Republic of Mining

For peat’s sake: Use this source of energy – Stan Sudol (Toronto Star – February 11, 2005)

July 7, 2011

The Toronto Star, which has the largest broadsheet circulation in Canada, has an enormous impact on Canada’s federal and provincial politics as well as shaping public opinion.

This article is being posted for archival purposes. Stan Sudol is a Toronto-based communications consultant who writes extensively on mining issues. stan.sudol@republicofmining.com

Not since the oil price hikes of the 1970s has Ontario’s energy future been so precarious. Dwindling North American gas supplies, Middle-East turmoil and enormous energy demands from Chinas are all causing shortages and price increases of oil, gas and coal.

To keep a green election promise to reduce pollution, the Ontario Liberals are committed to closing five coal-fired power plants, which supply 25 per cent of the province’s electricity.

The one Ontario fuel source that could help the province weather the energy turmoil of the next few years is all but ignored. That energy source is peat, a relatively economical alternative that produces significantly less pollution than coal. A 1982 provincial report indicated that Ontario’s peat resources have the energy equivalent of approximately 26 billion barrels of oil – this province’s version of the Alberta tar sands.

Mine workers dig in on wages, pensions, benefits – by Brenda Bouw (Globe and Mail – July 6, 2011)

July 6, 2011

The Globe and Mail is Canada’s national newspaper with the second largest broadsheet circulation in the country. It has enormous impact and influence on Canada’s political and business elite as well as the rest of the country’s print, radio and television media. Brenda Bouw is the Globe’s mining reporter.

Mine workers are flexing their muscles amid surging commodity prices and increased labour shortages, setting the stage for more union unrest.

Workers at some of the world’s largest copper, gold and coal mines have either walked off the job or are threatening to strike, pushing demands for higher wages, and better job security and benefits.

The labour activism is playing out worldwide, from rolling strikes at Australian coal mines jointly owned by BHP Billiton Ltd. and Mitsubishi Corp., to walkouts at Freeport-McMoRan Copper & Gold’s giant Grasberg mine in Indonesia. African gold producers AngloGold Ashanti Ltd. and Gold Fields Ltd. are also facing labour action, as is Chile’s state-owned copper giant Codelco.

Mining companies are trying to hold their ground to prevent a further spike in costs, at the same time maintaining output levels to capitalize on near-record prices for gold, copper, silver and coal. Prolonged strike action could lead to production shortages that would in turn drive up prices for resources as it did with nickel last year following lengthy strikes by workers at Brazilian mining giant Vale SA’s Canadian operations.

[Thunder Bay’s] Lakehead wins approval to launch law school – by James Bradshaw (Globe and Mail – July 6, 2011)

July 6, 2011

Lakehead University has won provincial approval to launch the law school it has long coveted, promising to gear its newest faculty to attract aboriginal students and focus on aboriginal law.

It is Ontario’s first new law school since 1969, and one of several recent efforts across Canada to craft programs and curricula around local cultural needs, from plans for an indigenous law degree at the University of Victoria to Cape Breton University’s newly minted chair in aboriginal business studies.

It is also Northern Ontario’s first law school, chosen to fill a regional need as well as a cultural gap. For years, Lakehead has argued the need to train local students close to home to maintain a strong pool of legal talent, drive economic expansion and serve aboriginal students, who already make up nearly 14 per cent of its student body.

A first class of 55 law students will enroll in September, 2013, with priority going to Northern and aboriginal applicants. They will be able to take courses on aboriginal law, which can range from indigenous legal principles to treaty or land-claim law.

Where is our share? [Mining Taxes] – by Kate McLaren (Timmins Daily Press – July 6, 2011)

July 6, 2011

The Daily Press is the newspaper of record for the city of Timmins.

Northern leaders seek mining tax revenue

Communities in Northern Ontario are looking for a piece of the pie when it comes to taxes generated from the mining industry.

“When you look at the resource-based industry, it’s important we are able to build some sort of a legacy from our mining resources,” explained Timmins mayor and Federation of Northern Ontario Municipalities (FONOM) vice-president Tom Laughren.

“We are struggling for infrastructure and capital dollars, when the provincial and federal governments are benefiting from this mining tax.” FONOM is calling for an equitable share of the rich mining tax revenue currently collected by the provincial government, which have totalled more than half a billion dollars over the past five years.

[FONOM] Groups want cut of mining tax – by Carol Mulligan (Sudbury Star – July 6, 2011)

July 6, 2011

The Sudbury Star, the City of Greater Sudbury’s daily newspaper. cmulligan@thesudburystar.com

The subject of mining taxes may not be on the minds of Sudburians in these long, hot days of summer.

