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Ontario Mining

Ontario’s McGuinty government modernises Mining Act – by Henry Lazenby (MiningWeekly.com – October 3, 2012)

http://www.miningweekly.com/page/americas-home

TORONTO (miningweekly.com) – Ontario’s provincial government, under the leadership of Premier Dalton McGuinty, on Wednesday said new rules aimed at modernising the provincial Mining Act would come into effect in November.

The Ontario government announced new rules that would impose exploration plans and permits on anyone planning to undertake certain early exploration activities, requiring them to immediately inform private landowners or Aboriginal communities of the expected activity.

Exploration plans and permits would be voluntary from November 1, and become mandatory from April 1, 2013.

“We’ve brought a 100-year-old piece of legislation into the twenty-first century. Through these regulations, as well as our ongoing work with industry and Aboriginal communities, we can all ensure Ontario continues to be a leading jurisdiction for mineral exploration investment for decades to come,” Northern Development and Mines Minister Rick Bartolucci said.

An exploration permit would now also be required to take bulk samples of Crown minerals for testing purposes.

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ONTARIO GOVERNMENT NEWS RELEASE: More Progress in Mining Act Modernization

McGuinty Government Promoting Sustainable Mineral Exploration and Development

October 3, 2012 2:47 PM

Ontario is modernizing the way companies stake and explore their claims to be more respectful of Aboriginal communities and private landowners.

New rules under the province’s Mining Act include:

  • New requirements for notifying private landowners and consulting with Aboriginal communities potentially affected by proposed exploration activities.
  • New tools to help protect sites of Aboriginal cultural significance.
  • An awareness program for prospectors about the Mining Act changes.
  • More ways to keep mining claims in good standing.
  • New early exploration requirements to help minimize the impact on the environment.

The rules were developed in close partnership with industry stakeholders and Aboriginal representatives and take effect on Nov. 1, 2012. These changes will help ensure that mineral exploration and development in Ontario continues to occur in a balanced, socially and environmentally responsible manner.

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Connecting First Nations with billion-dollar transmission line – by Shawn Bell (Wawatay News – October 3, 2012)

Northern Ontario’s First Nations Voice: http://wawataynews.ca/

Planning for a northern transmission line that will connect remote First Nations of northwestern Ontario to the southern electricity grid took a big step forward last week, as the steering committee of Wataynikaneyap Power met with the Ontario government and released its Environmental Assessment notice.

The meeting between Wataynikaneyap and three provincial ministers marked a milestone in the estimated $1.1 billion project, as Phase 1 – upgrading the existing transmission line to Pickle Lake and running a line to the Musselwhite mine – gets closer to reality.

“It’s not going to happen overnight, there are lots of logistics and regulatory requirements, but this (transmission line) has been a priority determined by the communities that want their energy issues addressed,” said steering committee member Margaret Kenequenash.

Wataynikaneyap plans to be a 100 percent First Nations owned and operated company, with revenue from the transmission line going back to the communities that are part owners of the company. So far 13 First Nations have joined the company.

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In gold, iron ore they trust – by Marilyn Scales (Canadian Mining Journal – October 2, 2012)

Marilyn Scales is a field editor for the Canadian Mining Journal, Canada’s first mining publication. She is one of Canada’s most senior mining commentators.

Mining companies appear to be having an easier time attracting investors recently – particularly if they have a gold or iron ore project. Both commodities have been hot, hot, hot the past year, and developers are prospering.

Labrador Iron Mines Holdings of Toronto has arranged at $30-million bought deal public equity financing. The company calls itself “Canada’s newest iron ore producer” having begun production at its James direct shipping ore iron mine earlier this year. Now LIM will issue 30 million common share at a price of $1.00 each. The deal is underwritten by Canaccord Genuity that is also entitled to an overallotment of 4.5 million shares. The net proceeds are to used for working capital and general corporate purposes.

Premier Gold Mines of Thunder Bay, ON, has arranged a $58.5 million deal consisting of a bought deal public offering and flow-through shares. The company has a number of active exploration projects in Ontario and Nevada. A syndicate of underwriters led by RBC Capital Markets has agreed to purchase 6.58 million common shares at $6.08 each plus 2.61 million flow-through shares at $7.08 each. The underwriters have been granted an overallotment option of 15%. Premier will use the net proceeds of the flow-through shares on its Canadian projects; the balance could be spent in the United States.

