Republic of Mining

Sarnia rallies against asbestos – Katie Daubs (Toronto star – October 1, 2011)

October 1, 2011

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.

SARNIA—Chantale De Paepe is getting married this Saturday. Her day is packed with hair, makeup, and a memorial asbestos walk. Her dad, Vince, died of mesothelioma this summer.

“Here in Toronto, people are like, ‘What’s that? I’ve never heard of it,” the 28-year-old said. But the rare form of cancer is well known in Sarnia, where De Paepe is from.

For decades, the small city has been synonymous with chemical production and oil refineries, with a concentration of companies doing business in an area dubbed “Chemical Valley” by locals. In the 1950s, ’60s and ’70s, the pipes that snaked through the valley were insulated with asbestos.

In the last decade, an alarming number of men and women in the area have died of asbestos-related cancers, which have latency periods of 20 to 40 years. Since 1999, 105 people with mesothelioma have come through the local Occupational Health Clinic for Ontario Workers. Only two are still alive.

PDAC NEWS RELEASE: Human Resources Issues Threaten Canada’s Mineral Exploration Supremacy

September 30, 2011

For Immediate Release

Sept. 30, 2011

To read the complete report click here: Unearthing Possibilities

Canada’s position as the global leader in mineral exploration is at risk because of a human resources triple threat, according to a study released today by the Prospectors and Developers Association of Canada (PDAC) and the Mining Industry Human Resources (MiHR) Council.

Unearthing Possibilities: Human Resources Challenges and Opportunities in the Canadian Mineral Exploration Sector says Canada’s mineral exploration industry faces challenges on three critical fronts: a lack of awareness about the exploration sector and its many related career opportunities; a thinning labour pool that is affecting companies’ recruitment efforts; and attrition that sees many versatile, multi-skilled professionals leave the sector in mid-career.

“The worldwide demand for skilled labour in this sector is constantly increasing and driving up the cost of human resources,” says Dr. Scott Jobin-Bevans, PDAC president. “We have to work harder to attract more Canadians to this industry.”

In an increasingly globalized economy that prizes highly educated, multi-skilled workers, Canada will continue to lose mineral exploration professionals and its decades-long number one ranking in mineral exploration may quickly change.

Foreign interests attack oil sands – by Diane Francis (National Post – September 24, 2011)

September 30, 2011

The National Post is Canada’s second largest national paper

I believe foreign countries are behind some of the noise and mischief in the United States to try to shut down Canada’s oil sands and block construction of the proposed pipeline to bring 700,000 more barrels day to Texas refineries.

The new global reality, since the UN Copenhagen failure to come to any workable agreement to reduce pollution or population worldwide, is that powerful, transnational nonstate players are roaming the world, in the environmental space, replacing smaller and local activists. They are run by faceless persons, they cross borders, they have planetary mandates to attack fossil fuel or any energy development and are armed with funds, media smarts and political influence. They prey on countries where there is an open and transparent system of environmental management even though they often are not transparent themselves in terms of their backers, financing sources and agenda.

They swarm around chosen causes and one of their biggest targets has been Canada’s oil sands. This has made no sense because emissions from the oil sands are a fraction of the emissions from coal and equivalent to California heavy crude oils or ethanol. None of these has been getting the same attention as the oil sands and this pipeline.

But here’s one example of the transnational environmentalism:

Saudi oil’s Ethical Warfare – by Claudia Cattaneo (National Post – September 21, 2011)

September 30, 2011

The National Post is Canada’s second largest national paper

CALGARY . Is Saudi Arabia losing its cool over Canada’s growing oil sands? It certainly seems that way, based on the Middle East kingdom’s bizarre overreaction to television commercials that promote Canada’s “ethical oil,” in contrast to oil coming from Saudi Arabia, a regime that oppresses women.

The commercials are sponsored by a tiny grassroots organization based in Toronto, EthicalOil.org, which encourages consumers to favour “ethical” oil from Canada over “conflict” oil that comes from undemocratic regimes, where most of the world’s oil reserves are located.

EthicalOil.org ran the commercials on the Oprah Winfrey Network in Canada in late August. The Saudis responded by hiring lawyers to tell the Television Bureau of Canada, the advertising review and clearance service funded by Canada’s private broadcasters, to withdraw approval of the ads.

The group was so outraged by the Saudis’ “intimidation tactics” it started running the commercials again this week on the Sun News Network and was planning to run them on CTV, until the network backed out, said Alykhan Velshi, executive director of EthicalOil.org.

Let’s talk, miner tells KI – by Bryan Meadows (Thunder Bay Chronicle-Journal – September 30, 2011)

September 30, 2011

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

A junior exploration company that Kitchenuhmaykoosib Inninuwug (KI) First Nation is trying to kick off its traditional territory says its attempts to consult with the band have been met with silence.

God’s Lake Resources CEO Ed Ludwig said Thursday that the company has tried to meet with the band, without success, about the existence of sacred burial sites near where the company is exploring for gold in the Sherman Lake area.

