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Quebec Mining

Plan Nord investments carry big risk – by Kevin Dougherty (Montreal Gazette – April 25, 2012)

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

The provincial government will spend a billion dollars over the next five years, but the viability of the project remains a question 

After two decades of keeping a low profile in the province’s mining sector, the Quebec government is coming back strong, giving itself a lead role in Premier Jean Charest’s Plan Nord to develop the mineral and other resources of northern Quebec.
 
Ressources Québec, a new state investment arm, is being entrusted with $1 billion in the next five years to invest in Plan Nord mining ventures and future oil and gas plays through a fund called Capital Mines Hydrocarbures. It will be headed by Jacques Daoust, who remains president and CEO of the expanded Investissement Québec.
 
With growing interest in Quebec’s deposits of iron ore, nickel, rare earths, gold and even diamonds, the province has increased its mining royalties.
 
And to aid mining and mineral processing, Quebec will pay $30 million toward a study on extending Gaz Métro’s natural gas distribution network to Sept Îles, a major Plan Nord hub. Quebec is also supporting a proposed new $5 billion rail link from Sept Îles north to the new mining zone, to be built by CN and the Caisse de dépôt et placement du Québec.

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Sleeping giant awakened in Sept Îles – by Leo Ryan (Montreal Gazette – April 25, 2012)

 http://www.montrealgazette.com/index.html
 
Dramatic increase in domestic and foreign investment in iron-ore projects fuelling port’s renaissance

A Klondike-type fever is gripping this port city facing a spectacular, semi-circular bay located more than 900 kilometres east of Montreal on the North Shore of the St. Lawrence River. The great catalyst, however, is not gold but a dramatic increase in domestic and foreign investments in iron ore projects, notably with a view to supplying the vital commodity for steel mills in China.
 
In short, in this relatively remote area of Quebec, a sleeping giant has awakened – signalling the ascension in the near future of Sept Îles as Canada’s second-biggest port after Vancouver in terms of volume. It is already the leading mineral port in North America.
 
Money is pouring from steel producers into the substantial, still-unexploited iron ore deposits in what geologists identified long ago as the Labrador Trough centred on Schefferville, nearly 800 kms north and connected to Sept Îles by a single rail line.
 
It all symbolizes a virtual economic renaissance following a long period of decline ushered in by mine closures in Schefferville in the 1980s and a collapse in demand from world markets.

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Ontario and Quebec propose changes to mining rules (Canadian Mining Journal – August 2, 2012)

The Canadian Mining Journal is Canada’s first mining publication providing information on Canadian mining and exploration trends, technologies, operations, and industry events.

Interestingly, both Ontario and Quebec are proposing significant changes to their respective mining legislation.
 
In Ontario, the public comment period closed on May 1, 2012, on six regulatory proposals under the Ontario Mining Act that were posted on the Environmental Registry (EBR) in March 2012 by the Ministry of Northern Development and Mines (MNDM). Feedback received is now under review.
 
The proposals were for amendments to certain existing regulations and introduction of new regulations to implement substantive changes made to the Mining Act in 2009.
 
The EBR postings were simply concept-level descriptions of what the regulations would address although the regulatory text itself was not provided. Until such time as specific draft regulations and associated policies and standards documents are released to the public, industry and First Nations, it is difficult to predict whether the concepts will be codified into law substantially as described. The regulatory proposals are outlined below. Here are features of the proposed regulatory changes in Ontario:

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Charest government may have miscalculated announcement to reopen Jeffrey Asbestos Mine with a $58-million loan – by Michelle Lalonde, (Montreal Gazette – July 30, 2012)

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

GAZETTE Environment Reporter

QUEBEC – If the Charest government was hoping to avoid criticism by quietly announcing the relaunch of Quebec’s controversial asbestos industry on the Friday before a holiday weekend, it might have miscalculated.
 
In the month following the June 29 announcement that Quebec would loan $58 million to help reopen and expand the Jeffrey Mine in the town of Asbestos, newspapers across Quebec and Canada have run editorials and columns condemning the decision. The wisdom of staking public money on this project has come under question, and last week an international scientific organization of epidemiologists joined the call for a global ban on asbestos.
 
