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NEWS RELEASE: Plea Bargain in Vale Mine Deaths Betrays Workers, Families

http://www.usw.ca/

17 SEPTEMBER 2013 – SUDBURY – A plea bargain dropping the majority of Occupational Health and Safety Act charges against mining giant Vale in the deaths of two miners is another betrayal of Ontario workers and their families, the United Steelworkers (USW) says.

“Today’s decision highlights our government’s failure to take comprehensive, meaningful action to better protect workers and to ensure justice for families whose loved ones are needlessly injured or killed on the job,” said Rick Bertrand, President of USW Local 6500, representing 2,600 mining workers in Sudbury.

“Damning evidence was uncovered that showed the deaths of Jason Chenier and Jordan Fram, like so many other injuries and fatalities in Ontario mines, were preventable,” Bertrand said.

“Yet our government has refused to pursue the possibility of a criminal prosecution and rejected a public inquiry into mining safety. We’re left with a plea-bargain deal in which our government drops most of the health and safety charges in exchange for a fine against one of the largest corporations in the world.”

The plea-bargain agreement, negotiated between the Ministry of Labour and Vale, was accepted in the Ontario Court of Justice today.

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‘Price of Gold’: Mining in Mongolia [Documentary] – by Cynthia Fuchs (Pop Matters.com – September 17, 2013)

http://www.popmatters.com/

I Think It’s Like a Human Life

“Everything is difficult.” As she speaks, Aagi bends over a cook fire, preparing supper for a crew of gold prospectors. “I’m the only woman and have to cook for many men,” she goes on, “This is a tough situation, I think. I’ve never cooked so much.”

Cooking isn’t the only difficulty Aagi faces. As revealed in the film Price of Gold, the current excursion employing her doesn’t have a schedule or even a specific goal so much as it has hope. Or, as the gold digger Khuyagaa puts it, the workers have dreams, dreams that come with a price. ““They say dreams cost nothing,” he says in voiceover as you look out on what seems the endless Gobi Desert in Mongolia “But today, you have to pay for your dreams. I think first you have to find the money, to make our dreams come true.” The frame cut to a close shot of Khuyagaa as he draws on his cigarette, backed by a pile of dirt and rocks, the result of his labor, the earth turned inside out.

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Ottawa to step up support for mining – by Steven Chase (Globe and Mail – September 18, 2013)

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.

OTTAWA — The Canadian government is readying a campaign to promote this country’s mining sector abroad, an effort that will draw on Ottawa’s power and global network of diplomatic missions to help companies expand their exploration and extraction activity around the world.

It’s the latest step in the Harper Conservatives’ efforts to redirect foreign affairs, international development and trade spending so it’s more targeted to core economic interests. In recent years, Ottawa has jointly funded development projects in Africa and South America with large mining corporations.

International Trade Minister Ed Fast will launch cross-country consultations Wednesday to get feedback as he draws up an agenda on what support it should offer to Canadian mining firms. The effort is billed as helping the extractive sector, which also includes oil and gas companies, but is almost wholly focused on mining.

The timing is no coincidence. The Harper government, which is warming up its campaign machine for an expected 2015 election, is looking for ways to contrast itself with opposition party leaders Justin Trudeau and Thomas Mulcair.

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Oliver targets U.S. coal dependence as oil sands controversy builds – by Shawn McCarthy (Globe and Mail – September 18, 2013)

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.

OTTAWA — Natural Resources Minister Joe Oliver has moved from defence to offence, deflecting environmental criticism of Canada’s oil sands by turning the spotlight on the U.S.’s emission-intensive coal-fired power sector.

In a Tuesday speech to a high-profile energy conference in New York City, Mr. Oliver sought to minimize the environmental impact of the proposed Keystone XL pipeline and said burning coal to generate electricity represents the world’s biggest climate threat.

The Conservative government faces intense criticism over the Keystone project from U.S. environmentalists, including actor Robert Redford, who released a video this week in which he claimed the pipeline would spur production of the “world’s dirtiest oil” in Alberta.

