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Goldcorp Inc. pledges its commitment to Timmins – by Len Gillis (Timmins Times – April 26, 2012)

http://www.timminstimes.com/

Goldcorp holds its first ever corporate annual meeting in Timmins

Goldcorp President and Chief Executive Officer Charles “Chuck” Jeannes told a Timmins audience Thursday that his company has made a substantial investment in both the Porcupine camp and in Porcupine Gold Mines and Goldcorp has every intention of growing that investment.

Jeannes was presiding at Goldcorp’s first ever annual general meeting held outside of Toronto or Vancouver. The meeting, with most of the board of directors in attendance, was held in Timmins in honour of the city’s 100th anniversary celebrations.

“You know we’re a dynamic business and we buy new assets and on occasion we’ve sold assets. I think the fact that we’ve continued to invest so much in Porcupine should be indicative of the commitment we have to this operation,” said Jeannes.

He said the commitment of the company made this year for the Hollinger Project, combined with the decision made in 2010 to expand the Hoyle Pond operation is a commitment of hundreds of millions of dollars and is clear evidence the company has long term plans for the city.

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[Goldcorp Latin American] Mine closing sparks concerns – by Kyle Gennings (Timmins Daily Press – April 27, 2012)

The Daily Press is the city of Timmins broadsheet newspaper.

Activists travel from Central America to share concerns at Goldcorp AGM

Here in Timmins we are reminded of mining operations everywhere we look. It’s written on the sides of trucks, headframes thrust into the skyline and shafts driven deep into the Earth. Here, mining means life, prosperity and reason.

For some in Central America, however, they claim mining means many other things: Suffering, loss of independence and sickness. Activists blame mining corporations.

“Goldcorp does not operate in Honduras and Guatemala the way it does in Canada,” said Reina Gamora, a Honduran school teacher and activist, who made the 6,000-kilometre trek to appeal to the hearts and minds of those who understand mining. “They operate through utilizing the corrupt government that operates in Honduras. They ignore the human rights and environmental impacts their operations have.”

Gamora and two colleagues made the trip to appeal to the shareholders in Goldcorp at the firm’s annual general meeting in Timmins on Thursday. They want to ensure proper cleanup measures are taken as the San Martin mine undergoes its closure process.

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NDP sells out the North – by Thomas Perry (Timmins Daily Press – April 25, 2012)

 The Daily Press is the city of Timmins broadsheet newspaper.

Party trades away leverage for a few trinkets, bobbles

The NDP has sold out Northern Ontario for a few trinkets and bobbles. Instead of standing firm and voting against Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty’s budget unless the province agreed to halt its plans to divest Ontario Northland, the party caved.

“We tried to get the government to bend on the ONTC issue, but they just wouldn’t,” MPP Gilles Bisson (NDP — Timmins-James Bay) told our sister paper, the North Bay Nugget.

“We put proposals on the table, but the government wasn’t prepared to move on the ONTC. They were hanging on.” Just like they “tried” to get Xstrata to reverse its plans to close our smelter and save close to 700 jobs in Timmins.

Well, guess what? Tried just doesn’t cut it in our books! Are we supposed to hold our collective breath, as Mr. Bisson and his party brethren continue to tilt at windmills?

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Budget passes, ONTC fate sealed – by Kyle Gennings (Timmins Daily Press – April 25, 2012)

 The Daily Press is the city of Timmins broadsheet newspaper.

NDP backs down on ‘regional issue’ to avoid election

The fate of Ontario Northland is not worth triggering a provincial election. This was the message from MPP Gilles Bisson (NDP — Timmins-James Bay) minutes before stepping into the Legislative Assembly of Ontario to push the much-criticized Liberal budget forward.

“We will allow the budget motion to pass by not voting against it,” said Bisson. “We are essentially choosing to abstain from the issue. We aren’t voting for it because this is still a Liberal budget and there are still things in this budget that we don’t like.”

The provincial NDP are choosing to sit this one out, said Bisson, taking what they can from the budget for the province and hoping that the ONTC doesn’t fall through the cracks. A leap of faith, some might say.

“At this point, people don’t want an election, so we made some amendments to the budget and we are allowing it to move forward,” he said. “If the budget motion was to fail today, we would be in an election by this afternoon.”

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NDP tries to leverage deal with Liberals to halt sale of ONTC – by Mark Prior (Timmins Daily Press – April 16, 2012)

The Daily Press is the city of Timmins broadsheet newspaper.

Support motion or face election, McGuinty government told

MPP Gilles Bisson (NDP — Timmins-James Bay) says his party has presented the Ontario Liberals with an ultimatum in order to avoid another provincial election.