In April 2011, the Liberal government had promised to provide a guarantee on a $58-million loan to the project’s proponents — Westmount businessman Baljit Chadha and Jeffrey Mine president Bernard Coulombe — if and when they could come up with $25 million in private investments to enable the reopening of the mine.
 
The government is now providing a direct loan rather than a guarantee, and critics charge that’s because no financial institution would loan the money, even with a government guarantee.

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Quebec’s mining royalty regime is fine, study says – by Lynn Moore (Montreal Gazette – July 31, 2012)

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

Regime based on profits, not value of minerals is better for Quebec: report chief

MONTREAL – Quebec’s mining royalty regime offers the “competitive structure” best suited to the province, according to a study likely to fuel provincial election debates.
 
The consulting firm KPMG LLP and the law office of Fraser Milner Casgrain LLP unveiled Tuesday “an analytical framework” they say permits an objective evaluation of mining royalty regimes around the globe. “There is no ideal regime,” Renault-François Lortie, KPMG partner and director of the study, told reporters.
 
But, all things considered, “the structure of the current regime is the right one” for Quebec. “We think that a regime that is based on profits compared to one based on the value of the minerals is better suited to the mineral characteristics and level of production costs in Quebec,” Lortie said.
 
Quebec’s current royalty scheme of 16 per cent royalty on the profits of each mine is relatively high, said Lortie, noting that the study does not address whether the rate of 16 per cent is ideal for Quebec.

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Election could imperil Plan Nord – by Lynn Moore (Montreal Gazette – July 31, 2012)

http://www.montrealgazette.com/index.html
 
Desjardins Report; Parties differ on scale of economic payback to Quebec taxpayers
 
The Plan Nord, the Charest administration’s legacy development strategy for Northern Quebec, could be at risk as the province heads for the polls, a Desjardins Capital Markets report says. “Depending on the outcome of the election, Plan Nord stakeholders could face increased uncertainty if another party takes power and/ or a minority government is elected,” says the report made public Monday.
 
Entitled Plan Nord at the Crossroads, it notes that while all parties appear to support northern development, they differ as to the scale of economic payback to Quebec taxpayers.
 
The Parti Québécois contends that current royalties are too low. It supports higher mining royalties “and suggests that Quebec could put in place a royalty regime similar to that in Australia – a 30 per cent tax of ‘super profits’ from the extraction of non-renewable natural resources,” the note to clients said.
 
Coalition Avenir Québec, which also contends Quebecers should be better compensated for natural resources, proposes the creation of a $5-billion fund, to be managed by the Caisse de dépôt et placement du Québec, to invest in extraction companies with all royalties from extraction of non-renewable resources used for debt reduction.

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Public money should not prop up asbestos mining – by Alana Wilson (Winnipeg Free Press – July 17, 2012)

http://www.winnipegfreepress.com/

Alana Wilson is senior research analyst in the Fraser Institute’s global centre for mining studies www.miningfacts.org

Canada’s mining industry is globally competitive, and has long succeeded without much in the way of government subsidies. It even thrived in the last recession by responding to market demand. Yet instead of letting markets drive mining investment in Quebec, the provincial government is bailing out the asbestos industry using taxpayer money — and this for a product that is harmful to human health.

In recent years, market demand for chrysotile asbestos produced in Canada shrunk dramatically which lead to a halt of chrysotile mining. But instead of letting mines stay closed, taxpayer funds will reopen an unprofitable chrysotile mine.

Quebec Premier Jean Charest recently approved a $58 million loan to allow the closed Jeffrey asbestos mine to reopen. Even before the announced bailout, the mine struggled and operated infrequently in recent years. All other Canadian asbestos mines have closed; the last one was shuttered in November.

The demise of Canada’s asbestos industry reflects a declining demand for asbestos, driven by health concerns.

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Quebec rail plan stirs hope, concern in Canada’s iron belt – by Susan Taylor and Julie Gordon (Reuters – July 9, 2012)

http://in.reuters.com/

* Canadian National project backed by Quebec pension fund

* Railway needed for mine projects to proceed

* Junior miners fear transport costs may run too high

* Some miners discuss developing their own railway

* Project part of Quebec’s 25-yr plan to develop north

TORONTO, July 9 (Reuters) – Canada’s biggest railroad wants to build a C$5 billion ($4.8 billion) rail line to ship iron ore from isolated northern Quebec to port, a crucial link that could transform Canada into the world’s third-largest producer of steel’s main component.