At the same time, U.S. President Barack Obama is due to release this week long-anticipated draft regulations for the U.S. power sector that critics are decrying as a “war on coal.” The administration is bracing for a political fight in traditionally Democratic coal states such as Pennsylvania, West Virginia and Ohio. The U.S. relies on coal for 41 per cent of its electricity, although that share has been decreasing with the advent of cheap shale gas.

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Concerns of Northern [Ontario] cities outlined to province – by Benjamin Aubé (Timmins Daily Press – September 18, 2013)

The Daily Press is the city of Timmins broadsheet newspaper.

TIMMINS – Like the black flies of spring or the relentless nights of winter, leaders in Northern Ontario are making it clear to the government they’re not going anywhere soon.

Timmins Mayor Tom Laughren was among the five Northern Ontario Large Urban Mayors (NOLUM) who met with eight provincial Liberal ministers at the Association of Municipalities of Ontario meeting in late-August.

At that meeting, the five NOLUM leaders – representing Timmins, Sudbury, North Bay, Sault Ste. Marie and Thunder Bay – presented a document titled Linking Municipalities and the Growth Plan for Northern Ontario.

Laughren hailed it as “historic” in its depth, explaining it outlines six distinct focal points Northern Ontario representatives will be pressuring the government on over the coming years.

“Anything we put in here was related to the Growth Plan, and it’s our ideas to how the government can push the Growth Plan forward that we believe that provide a benefit not only to those five communities, but of all Northern Ontario,” said Laughren at Monday’s city council meeting.

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Goldcorp chairman Ian Telfer eyes OSC settlement – by Barbara Shecter (National Post – September 18, 2013)

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

One of Canada’s best-known mining executives, Goldcorp Inc. chairman Ian Telfer, is seeking to settle allegations brought against him by the Ontario Securities Commission. Mr. Telfer was not accused of insider tipping or trading. Instead, the OSC alleged that he acted “contrary to the public interest” by helping an old friend, the executive assistant to the chairman of GMP Securities LP, disguise her scheme.

The case against Eda Marie Agueci and eight others is scheduled to begin at the OSC’s headquarters in Toronto on Sept. 30. Ms. Agueci is described by the OSC in a statement of allegations last year as the “central figure” in the scheme.

None of the allegations have been proven. In a brief statement Tuesday, Canada’s biggest capital markets regulator said it has set aside time on Friday morning “to consider whether it is in the public interest to approve a settlement agreement entered into by Staff of the Commission and Ian Telfer.”

In the statement of allegations last year, the OSC alleged that Mr. Telfer advised Ms. Agueci to communicate using her BlackBerry’s PIN-based messaging service to keep her activities secret from GMP.

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Once an economic mainstay, Alberta’s natural gas now struggling to find markets – by Claudia Cattaneo (National Post – September 18, 2013)

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

Barely a dozen years ago, Alberta was producing so much natural gas the resource was the mainstay of the provincial economy and a big reason Canada was the second-largest natural gas exporter on the planet.

Today, Alberta gas is dirt cheap and is struggling to find a home, pushed to the sidelines by shale gas discoveries in the United States and competition from British Columbia. Even emerging opportunities to export gas in liquid form from the West Coast could elude Alberta gas for years, as projects first draw from gas resources in British Columbia’s immense shale plays.

“There are no easy answers for the Alberta gas producers,” Peter Howard, president and CEO of the Calgary-based Canadian Energy Research Institute, said in an interview. “The next several years are going to be challenging.”

While the oil sands, heavy oil and shale oil have moved to the forefront of Alberta’s resource economy, the question of what to do with Alberta’s estimated 3,400 trillion cubic feet of natural gas resource has prompted provincial politicians to look for new uses, such as increasing demand in the province and promoting access to LNG terminals on the West Coast.

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Specialize or risk losing funding, Ontario tells universities and colleges – by James Bradshaw (Globe and Mail – September 18, 2013)

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.

Ontario’s government has taken its boldest step yet to compel universities and colleges to make hard choices about how they spend their resources, circulating a draft policy designed to stretch limited provincial dollars by narrowing some schools’ missions.