“We were told about (the potential of grave sites in the area) and have asked the chief and elders to locate them,” said Ludwig, adding that the province has made the same request.

“We’ve asked that they please come and show us . . . we want to show the proper respect.

“I want to respect that avenue and develop a boundary, but when questioned about where there might be grave sites, the band has provided no response,” he said.

Barrick Gold’s Tanzanian headache: Blood and Stone – by Geoffrey York (Globe and Mail – Report on Business Magazine – October, 2011)

September 29, 2011

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.

Across the cavernous pits and the mountains of waste rock, the alarm wails eerily, warning that an explosion is imminent. Dozens of villagers gather silently at the edge of a pit, past the holes that have been torn in the fence, waiting for their chance.

Then comes the blast. As a plume of smoke curls into the sky, the scavengers scramble into the pit, eager to prise a living from the freshly smashed rock.

Suddenly the police appear, careering over the rocky road from another corner of the vast mine. The pickup truck full of armed men in green uniforms bounces across the wasteland like a scene from Mad Max. The truck hurtles toward the scavengers, but is halted by a boulder that they have pulled across its path. By the time the police can leap down and move the boulder, the scavengers have scattered into the nearby trees, where they wait for their next opportunity.

This is the daily ritual of conflict at the North Mara gold mine in Tanzania: Intrude and retreat, pursue and withdraw—punctuated by flare-ups that sometimes leave people dead.

For an eyewitness, it’s difficult to reconcile this cycle of violence with the avowed community-friendly policies of the mine’s parent company, Barrick Gold Corp. and the professed goal of its founder, Peter Munk, of making good corporate citizenship the “calling card that precedes us wherever we go.”

BHP dreams big for Saskatchewan, talks of five more potential mines – by Jennifer Graham, Canadian Press (Canadian Business Website – September 28, 2011)

September 29, 2011September 29, 2011

Founded in 1928, Canadian Business is the longest-publishing business magazine in Canada.

SASKATOON – The world’s biggest miner says there is the potential for several new potash mines to be built in Saskatchewan, but it’s taking a measured approach an ambitious dream.

BHP Billiton has about 14,500 square kilometres of land in the Prairie province and thinks there’s the potential for about five more mines.

“We’ve got a great land position in Saskatchewan . . . and we’re exploring that as fast as we can to make sure that we understand the resource that we have available to us,” Chris Ryder, vice-president of external affairs for BHP in Canada, said in a phone interview Wednesday.

BHP, a British-Australian company with global operations — including diamond and potash businesses in Canada, is currently developing its Jansen mine in Saskatchewan and hopes to start producing potash in 2015.

Giving asbestos new life – by Graeme Hamilton and Nicolas Van Praet (National Post – September 29, 2011)

September 29, 2011

The National Post is Canada’s second largest national paper

He has been portrayed as a monster, a businessman with impeccable political connections who sells a product so dangerous it has been banned in Europe and largely shunned on this continent.

But Baljit Singh Chadha says he is simply aiming to make some money while helping the poor improve their lives. And it looks like the Quebec government is about to back him up.

Mr. Chadha is a Montreal entrepreneur and the new face of the asbestos industry in Canada. After acting as the sales agent in India to Quebec’s Jeffrey asbestos mine for years, he has put together a plan to buy the bankrupt business and give it new life.

The Liberal government of Premier Jean Charest has committed $58-million in loan guarantees to relaunch the mine, provided Mr. Chadha can show the project can turn a profit, that the asbestos will be used safely in importing countries and that he can find private investors willing to put $25-million into the plan.

Seize [Ontario] North’s destiny – by Mike Whitehouse (Sudbury Star – September 29, 2011)

September 29, 2011

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

Canada and Ontario badly need Northern Ontario to succeed, North Bay Mayor Al McDonald says, and the North desperately needs leaders and leadership.

McDonald addressed City of Greater Sudbury council last night with an appeal to strike an accord of northern communities to promote common regional goals and interests.

The North is hampered by two syndromes, he said. First, cities and towns in the North are still dependent on handouts from provincial and federal governments — and, often, industries — for the most basic of needs. In this way, northern destinies are still controlled in Toronto and Ottawa, he said.

Second, Northern Ontario communities and businesses are competing in a global marketplace and not doing so together is disadvantaging all of them, he said. “We need a plan and a vision for Northern Ontario and we need it to be comprehensive and inclusive,” he said.

Anti-scab law touted [by Sudbury NDP candidate] – by Laura Stricker (Sudbury Star – September 29, 2011)

September 29, 2011

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

The NDP will continue the fight to ban replacement workers during strikes and lockouts, Paul Loewenberg says. The NDP candidate for Sudbury spent an hour answering reader questions Wednesday afternoon in an electronic town hall.

“We are the only party in Ontario that has ever passed anti-replacement worker legislation and it is important that we bring it back,” he said. In April, Nickel Belt MPP France Gelinas’ bill to ban replacement workers died on the second reading.