Canadian National Railway Co’s ‘s 800-kilometer (500 mile) project, backed by Quebec’s public pension fund, is still years away from becoming a reality. Indeed, the 2017 projected start-up date looks ambitious, given the complexity of negotiations that lie ahead.

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Kicking up some dust over Quebec’s Asbestos loan – by Antonia Maioni (Globe and Mail -July 9, 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.

Asbestos looms large in Quebec politics. Both the ore and the town it created have been mired in controversy, most recently the announcement of a $58-million loan to help reopen the fabled Jeffrey Mine. On the line are 400 full-time jobs in a region dependent on the industry for more than a century, despite clear warnings about the persistent health and environmental danger of asbestos, a fibre that provides superior insulation but that in some forms has been linked to cancer.

While the industry has suffered a dramatic decline worldwide because of these concerns, Canada continues to actively promote its trade and defy multilateral efforts warning of its hazards. Asbestos is already banned in most countries that Canadians consider their peer group: the European Union, Australia, Japan. In the U.S., the industry is entangled in extensive litigation, bankruptcy filings and class-action suits. The export targets are, instead, countries such as China and especially India, where building booms are fuelling demand for asbestos for use in cement and infrastructure.

The fallout from the announcement reflects a decades-long conflict between the industry and health experts, but also larger questions about the trade-off between local jobs and public health, and the tension between money and science.

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Mayor of Asbestos says misunderstood town’s history is ‘a source of pride’ – by Graeme Hamilton (National Post – July 7, 2012)

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

When a government preparing for an election has a job-creating investment to announce, it does not usually schedule it for a Friday afternoon before a long weekend. But when the announcement is in Asbestos, Que., and the funding will revive a dormant mine producing the carcinogenic fiber that gives the town its name, officials prefer not to make too big a splash.
 
So it was last week, as Quebec’s Liberal government announced a $58-million loan to the Jeffrey Mine to convert the open pit to an underground operation that is expected to yield chrysotile asbestos for another 25 years beginning next June.
 
The timing could not completely stifle the backlash, and the government has come under fire from health professionals and environmentalists — the head of Quebec’s association of community-health physicians said the loan amounts to subsidizing cancer.

For Hugues Grimard, Mayor of Asbestos, such attacks are nothing new. Last year his town was made a laughingstock by the American TV program The Daily Show, whose interviewer asked the mine’s president, Bernard Coulombe, whether the word asbestos meant something different in French. “Because in English it means slow, hacking death.”

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Asbestos gets a new lease on death – by Colin Kenny (Montreal Gazette – July 6, 2012)

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

Senator Colin Kenny is former deputy chair of the Senate Standing Committee on Energy, the Environment and Natural Resources

If students want to fight injustice why haven’t they taken to the streets over the government’s latest decision?
 
Canada’s notorious asbestos industry has been given a new lease on death. A $58-million loan guarantee from the Quebec government will allow the town of Asbestos to resume shipments of this documented killer to developing countries, where impoverished construction workers will be forced to gamble with its deadly potential to tear apart their lungs.
 
Where are Quebec student protesters when Canada really needs them? In their focus on tuition fees, they never were quite able to make the case that the Charest government is morally bankrupt. Now that the Quebec government has agreed to bankroll asbestos exports denounced by medical experts around the world in order to restore 425 jobs in rural Quebec, it should be a lot easier to make the case.
 
The use and abuse of asbestos goes way back to the ancient Greeks and Egyptians. The Greeks used its fibres to make fabrics more enduring, as did the Egyptians, who embalmed pharaohs in it. Since it was so fire-resistant, the Persians wrapped bodies for cremation in it, the better to gather the ashes of the deceased.

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MiningWatch Canada: Plan Nord: The North challenges Charest government – by Frédéric Dubois (May 28, 2012)

http://www.miningwatch.ca/home

Frédéric Dubois is a Montreal-based reporter and producer. His attendance to the Forum Plan Nord 2012 has been made possible with the support of Mining Watch Canada.

The month of May is almost over. In Quebec it’s been a month marked by massive student demonstrations, mass arrests and tens of thousands of kids in pajamas and septuagenarians on their balconies hitting wooden spoons on pots and pans. May 2012 will be remembered in Québec as a month where a strong 3-month student strike turned into a general social movement.
 
