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One process for miners – by Perrin Beatty (National Post – April 17, 2012)

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

Perrin Beatty is president and chief executive of the Canadian Chamber of Commerce.

Cuts to government jobs may command the headlines, but the most significant item in the federal budget was the long-overdue decision to clean up Canada’s inefficient regulatory oversight of natural resource projects.
 
For the natural resource industries, last week’s budget was, very simply, the most significant policy change in decades. Canada has identified a chronic competitive weakness and is moving to fix it. At the Canadian Chamber of Commerce, where we have identified regulatory inefficiency as one of the top 10 barriers to Canadian competitiveness, we welcome this move.
 
Currently, a whole crowd of federal agencies is involved in assessing a project. Because Parliament has established independent processes under different statutes — the Fisheries Act, the Species at Risk Act, the Navigable Waters Act, the Migratory Birds Convention Act, to name a few — there is little effective co-ordination. Every review must be carried out to ensure the legality of a licence. Each can require slightly different information, and proceed on different time frames.

This regulatory “scrum” frustrates both project proponents and the officials who have to administer it. Even once they have emerged with a federal permit, project proponents aren’t finished.

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Ottawa to unveil sweeping changes to [resource development] environmental oversight – by Shawn McCarthy and John Ibbitson (Globe and Mail – April 17, 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.

OTTAWA – The Harper government is about to dramatically shrink the federal oversight of proposed natural resource developments, handing over environmental reviews for many projects to the provinces and cutting back the number of smaller construction projects that are subject to any environmental assessment.

Natural Resources Minister Joe Oliver is expected to unveil a sweeping legislative plan on Tuesday that will focus Ottawa’s role in environmental assessments to projects it deems to be of national significance.
 
Since taking office as a rookie minister last summer, Mr. Oliver has promised to streamline and overhaul Ottawa’s environmental assessment process, which the government insists is too cumbersome, duplicative and subject to tactical delaying efforts by environmental groups who are determined to block development.

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Russians follow Chinese into Canada’s oil patch – by Claudia Cattaneo (National Post – April 17, 2012)

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

Another superpower, Russia, has bought a piece of Canada’s oil patch, making Alberta the meeting point for all the world’s top power brokers and the focus of a new oil age based on technological advancements.
 
Russia’s largest oil firm, Rosneft, purchased a stake in the hot Cardium tight oil play as part of a landmark alliance with Exxon Mobil Corp. announced Monday.
 
The Russian giant joins China’s top oil companies, the top U.S. oil companies and the top European oil companies in establishing a Canadian presence. All are producing or learning to produce oil and gas from technologically challenging unconventional plays — from tight oil, to shale gas, to the oil sands.
 
Under the deal, RN Cardium Oil Inc., a Rosneft subsidiary, is acquiring 30% of Exxon Mobil’s stake in the Harmattan acreage. Exxon Mobil holds 56,000 acres in the play, which is operated by its Canadian affiliate, Imperial Oil Ltd. Rosneft subsidiaries also gained 30% stakes in ExxonMobil projects in West Texas and the U.S. Gulf of Mexico.

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Honourable Prime Minister Stephen Harper delivers [resource sector] remarks at Business Summit on the margins of the Summit of the Americas (April 14, 2012 – Catagena, Columbia)

“Resource development has vast power to change the way a nation lives….Our
natural resource sector is of vital importance in ensuring solid job creation
and economic growth in Canada….The mining industry in Canada is capital-
intensive, high-tech and knowledge-based, and it produces well-paying jobs
for more than 300,000 Canadians.”
Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper – April 14, 2012

Honourable Prime Minister Stephen Harper Speech

Thank you very much. Ladies and gentlemen, resource development has vast power to change the way a nation lives. It is also something which is tremendously responsive to the actions of government.

Today I want to talk to you briefly about how to maximize the value of this great industry for a country and its people. I will focus on three things.

