Nouveau-Québec, Laval Fortin Adams, Iglu Construction and Nuvumiut Developments (Ganotec-Nunavumiut and Kiewit-Nunavumiut), which all have links to Nunavik Inuit organizations or individuals.

The construction firm Laval Fortin Adams is owed about $14 million, the largest amount of any of the Nunavik-based companies left holding the bill for work on the mine and docking complex. L’Echo Abitibien says another $16.4 million is owed to Construction Promec de Rouyn-Noranda.

Now the Chinese owners of the mine have turned the cash-strapped Nunavik Nickel mine over to a private merchant bank in Toronto, which will see if there’s hope of salvaging the project, where workers are still stockpiling ore.

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