The draft framework for greater “differentiation” between schools was sent to higher-education leaders for feedback on Tuesday, marked “Confidential” but obtained by The Globe and Mail. After spending a decade investing in massive enrolment growth, the government is trying to climb out of a record deficit, and the paper argues that, without change, “Over time the sustainability of postsecondary education may be at risk.”

The paper sets the province and its schools on course for tricky negotiations, which could kick off before 2013 ends and drive some difficult shifts in priorities. Universities are ultimately free to set their own course, but where the province disagrees with a school’s direction, it can steer behaviour with levers such as funding, allocating extra student spaces and approvals for new programs.

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Familes of Sudbury miners speak of loss – by Jonathan Migneault (Sudbury Star – September 18, 2013)

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

After his younger brother Jordan Fram was killed in a was killed in a run of muck in the Stobie Mine in 2011, Jesse Fram continued to call his phone for months, just so he could hear Jordan’s voice when he was prompted to leave a message.

Fram was amongst several family members who gave emotional victim impact statements in a Greater Sudbury courtroom Tuesday.

Jordan’s employer, Vale Canada Limited, pleaded guilty to three charges under the Ontario Occupational Health and Safety Act in relation to the events that lead to his death.

The last time Wendy Fram spoke to her youngest son, she told him to be safe before he left for work. That night, on June 8, 2011, Jordan Fram, 26, and Jason Chenier, 35, were crushed by 350 tons of muck at the 3,000-foot level of the Stobie Mine.

Vale was fined $350,000 for each of the three counts, which were related to a failure to take reasonable precautions to prevent water accumulation in the mine. That failure caused the run of muck that killed Fram and Chenier. The total fine of $1.050 million was the largest ever awarded in Ontario for a health and safety prosecution.

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Vale fined $1.050 million in Stobie miners’ deaths – by Jonathan Migneault (Sudbury Star – September 18, 2013)

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

Vale Canada Limited pleaded guilty Tuesday of three charges under the Ontario Occupational Health and Safety Act tied to the deaths of two Stobie Mine employees in 2011.

The company was fined $350,000 for each of the three counts, which were related to a failure to take reasonable precautions to prevent water accumulation in the mine, which caused a deadly run of muck.

According to Crown attorney Wes Wilson, the total fine of $1.050 million is the largest ever awarded in Ontario for a health and safety prosecution. “Nothing approaching this amount has been awarded in occupational health and safety prosecution ever before in this province,” Wilson said.

The largest fine under the Ontario Occupational Health and Safety Act before today’s decision, he said, was $650,000. Crown prosecutor Dave McCaskill added he has not found a single Canadian incident that has exceeded the Vale fine. “This may set a national precedent,” he said.

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Use it or lose it, miners warned by Coalition – by David Crowe (The Australian – September 18, 2013)

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/

RESOURCE giants will be told to step up their spending on mammoth new projects or risk losing their rights to tap the deposits, under an Abbott government plan to accelerate investment and kill off fears of an end to the boom.

The incoming government aims to use its power over the vast gas deposits to bring forward up to $180 billion in new investment, sending a blunt message to companies to develop rather than hoard the nation’s resources.

As Tony Abbott and his ministers prepare to be sworn into office today, the resource plan marks another stage in an economic agenda that promises to lift growth, but will depend on stronger business investment to deliver results.

The policy is also set to reignite debate on the cost burdens – including high salaries – that global companies blame for stalling Australian projects and diverting their investments into cheaper projects in Africa and Asia.

Incoming industry minister Ian Macfarlane told The Australian that companies should extract “every molecule” of gas to boost exports and supply the domestic market.

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REFILE-Anglo departure not the end of Alaska’s Pebble mine, locals say – by Yereth Rosen (Reuters U.S. – September 17, 2013)

http://www.reuters.com/

(Reuters) – Supporters and opponents of a giant mine to tap Alaska’s gold and copper wealth have found a rare point of agreement: The Pebble project remains alive even without its heavyweight financial backer.

Anglo American, the global mining group that partnered with Canada’s Northern Dynasty Minerals Ltd in 2007 to develop Pebble, said on Monday it was pulling out, less than two month after promising shareholders it would cut costs and halve its $17 billion pipeline of potential mines.