The Dalton McGuinty government can vote to support the NDP’s budget motion by the April 24 deadline — or face the likelihood of seeing Ontarians go back to the polls. Bisson said the motions put forward by the NDP includes a plan to save the Ontario Northland Transportation Commission from divestment.

A key concern is how dismantling the ONTC will hinder the potential for Northeastern communities to tap into the mining and economic opportunities being created in the Ring of Fire, within the James Bay lowlands.

“We were extremely disappointed when Mr. McGuinty and Mr. (Rick) Bartolucci announced they were going ahead with the divestiture, which means only the lucrative parts of the ONTC are going to be taken over by the private sector, and the subsidized parts will be gone,” said Bisson.

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More mining deaths in Timmins than any other mining city in Ontario in past five years – by By Len Gillis (Timmins Times – April 5, 2012)

http://www.timminstimes.com/

Death of Travor King was the sixth local miner killed since 2007

More mining deaths have occurred in Timmins in the past five years than anywhere else in Ontario. That information provided by the Ontario Ministry of Labour indicates that 11 workers have died in Ontario mines since 2007. Six of those deaths were in Timmins.

The most recent was the death of miner Trevor King, 26, who died Monday after being hit by a loose rock while loading explosives at the Lake Shore Gold (LSG) Timmins Mine. That was among the information released Tuesday by company officials who held an informal news conference at their Highway 101 West offices in Timmins.

“Trevor King was fatally injured while loading a development round on the 730-metre level of our Timmins Mine,” said Dan Gagnon, Lakeshore’s senior vice president of operations.

A “round’ is the series of drill holes left in the rock face in the mine tunnel after a miner has set up and drilled a pattern of holes in preparation for blasting.

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Northerners must seize their own destiny — now – by Wayne Snider (Timmins Daily Press – April 4, 2012)

The Daily Press is the city of Timmins broadsheet newspaper and Wayne Snider is the city editor.

Don’t expect NDP MPPs to save Ontario Northland

Is it possible that one of the reasons the provincial government wants to scrap the Ontario Northland Transportation Commission is that it’s too helpful to Northeastern Ontario? The ONTC has a long history of being progressive in terms of economic development for the region.

In recent history, it was the ONTC that stepped up to the plate to help establish a phosphate mine near Kapuskasing by creating a new spur directly to the site.

And it was the ONTC that recently joined Timmins officials during discussions for a chromite processing facility from the Ring of Fire Project — the biggest mineral discovery in Ontario in the last 100 years. Ontario Northland isn’t just a key component to development in the North, it is part of the North.

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ONTC fight is on – by Kyle Gennings (Timmins Daily Press – April 3, 2012)

The Daily Press is the city of Timmins broadsheet newspaper.

Unionized workers organize campaign to save Ontario Northland

“Ontario Northland is the glue that holds the North together!”  This is the message and platform on which critics of the privatization of the ONTC are launching their campaign upon to save what has been called the 100-year-old staple of Ontario’s North.

The McGuinty government announced their intent to dismantle and privatize most of the crown corporation’s holdings last week during the provincial budget. The news was met with an immediate outcry of anger and confusion.

Brian Kelly and his fellow members of the Ontario Northland General Chairperson’s Association (ONGCA) mustered their strength and are ready to fight the Liberal government for every railroad tie and every metre of track.

“The government likes to comment a lot on how much money they spend, but they don’t like talking about how much money gets put back into the economy,” Kelly said.

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Budget provides leverage opportunity to save ONTC – by Ron Grech (Timmins Daily Press – April 1, 2012)

The Daily Press is the city of Timmins broadsheet newspaper.

If selling off the Ontario Northland Transportation Commission will hinder economic opportunities for this region as badly as we’re being told by local politicians, then our provincial representatives in the North need to do what they can to stop it.

That includes bringing down the Liberal government. Interestingly, that opportunity appeared just one day after Ontario Northern Development Minister Rick Bartolucci announced the province would be divesting itself of the ONTC.

It was that following day, Dalton McGuintry’s Liberal minority government presented its spring budget. Tim Hudak’s Progressive Conservatives have already indicated they are going to vote against it. If Andrea Horwath’s New Democrats follow suit, the Liberal government falls and the ONTC gains a reprieve.

Timmins-James Bay MPP Gilles Bisson told The Daily Press Friday his party’s preference would be to avoid forcing a provincial election just six months after the last one was held.

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Railway provided vital link for the North – by Karen Bachmann (Timmins Daily Press – March 30, 2012)

 The Daily Press is the city of Timmins broadsheet newspaper.

Karen Bachmann is the director/curator of the Timmins Museum and a local author.

HISTORY: More than one major mining discovery made while railroads were being build through Northern Ontario

In the past few years, we have been witness to some amazing changes in the field of mass transportation. The high-speed rail systems found in France can move people along the Paris-Lyon line at cruising speeds of 320 km/h hour. In Japan and Germany, the high-speed rail systems reach speeds of 300 km/h on regular routes.