First, what resource development means to Canada’s economy, what government actions have worked for Canada, and finally, our country’s recently announced regulatory reforms. First, just as background.

Canada is right now one of the few strongly recovering, growth-oriented, developed economies. The relative strength of the Canadian economy has been shown through the recent worldwide recession and nascent recovery.

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Haileybury School of Mines marks 100th anniversary – by Liz Cowan (Northern Ontario Business – April 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.

International reputation

When Richard Spence was a young adult searching for the next step in his life, the Haileybury School of Mines was the answer.
 
“After high school, I wasn’t sure what I wanted to do,” he said. “My dad picked up a hitchhiker who was attending the school and he raved about it. So I called the guy and ended up here in 1966.”
 
The school celebrates its 100th anniversary this year with a weekend of activities and events from June 15 to 17. For former students like Spence, who currently lives in New Liskeard, the school prepared them well for a life-long career in the mining industry.
 
“I was originally from Thunder Bay and then spent my teenage years in southern Ontario,” he said. “I know I wanted to go back to school and come back North.” Although there were no girls attending the school at that time, Spence said he “became a statistic” when he fell for a local girl and ended up staying in the area.

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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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Hungry miners covet Yukon’s pristine Peel watershed wilderness – by Paul Watson (Toronto Star – April 16, 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.

VANCOUVER—A mining boom that has turned Canada’s North into the country’s fastest growing economy is threatening a vast stretch of the Yukon that is one of the continent’s last unspoiled wildernesses.
 
Central Yukon’s Peel River watershed, a pristine region almost as big as New Brunswick, is just one of the natural treasures coveted by mining and oil and natural gas companies riding surging global commodity prices.
 
Demand for the mineral resources of the Yukon, the Northwest Territories and Nunavut is so strong, the Conference Board of Canada expects their economies to grow by an average 7 per cent in 2012 and 2013, “easily outpacing the Canadian average.”
 
The hunger for resources from rapidly developing countries such as China and India are combining with a warming climate and new technology to draw mining, oil and natural gas companies farther north.
 
That trend isn’t going to be short-lived, predicts the Conference Board, a privately funded economic and policy research agency.

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Iamgold’s growing investment in Burkina Faso – by Geoffrey York (Globe and Mail – April 14, 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.

ESSAKANE, BURKINA FASO – This is a dangerous land. Just across the border are the Sahara wastes where Islamist terrorists and separatist rebels roam free. Inside the country are gangs of bandits and the occasional violent riot by drunken soldiers.

Yet it’s also a land where Canadian miners are eagerly investing hundreds of millions of dollars. The gold belt of northern Burkina Faso, like other regions of West Africa, has emerged as a new favourite haunt for Canadian mining companies, despite a vast array of security risks.

Less than four years after its arrival, Toronto-based Iamgold Corp. (IMG-T12.55-0.13-1.03%) has become the biggest private employer in Burkina Faso with 2,200 employees. It plans to invest a further $600-million over the next three years to expand its mine and double its processing capacity.

Like many other Canadian investors, the company sees its future in West Africa’s fast-growing mining sector, rather than in the older mines of South Africa, even though the South African industry is still bigger.

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Innovate or die: How Canada is courting long-term failure [with resource development] – by Richard Poplak (Globe and Mail – April 14, 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.

Richard Poplak is a Canadian writer currently based in Africa.

For policy wonks, this season’s equivalent of tween thriller The Hunger Games is a book called Why Nations Fail: The Origins of Power, Prosperity and Poverty. The pundits are giddy about its mixture of deep historical context and forehead-slapping common sense. Authors Daron Acemoglu and James A. Robinson, economists by day, insist that functional political institutions lead to successful economic institutions, and not the other way around.

Antagonizing libertarians, geographical determinists and the Ottawa chapter of Atlas Shrugs Rulz! alike, the authors claim that any smart economic policy will necessarily arise from an inclusive political system, where all is governed by rule of law, property rights are protected and hard work is rewarded by a paycheque subsequently taxed.