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Mining inquiry gains momentum – by Heidi Ulrichsen (Sudbury Northern Life – October 2, 2012)

This article came from Northern Life, Sudbury’s biweekly newspaper.

150 pack Steelworkers Hall for forum

Wendy Fram said she was overwhelmed by the turnout at a forum examining the need for a mining inquiry at the Steelworkers Hall Oct. 1. About 150 people, many of them friends of her late son, Jordan Fram, packed the hall, and stood at the back when the chairs ran out. Jordan, along with his co-worker Jason Chenier, died in a mining accident at Vale’s Stobie Mine last year.

“I find that there’s already support to help us deal with this inquiry,” Wendy said. “Hopefully this is going to work for us. I’m going to try to stay as positive as I can and work hard and get this going.”

During the event, Wendy was elected chair of a new group called Mining Inquiry Needs Everyone’s Support (MINES), which will push for a mining inquiry. Her daughter, Briana Fram, was elected the group’s secretary. Miner Jodi Blasutti along with Cheryl Dufoe, whose son, Lyle Dufoe, died in a mining accident in Timmins in 2007, will act as co-vice-chairs.

Those at the event were invited to sign up as members of the group. “It’s my first time ever being a chair of a committee,” Fram said. “I’ll do my best. I have my daughter for support, which is a great support. My husband works at Vale, so he has a lot of great input as well.”

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[Ring of Fire’s] Black Thor deposit delayed – by Carol Mulligan (Sudbury Star – October 1, 2012)

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

Cliffs Natural Resources has moved the production start date for its Black Thor chromite deposit in the Ring of Fire back a year to 2016, because discussions about the location of Cliffs’ ferrochrome processing plant took longer than expected.

Cliffs spokeswoman Patricia Persico said “that’s fine” because the talks were about “necessary and important topics” such as the building of an all-weather road to the site, 540 kilometres north of Thunder Bay, as well as electricity prices.

Those discussions are continuing, said Perscico. The company has said all along its timelines to develop the project are estimates, she said. Cliffs is promoting a north-south road in its talks with the government of Ontario, said Persico. What that will mean in terms of shared capital is still being discussed.

Cliffs announced in early May it had selected a brown-field site north of Capreol, at the old Moose Mountain Mine, as its choice of location for the ferrochrome smelter.

That announcement moved development of Black Thor into the feasibility stage, “which allows us to really get deeper ” into the project’s scope and move the environmental assessment project forward, said Persico.

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Ontario’s Northlander train makes its final run – by Jennifer Wells (Toronto Star – September 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.

The Ontario Northland is going mighty fast for a funeral barge, 65 mph past ribbons of sumacs that are coming on vermillion, that eye-blasting, keening, it’s-almost-Thanksgiving Ontario scenery.

Conductor Brian Irwin isn’t studying the sumacs. No.

The railroad lifer is in thought, formulating a message that will sum up his views of the decision by the McGuinty government to divest itself of the Ontario Northland Transportation Commission, including the shutting down of the Northlander, erasing, oh, 110 years of history as of Friday. Poof. So there’s Irwin, swaying to the thrumble of the train, and here’s his thought: “We’re kinda partial to a fence at the French River there.”

You see where he’s going. Us versus them. When you’re taking one of your last runs, might as well unload on the sorry South-North relationship in this province. The betrayal. Words do not suffice.

“It is personal — this whole thing is personal,” he says. “We’ve never had a friend at the Ministry of Northern Development and Mines. Why there is such a hate on for the ONR is beyond me. Why the hell are we under Northern Development and Mines anyway? We’re a transportation company!”

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A good look at new mining – Thunder Bay Chronicle-Journal Editorial (September 28, 2012)

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

THE Ring of Fire is on many minds these days. As miners prepare to dig into the James Bay lowlands, Northern Ontario communities jockey to provide services and employees. But the North’s new mining boom extends well beyond the Ring. A new analysis, commissioned by Ambassadors Northwest, showcases stunning opportunities that will transform the region. Billions of dollars are at stake. Communities will share handsomely if governments do what they must do to make it happen.