The Airbus A380 (seating capacity 840) has forced airports around the world to renovate so that they can land the monstrosities (the aircraft amazingly measures seven stories high).

Cruise ships, on the other hand might as well be huge floating semi-independent countries. They are run just like small cities and have the same problems those cities face (3,400 people all sharing the same space).

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McGuinty needs a Leafs sweater [Northern Ontario alienation] – by Len Gillis (Timmins Times – March 29, 2012)

http://www.timminstimes.com/

Provincial Liberals need some intellectual Viagra

It is almost beyond comprehension how the Queen’s Park Liberals can consistently make decisions that are so clearly against the interests of Northern Ontario.

Over the years, Northerners have become accustomed to being ignored by southern politicians. As bad as that was, at least when the North was ignored, it meant we were being left alone.

It’s much worse now. Queen’s Park is imposing policies and changes on the North that defy reason. Things such as the changes to The Mining Act, The Far North Act and the Endangered Species Act fly in the face of reality. Some of it borders on junk science.

The decision announced last Friday that Queen’s Park is selling off Ontario Northland assets is another example of how that government is out of touch.

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Nothing for the North [Ontario] – by Mark Prior (Timmins Daily Press – March 27, 2012)

Northern leaders have little good to say about the provincial budget

Still stinging from the announcement that Ontario Northland will be axed, political leaders were hoping to hear some good news for the North in Tuesday’s provincial government. They didn’t get it. Timmins Mayor Tom Laughren wasn’t impressed with the latest budget.

“Personally, I’m very disappointed,” Laughren said. “There doesn’t appear to be anything in there to have an affect on the municipalities, but I look at it from a Northern Ontario perspective. “There is so much opportunity for growth and mining, yet the provincial government can’t get their act together to make that happen.”

Laughren expressed frustration. He doesn’t believe the government is taking advantage of opportunities available with resource-based industries. Plus, the North is still in shock with the recent decision to divest the Ontario Northland Transportation Commission.

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Timmins disappointed and angry at Premier Dalton McGuinty – by Len Gillis lgillis (Timmins Times – March 27, 2012)

 http://www.timminstimes.com/

City council lashes out in response to decision to sell Ontario Northland

Mayor Tom Laughren and several Timmins city councilors expressed dismay and disappointment Monday night with Premier Dalton McGuinty and senior ministers at Queen’s Park in light of the announcement last Friday that the Ontario Government plans to sell off the Ontario Northland Transportation Commission (ONTC).

Their anger comes in view of the fact that the mayor and several councilors were in Toronto just a few weeks ago to meet with the premier and several cabinet ministers at the annual meeting of the Ontario Good Roads Association.

That is one of the few times in the year when municipal councilors get face time with the Premier and the cabinet to discuss vital issues for the North.

“There was no hint at anytime in our meeting with Minister Bartolucci, or formerly Minister Gravelle, that anything like this was being considered,” Laughren told council Monday night.

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Solid Gold reports progress in [Wahgoshig First Nation] dispute – by Ron Grech (Timmins Daily Press – March 23, 2012)

The Daily Press is the city of Timmins broadsheet newspaper.

Some headway is being made in efforts to resolve a conflict between Solid Gold Resources Corporation and Wahgoshig First Nation.

“The government has made certain offers, which I won’t go into at the moment, to accommodate the First Nation,” Darryl Stretch, president of Solid Gold, told The Daily Press Thursday. “The very fact that the government has made some offer of accommodation inspires me just a little, tiny bit. Because it’s always been our position that the government must stand between us and the (First Nation) government.”

Stretch said all along, regional First Nation leaders have been asserting their communities are led by an autonomous government.

If that is to be the case, Stretch added, “then I don’t quite understand why my government would be insisting I go and enter agreement with their government. It just doesn’t make sense.”

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Bisson fears ONR will derail – by Kyle Gennings (Timmins Daily Press – March 6, 2012)

 The Daily Press is the city of Timmins broadsheet newspaper.

Drummond Report calls for privatization

Since 1902, the Ontario Northland Railway has been providing transportation, supplies and a life link to the countless communities that dot the Northern reaches of the province.

Recently, the government commissioned a report to assess the provincial deficit, make suggestions for cost cutting and provide a five-year fiscal plan. The result was the Drummond Report.

The report raises a number of issues for Timmins-James Bay MPP Gilles Bisson, the most prominent being the future of Ontario Northland.

“The problem is that when the government commissioned Drummond to make his report, they essentially said to him, ‘you can only look at the expenditures side of the budget sheet, you cannot look at the revenue side,’” he said. “How do you balance a budget a if you don’t look at the revenue side?”

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