So far, a gold star for Canada (and a dunce cap for China) – until we slam into the following statement: “Sustained economic growth requires innovation, and innovation cannot be decoupled from creative destruction, which replaces the old with the new in the economic realm and also destabilizes established power relations in politics.”

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First Nations children send distressing letter to addicted parents – by Heather Scoffield (Toronto Star – April 16, 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 Canadian Press

CAT LAKE, ONT.—Item 9 in the letter to members of the Cat Lake reserve from the children in Grade 6 is as blunt as it is painful.
 
“It hurts us and shoomis and kokum (grandpa and grandma) when you’re doing drugs and you’re not at home.” Cat Lake is the epicentre of prescription drug addiction in Canada. Community leaders believe between 70 and 80 per cent of the adults are hooked on oxycodone-based pain killers like OxyContin or Percocets.
 
Governments and local health authorities are slowly gearing up to deal with the runaway addiction that has slammed communities across the country, but especially First Nations. But the help can’t come quickly enough for the children of Cat Lake.
 
“We feel that we don’t know what to do to help you stop doing Drug,” the children wrote as “Point Number Five.” “We want you to stop because it hurts our family and we don’t like it when we’re angry,” according to their fourth item.
 
The children in this corner of northwestern Ontario, 400 kilometres north of Thunder Bay, put together the list over a few days in a workshop with the help of a local band member.

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Students: North America’s latest mining boom – by Julie Gordon (Mineweb.com – April 16, 2012)

www.mineweb.com

With skilled labour in severely short supply, mining companies are paying over the odds for new skills and students are flooding to mining schools in a bid to get a piece of the action.

(Reuters)  –  When Travis Howard started his degree at the Colorado School of Mines four years ago he decided to pursue a double major in mechanical engineering and metallurgy to give himself the best chance of landing a high-paying job when he graduated.
 
Turns out he had nothing to worry about. The 21-year-old, who dropped his mechanical classes to focus on mining after his second year, has accepted a job with Kinross Gold Corp at a starting salary of $64,000 a year plus bonuses.
 
With graduation still a month away, “pretty much everyone is sitting on an offer or two,” said Howard of his classmates, adding that some students were juggling four or five offers.
 
In fact, students at the Colorado School of Mines are some of the most employable in the country – 94 percent of 2011 graduates from the mining engineering, metallurgy and materials, geological engineering, and geophysics programs have jobs.

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Mining the Treasure Trove (Ring of Fire): Excerpt from Northern Ontario: Introducing the Unknown Country – Michael Barnes

Michael Barnes is the author of more than fifty books about characters, communities, mining, and police work. He is a Member of the Order of Canada and makes his home in Haliburton, Ontario, Canada. While living in Northern Ontario most of his life, he has come to know and admire those who make their living in the mining industry.

To order a copy of “Fortunes Found – Canadian Mining Success” go to: General Store Publishing House

Mining the Treasure Trove (Ring of Fire) Excerpt

Geologists have two theories as to the origins of the metals that are driving the push to access the potential bounty of the Ring of Fire deposits. The area it covers may well be bigger than the Sudbury Basin. One theory has it that the volcanics in the great arc were there first and then the granite intruded, bringing up host rocks for the minerals.

The other is connected with Continental Drift during the earth’s early history. In this line of thought, two separate subcontinents collided, and between the faulted contact between the two, mineral plumes brought up the minerals. More drilling in the granite should eventually settle the matter.

In the meantime, the rare mix of metals waiting for harvest has excited more interest than any other mining boom in Canada in decades. One estimate of the value of the chromium alone currently known to be present is set at $30 billion. As diamond drills continue to define the different ore bodies, and geologists ponder each metre of core brought to surface, there is much debate as to how mining will be done and the way it will be brought to market. (Continued after video)

In 2010, the Prospectors and Developers Association of Canada awarded the discoverers of the Ontario Ring of Fire mining camp – Richard E. Nemis, John D. Harvey, Mac Watson,  Donald Hoy, Neil D. Novak – the Prospectors of the Year Award. The above video highlights the most significant Canadian mineral discovery in almost a century.  