Anglo’s departure dealt a sharp blow to the ambitious plan to build an open-pit mine in Alaska’s unspoiled Bristol Bay region, at a time when investors are increasingly cautious about plowing cash into building expensive new mines.

But the hiccups aren’t stopping Northern Dynasty. It sees plenty of opportunity to push ahead on the project, which is expected to produce some 1 million tonnes of copper concentrate a year, on its own or with a new partner.

“This is a huge asset – a huge, valuable asset for the State of Alaska,” said Ron Thiessen, Northern Dynasty’s chief executive, who added that he remains very confident the mine will be built within the next 10 years.

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What’s good for BHP is good for us all – by Terry McCrann (The Australian – August 24, 2013)

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/

THE world’s biggest resources company is Australia’s BHP Billiton. BHP is also, in a sense, Australia’s General Motors.

That’s the 21st-century Down Under equivalent of GM when it was the world’s biggest company; so that today, Down Under, what’s good for BHP is good for Australia. This means at its simplest that if BHP is doing well, so also will be the country more broadly.

BHP’s profit showed that the company was doing pretty well, if not quite so wonderfully as two years ago. That pretty much captured the broader economic state of play: a glass at least half-full. At a deeper level, the aphorism takes on a darker, more challenging message. That what BHP needs to do well is also precisely mirrored in what the nation overall needs to do well.

The darker emphasis comes in the clear message from BHP that it is not getting what it needs to do well; the logical inference is that the nation is therefore also not getting what it needs to do well.

There is one huge difference between BHP and the nation. If the company is not getting what it needs here, it can go somewhere else. It is doing exactly that. The one big greenfields project it has on its radar is potash. In Canada. BHP will also continue to spend $3 billion to $4bn a year on shale oil and gas. In the US.

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Vale fined $1M in Sudbury miners’ deaths – CBC News Sudbury (September 17, 2013)

http://www.cbc.ca/sudbury/

Vale Canada Ltd. fined $1,050,00 after 2 workers fatally injured in 2011

Mining giant Vale Canada has been fined more than $1 million in connection with a double fatality in 2011 in which miners were buried in a torrent of mud. Jason Chenier and Jordan Fram were killed when wet mud and ore flooded the tunnel where they were working at Vale’s Stobie Mine in Sudbury, Ont., on June 8, 2011.

Chenier and Fram were working in an ore pass at the 3000 foot level, transferring broken rock and ore upwards when there was a sudden release of muck, sand and water. The run of muck came through a transfer gate, burying one working and hitting another causing massive crush injuries.

The Ministry of Labour laid charges under the Occupational Health and Safety Act in the accident after finding there had been a blockage of wet muck in the ore pass. It also said Vale had failed to deal with earlier water issues in the mine. The company was fined $1,050,000, the highest fine ever given under the health and safety act, by an Ontario court.

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Guest post: more super, less cycle for commodities prices – by Paul Bloxham (Financial Times – September 17, 2013)

http://www.ft.com/home/us

http://blogs.ft.com/beyond-brics/

Paul Bloxham is HSBC’s chief economist for Australia and New Zealand

Commodity prices have been broadly steady over the past year. This is despite China’s slowdown, fears of Federal Reserve tapering and nervousness about the emerging economies. Indeed, commodity prices are still over 120 per cent above their 1990s levels, in inflation-adjusted terms. This may have surprised some observers, particularly those expecting the end of the so-called commodities super-cycle and forecasting large commodity price declines. So far, it has not happened.

For some time now, our view has been that commodity prices will stay at much higher levels than in the late 20th century. While we expect strong mining investment to boost supply in coming years and keep commodity prices below their 2008 peak levels,we still think prices will stay structurally high. In short, the so-called super-cycle may be more super and less cycle.

Two elements drive our commodity prices outlook, the first empirical, the second theoretical. Empirically, history shows us that commodity prices are not in fact exceptionally high right now. Rather, they were exceptionally low in the 1980s and 1990s. Data for the past 150 years reveal that real commodity prices are actually currently around their long run average levels.

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