Conducted by university and college professors, the study looks at nine mining projects underway in the Northwest. It does not include existing mines. The Ring of Fire’s two biggies — Cliff’s Natural Resources’ Black Thor and Noront Resources’ Eagles Nest — are familiar. But seven other projects are similarly mature or near development with the potential to become producing mines in five years.

They are: Bending Lake Iron Property surrounded by Atikokan, Ignace and Dryden; Goldcorp’s Bruce Channel and Cochenour projects and Rubicon Minerals’ Phoenix Gold project in the famed Red Lake gold field; Osisko Mining’s Hammond Reef project near Atikokan; Rainy River Resources’ gold project; Stillwater Mining’s copper and paladium operation near Marathon; and Treasury Metals’ Goliath gold project in the Wabigoon and Dryden area.

The dollar value, employment and tax revenue potential of these projects is “substantial,” the study says. That’s an understatement. The total value of unmined metals and minerals is estimated to be $135 billion based on June commodity prices.

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Boom in the making [Northwestern Ontario mining] – Kris Ketonen (Thunder Bay Chronicle-Journal – September 28, 2012)

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

The full study can be found at:  http://www.thunderbayventures.com/upload/documents/mining-in-northwestern-ontario.pdf

Northwestern Ontario stands to reap huge financial rewards when the region’s developing mining sector matures, but a great deal of time and money must be invested to ensure the region is ready, a new study states.

Mining in Northwestern Ontario: Opportunities and Challenges examined several in-development mining projects, and found that when up and running, thy have the potential to create more than 13,000 jobs in the region alone, and the yet-to-be mined minerals and metals found here have a value of around $136 billion.

In addition, more than $16 billion in tax revenue is expected to be collected by the provincial, federal and relevant municipal governments during the average 17.5-year lifetime of the mines.

“There are a few objectives we had for this report,” Bahram Dadgostar, dean of Lakehead University’s faculty of business and one of the study’s authors, said Thursday after the release of the report.

“One is to make sure that communities are aware of the wealth that we have underground here, and the opportunities that we can have when we explore that. “And second is (to) make government aware of the wealth here and the profit that they can get out of it if they . . . effectively contribute to the process.”

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Will Ontario get it right in northern Ring of Fire? – by Janet Sumner and Anna Baggio (Toronto Star – September 28, 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.

Janet Sumner is executive director and Anna Baggio is director, conservation planning, for CPAWS Wildlands League.

As with most mining finds, the rich mineral deposits and metals discovered within Ontario’s far northern “Ring of Fire” have generated a lot of hype and optimism. It’s been called one of the “most promising mineral development opportunities in Ontario in almost a century”. In a recent letter to the federal government, Premier Dalton McGuinty was quoted as writing that this area has the potential to “rival Alberta’s oilsands”.

Well it might. We just don’t know because so far we have very few facts to go on. Much work remains to be done. While Ontario might dream of the dollars developing the Ring of Fire will bring, what about the costs we will all bear?

Scientists have long warned that poorly-placed infrastructure in the Far North will cause irreversible harm to aquatic systems and wildlife. In the meantime, the first major Ring of Fire mining proposal is barrelling ahead.

A U.S. owned company called Cliffs Natural Resources has received the go-ahead from Ontario to route a new 350 km all-weather road along a north-south alignment so that it can extract and process chromite ore and transport the concentrate to a smelter in Capreol, Ontario or to Asia.

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Road versus rail in the Ring of Fire – by Shawn Bell (Wawatay News – September 27, 2012)

Northern Ontario’s First Nations Voice: http://wawataynews.ca/

With the Ontario government now acknowledging that the north-south access road into the Ring of Fire is solely going to be for industrial users – “for developers to go in and get ore and minerals back out”, as a government spokesperson said – it is time to look at whether a road is actually in the best interests of the north.

The debate over which way a Ring of Fire road should go, either north-south or east-west, framed much of the transportation conversation around the development over the past few years. Certain First Nations chiefs expressed their skepticism that any road would ever be accessible for local people anyways, but their voices were generally ignored amid all the optimism around connecting communities to the highway system.