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Stephen Harper says resource development has power to change a nation – by Mark Kennedy (Postmedia News – April 14, 2012)

http://www.canada.com/news/index.html

CARTAGENA – Prime Minister Stephen Harper made a pitch for Canada’s mining industry Saturday, as a summit of Western Hemisphere leaders was overshadowed by bomb blasts and an incident reportedly involving prostitutes that led to a dozen of U.S. President Barack Obama’s Secret Service agents being relieved of duty.

The weekend Summit of the Americas kicked off Saturday. It is being attended by leaders from more than 30 nations, including Canada. But before the summit, which is held every three years could even start, two separate security incidents occurred that marred the occasion.

On Friday, there were two bomb blasts in the seaside resort town of Cartagena, where thousands of security police have been hired to prevent terrorist attacks. No one was hurt. Also Friday, Obama’s security detail – the renowned Secret Service – was embarrassed when it was announced that some of its agents travelling with the president were relieved of duty and replaced.

A spokesman for the agency said there had been “allegations of misconduct” made against the agents, who went to Colombia prior to Obama’s arrival for the summit.

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Free, prior and informed consent for certainty, prosperity [resource development and First Nations] – by Shane Maffat (Greenpeace Blogpost – April 13, 2012)

http://www.greenpeace.org/canada/en/

A lot of effort has been made, by Minister of Natural Resources Joe Oliver and others, to portray the principle of free, prior and informed consent (FPIC) for industrial development in traditional Indigenous territories as somehow obstructionist, an impediment to “progress”. This is as intentional as it is disingenuous.

Enshrined in the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, which Canada has formally endorsed, the principle arose from a shared experience of Indigenous communities around the world whereby “consultations” have almost exclusively constituted a rubber stamp for unfettered resource exploitation to benefit a wealthy few and large corporations. The broader global context, Greenpeace and others would argue, is one of environmental, economic and social unsustainability which has in great part been caused by the heedless exploitation of lands where Indigenous peoples have been ignored, and their authority eroded.

How to address the recurring phenomenon of rubber stamp consultations, which has, and continues, to produce such negative results for people and planet alike? After more than two decades of multilateral negotiations between Indigenous peoples (including many of Canada’s own Indigenous leaders), UN member-states, observers from UN organs and specialized agencies, the finely balanced principle we now know as FPIC has emerged as the internationally recognized minimum human rights standard for solving the conundrum.

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Rising Arctic temps heating up mining-related economic development – by Dorothy Kosich (Mineweb.com April 13, 2012)

www.mineweb.com

The reduction in Arctic sea ice could open up access to mineral wealth, bringing with it unique risks and challenges, says Lloyds/Chatham House latest Risk Insight report.

RENO (MINEWEB) – The Arctic climate is changing more rapidly than anywhere else on earth, and the reduction in sea ice could increase access to mineral wealth and open up potential new ice-free shipping routes.
 
“Oil and gas, mining and the shipping industries will be the biggest drivers and beneficiaries of Arctic economic development,” says the report. “Based on current trends, expected investment in the Arctic could reach $100bn or more over the next decade. However, given the high risk/potentially high reward nature of Arctic investment, this figure could be significantly higher or lower.”
 
Three key factors are sharpening interest in the Arctic’s mineral resources; –Feasibility: Technological improvements mean that many more resource projects are technically feasible and commercially viable while geological risks can be better managed.
 
–Commercial attractiveness: High commodity prices, coupled with uncertainty about access to resources elsewhere in the world, make a far wider range of potential Arctic projects attractive to investors.

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