The month of May may also prove to be a game-changer for the mining industry in Québec. Underreported in the mainstream media, one event should be looked at to understand why opposition to Charest’s aggressive resource extraction agenda has shifted in Québec. The Forum Plan Nord 2012 – The North Matters took place in Québec City at the beginning of May. The event brought together about 300 people from distinct sectors – environmental groups, women groups, First Nations communities, universities, unions, and many more.

Even a few civil servants and company representatives attended. But unlike most conferences about mining, this one was organized by a First Nations group. The Sustainable Development Institute of the First Nations of Québec and Labrador timed the conference to underline the first anniversary of Jean Charest’s unilateral announcement of the Plan Nord.

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Quebec turns to Alberta for guidance in developing a massive tract of resource-rich land in its north – by Marzena Czarnecka (Alberta Venture Magazine – May 22, 2012)

http://albertaventure.com/

Erik Richer La Flèche … believes successful implementation of Plan Nord has
the potential to transform Quebec into a “mini-Australia, that is, a preferred,
stable supplier to some of the largest economies in the world.”

What can Quebec learn from Alberta’s experience, and what might it mean for this province’s future?

May 2012 marks the one-year anniversary of the launch of Quebec’s Plan Nord by Premier Jean Charest. It’s a 25-year, $80-billion economic, social and environmental development strategy for Quebec’s massive northern territory.

Sound familiar? The parallels between Plan Nord and Alberta’s oil sands occurred to Robert Yalden during the Montrealer’s last visit to Alberta. “I was struck by how much history there was to the endeavour,” says Yalden, a partner with Osler, Hoskin & Harcourt LLP. “By how much investment, how much public planning for the development of infrastructure necessary for the private sector, how much forethought and long-term thinking was required to understand, back in the 1960s and 1970s, that the oil sands could become an extremely important part of the Alberta economy.” Looking at his province’s Plan Nord, he sees the need for the same type of long-term planning and vision.

And, perhaps, the need to learn from Alberta’s missteps along the way, because there have been a few.

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Quebec’s Front-Line Forests [Plan Nord] – New York Times Editorial (May 2, 2012)

http://www.nytimes.com/

In April, the government of Premier Jean Charest introduced a bill in the Quebec National Assembly that seeks to protect nearly 150 million acres — half of northern Quebec, an area the size of France — from industrial development, including logging, mining and petroleum exploration. The bill matters, not just to Canada but to the world: The boreal forests and tundra of northern Canada remain a relatively intact ecosystem, absorbing more carbon than the world’s tropical forests and providing a vital buffer against global warming. Industrial development would weaken that buffer, and, as things stand now, there is almost nothing to prevent it.

As envisioned by Mr. Charest, the bill would have made a firm commitment to prevent all industrial activity. As revised by government bureaucrats, the latest version promises only that, at some future point, steps will be taken to “protect the environment, maintain biodiversity, enhance the natural heritage and promote the sustainable use of resources.” Mr. Charest is the leader of a majority government, so the bill will almost certainly pass. Before it does, it needs to be strengthened to prohibit even piecemeal development in this sensitive region.

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N.Y. Times praises Plan Nord but raises concerns – by Michelle Lalonde (Montreal Gazette – May 3, 2012)

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

MONTREAL – A recent editorial in the New York Times praises Premier Jean Charest’s Plan Nord bill as “a remarkable precedent,” but critics note it also adds to growing pressure on Charest to strengthen the bill so that it truly protects from development half of northern Quebec, as Charest promised in his re-election campaign.
 
The $80-billion Plan Nord was billed by Charest as a way to preserve half of Quebec’s north by 2035, while allowing sustainable mining and forestry in the other half.

“The bill matters,” the editorial in Tuesday’s Times says, “not just to Canada but to the world: The boreal forests and tundra of northern Canada remain a relatively intact ecosystem, absorbing more carbon than the world’s tropical forests and providing a vital buffer against global warming.”
 
The editorial goes on to say that Charest had made a firm commitment to prevent all industrial activity in 150 million acres — half of northern Quebec, an area the size of France — but that government bureaucrats have watered down his intentions. The bill now promises only that at some future point steps will be taken to protect the environment and promote the sustainable use of resources.

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