Then, earlier this year, the east-west road corridor that was proposed to connect Webequie, Wunnumin, Nibinamik and Neskantaga to Pickle Lake via a highway was blown out of the water. Ontario came out in support of Cliffs’ north-south road proposal, seemingly without any debate over the merits of choosing north-south rather than east-west, but in reality with a decision based solely on cost. The east-west road’s main proponent, Noront Resources, changed its tune and decided that the north-south road is fine for its purposes too. Lost in the hubbub were the voices of the chiefs who had called for the east-west road to connect their communities. Ontario had showed clearly that it was much more interested in doing what was best for its big American mining ally than it was in helping First Nations meet their needs.

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Duty to consult questioned in Wahgoshig mining case – by Shawn Bell (Wawatay News – September 26, 2012)

Northern Ontario’s First Nations Voice: http://wawataynews.ca/

As a legal decision, the Sept. 4 finding that Solid Gold Resources will be allowed to appeal its case against Wahgoshig First Nation over mineral exploration on Wahgoshig’s traditional land was hardly remarkable. It was simply a matter of a company asking for and receiving approval to take its appeal to a higher, precedent-setting court.

The finding of the judge, however, has the potential to have far-reaching consequences on whether mining companies have the duty to consult First Nations before conducting exploration on traditional lands.

Justice H.P. Wilton-Siegel’s ruling to give Solid Gold Resources leave to appeal took aim at the duty to consult – specifically, whether Ontario can pass its duty to consult with First Nations to a mining company.

“I see no basis in the facts of this case for an imposition of a duty to consult on Solid Gold,” Wilton-Siegel wrote. “If the Crown wishes to delegate operational aspects of its duty (to consult First Nations) it … must establish a legislative or regulatory scheme (to do so). The mining act does not presently contain such a scheme.”

The case stems from Wahgoshig’s efforts to block Solid Gold from exploring on its traditional lands in an area thought to contain sacred burial sites.

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Mine hearings to take place next year – by Carl Clutchey (Thunder Bay Chronicle-Journal – September 27, 2012)

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

Public hearings into a proposed copper and palladium mine on Marathon’s outskirts could take place early next year if an independent panel reviewing the project decides it has enough information to proceed.

The three-member panel of two scientists and an engineer must decide by Nov. 26 if an environmental impact statement submitted this summer by Stillwater Canada is sufficient to set the stage for up to 30 days of public hearings.

Stillwater is proposing an open-pit operation just north of the town’s airport. The mine, with one main pit and four satellite pits, is projected to operate for nearly 12 years and provide about 400 direct jobs. Surrounded by the Pic River and some inland lakes, the mine site would require a new two-kilometre access road and a new four-km hydro transmission corridor.

If the panel decides that it does have enough information to proceed, the hearings could take place in January, Canadian Environmental Assessment Agency panel co-manager Marie LeGrow said Wednesday during an update in Marathon about the ongoing review.

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KI pulls out of Far North planning process – by Rick Garrick (Wawatay News – September 19, 2012)

Northern Ontario’s First Nations Voice: http://wawataynews.ca/

Kitchenuhmaykoosib Inninuwug (KI) has pulled out of the Ontario land use planning process under the Far North Act. “At the end of the day, when everything is completed and done it is the minister who has the last say,” said KI Chief Donny Morris. “We want control and to have the minister have the last say, that is not what we want. So that is why we pulled out.”

Morris sent the Aug. 31 letter to Dianne Corbett, director of Far North Branch, Ministry of Natural Resources, announcing the decision. Posted on the kitchenuhmaykoosib.com website, the letter stated that KI entered the land use planning process in a good faith attempt to work with Ontario to reduce land use conflicts in the KI homeland.

“When we do the land use planning, it is for our own community membership to determine the future of our resources, our lands and water, not the minister,” Morris said. Morris said it has become clear to the community over time that land use planning under the Far North Act would change the jurisdiction and authority of KI on its homeland.

“It is our view that the Far North Act acts to deny or limit the Aboriginal rights, Aboriginal title or treaty rights of KI and limits or defines the consultation and accommodation obligations between KI and Ontario,” Morris said in the letter. “In short, we cannot work within the limitations of the current legislation.”

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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.”

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