Loewenberg also fielded questions about student debt, jobs, health care and the LHINs (local health integration networks).

New mines, new revenue for [Ontario] cities: Horwath – by Carol Mulligan (Sudbury Star – September 29, 2011)

September 29, 2011

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

“This is how (former Newfoundland premier) Danny Williams,
in fact Brian Tobin, even stood up for minerals and made
sure some of that processing was happening in their
jurisdiction. And I think that we can do that here in
Ontario.” (NDP Leader, Andrea Horwath)

If elected, the Ontario New Democrats promise to funnel taxes from new mines to the communities in which they are located.

As much as it would like to give a greater share of taxes from existing mines to their home communities, the NDP could not do it while working to balance the provincial budget by 2017-18, says Andrea Horwath.

The NDP wanted a policy on mines that would be “easily implementable,” said Horwath, and moves “immediately” toward sharing greater revenues from mining with municipalities.

Horwath spoke to The Sudbury Star via Skype on Wednesday afternoon from her campaign bus, while en route from Brampton to Hamilton. “We are facing, and everybody knows it, a bit of a challenge,” said Horwarth about the province’s $14-billion deficit.

“I would have liked to be able to change the existing mining taxes,” but it won’t be possible, she said. When asked if the New Democrats would return more mining revenue to communities when the budget is balanced, Horwath said the NDP would consider it.

Shut down miner: KI [northern Ontario gold junior conflict] – by Bryan Meadows (Thunder Bay Chronicle-Journal – September 29, 2011)

September 29, 2011

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

NORTHWEST BUREAU

The chief of Kitchenuhmaykoosib Inninuwug (KI) First Nation is calling on the province to stop a gold exploration company from working on a KI ancestral burial site.

“Our ancestors deserve a place where they can rest undisturbed,” Chief Donny Morris said Wednesday. “People everywhere understand that cemeteries are sacred places. But in Sherman Lake, they want to put a gold mine on one.”

The band claims that mining exploration company God’s Lake Resources has staked new claims despite KI’s well-publicized moratorium, and that the company has worked the site in spite of being informed that multiple grave sites are within the claim area.

Government officials have told the band that they are powerless to stop God’s Lake from working their claims in spite of bands indigenous title, and spiritual connection to the area. The growing conflict closely mirrors the events that led to the jailing of Morris and five other KI leaders in 2008 for refusing to allow platinum mining exploration on their homeland, the band says.

The next great pipeline debate – and U.S. funding – by Gary Mason (Globe and Mail – September 29, 2011)

September 30, 2011September 29, 2011

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.

“In the past few years, the tenacious Vancouver-based and
independently financed writer [Vivian Krause] has parted
the curtains on the extent to which environmental groups
in Canada are funded by American organizations. (Her website,
fair-questions.com) … Ms. Krause estimates there’s $50-
million in American funding pouring into the Canadian
Environmental movement every year.” (Gary Mason)

The politics of oil is a grimy business. Look at what’s going on in the United States right now and you can see just how dirty things can get. Debate around the Keystone XL pipeline has been rancorous and divisive. In the end, concern for jobs is likely to trump worries over the pipeline’s environmental impact.

The movement against Keystone has mostly played itself out in America. But the next great pipeline debate will unfold right here in Canada. The stage is already being set.

National Geographic recently devoted a cover spread to the pending tussle over the proposed $5.5-billion, 1,700-kilometre Enbridge pipeline. It would run from Edmonton to the coastal port town of Kitimat, B.C., where, in theory, tankers bound for energy-thirsty markets in Asia would fill up with Alberta crude.

“Pipeline through paradise,” was the headline on the National Geographic story. In it, Ian McAllister, co-founder of the Canadian wilderness protection organization Pacific Wild, said Enbridge will precipitate the biggest environmental battle the country has ever witnessed. “It’s going to be a bare-knuckle fight.”

CIBC NEWS RELEASE: Energy infrastructure megaprojects will unlock Canada’s resource wealth and create a million new jobs, says Hon. Jim Prentice, CIBC Vice-Chairman

September 29, 2011

Investments will help Canada ride out current uncertain economic environment

A copy of the CIBC Economics report Energizing Infrastructure is available here.

A copy of Mr. Prentice’s full speech is available here: “Nation-building in the 21st Century: The Case for the Lower Churchill Hydro Development”

HALIFAX, Sept. 28, 2011 /CNW/ – Canada’s era of nation-building through transformational infrastructure investments is far from over as planned megaprojects will unlock resource wealth, secure new markets for Canadian energy and create a million new jobs, the Hon. Jim Prentice, CIBC Senior Executive Vice-President and Vice Chairman, said today.

“No other nation is leading energy projects at our pace and scale,” Mr. Prentice said in a speech to the Atlantic Provinces Economic Council. “And in an economic climate where the world debates how much public money to borrow to create stimulus jobs, Canada stands alone in terms of its potential to chart a different course.”

“The economic potential of these projects, the job creating power of these projects, led for the most part by the private sector, is immense.”