But the president of an organization looking out for 110 municipalities, including Sudbury, says mining taxation hits northern residents right where it hurts — on their property tax bills.

The Federation of Northern Ontario Federation of Municipalities says the Government of Ontario has collected more than $500 million in Ontario Mining Tax revenue in the last five years, and that money is all leaving the North.

Kapuskasing mayor and FONOM president Alan Spacek said this is a “very good time” to ask candidates running in the Oct. 6 provincial election. “It has a real impact on the average homeowner-taxpayer,” said Spacek.

NEWS RELEASE: Northern Ontario Communities Seek Share of Mining Tax

July 6, 2011

Federation of Northern Ontario Municipalities (FONOM): www.fonom.org

Date published: Tuesday, July 5, 2011

Northern municipalities want an equitable share of the rich mining tax revenue currently collected by the provincial government. The Province has collected over half a billion dollars in Ontario Mining Tax revenue over the past 5 years.

Alan Spacek, President of the Federation of Northern Ontario Municipalities (FONOM) stated, “Northern Ontario is a vast storehouse of mineral wealth. In recent years, Northern Ontario has returned record levels of revenue to the provincial government. Northern Ontario is once again a major economic contributor.”

Tom Laughren, Vice President of FONOM and Mayor of Timmins noted, “Unfortunately for Northern municipalities, much of the wealth generated by mining leaves the region in the form of corporate profits, Federal and Provincial corporate income tax, and resource specific taxes or fees such as the Ontario Mining Tax. This has created significant hardship for all Northerners. We are facing increasing cost pressures related to the provision of vital local services and an additional source of revenue would be of great benefit to our people.”

Predictions come true [McGuinty policies detrimental to North] – by Wayne Snider (Timmins Daily Press – July 4, 2011)

July 5, 2011

Wayne Snider is the city editor for The Daily Press, the city of Timmins newspaper. Contact the writer at news@thedailypress.ca.

“That’s why southern-based environmental groups have more say in legislation that
shapes the North’s future than Northerners. That’s why the voices of our Northern
leaders are ignored when we are outraged by the decisions being made in Queen’s
Park. That’s why we are not overly surprised when a contract to refurbish GO trains
in the GTA is given to an out-of-province firm when the job can be done in the North.”
(Wayne Snider – Timmins Daily Press)

Northern Ontario is becoming a living paradox. While there are great amounts of wealth being created, or waiting to be created, the full potential of the benefits are not being realized by the region.

We have areas — such as Attawapiskat — where local residents have been waiting for the basic need of a decent school for more than 20 years. Yet a stone’s throw away, some of the world’s best quality diamonds are being mined.

We have entire communities which are in the process of dying slow painful deaths, where a key industry such as a sawmill or a pulp and paper mill has shut down, while the raw resources continue to be taken from the area for processing out of province.

We have seen legislation out of southern Ontario designed to “protect” the North — such as the Endangered Species Act and the Far North Act — actually tear away at the socio-economic fabric of Northern society.

Canada’s stance on asbestos disgraceful – by Ruth Farquhar (Sudbury Star – July 4, 2011)

July 4, 2011

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

Our government has once again given Canada a black eye internationally, refusing to put chrysotile asbestos on the hazardous list at the Rotterdam Convention two weeks ago.

At a time when work is being done to remove all traces of asbestos in the Parliament buildings and the official residence of our Prime Minister, we say it’s OK to export it without any kind of warning.

Actually, we stayed quiet at the convention and even when the United Nations confirmed our position, Environment Canada sent this email to the Toronto Star, “with regards to your question on Rotterdam, our previous response that our position at Rotterdam will be the same as our position in Canada, which is we promote the safe and controlled use of chrysalides still stands.”

I wonder if staff at environment Canada choked over that one. Given that Health Canada since 2006 has recommended that asbestos be put on the hazardous list, it’s unbelievable that we can’t put a warning label outlining the risks when we sell this deadly substance to countries such as India.

New commodity bull market ready to charge ahead – by Simon Avery (Globe and Mail – July 4, 2011)

July 4, 2011

Resources

A resurgence in global growth will fuel a new bull market later this year for commodities ranging from copper to corn, according to a leading market watcher. While prices for several key raw materials have recently taken a tumble, “it’s always tricky to assume commodity prices have peaked, unless you get a major, major slowdown in global economic growth,” says Patricia Mohr, economics and commodity market specialist at Bank of Nova Scotia. “I think that what is probably occurring is a mild growth slowdown.”

The Scotiabank Commodity Price Index dipped 2.6 per cent in May from a month earlier, led by a 3.9 per cent decline in oil and gas prices. But it still remains 56 per cent above its low in April, 2009.

The most important factor determining future prices is the outlook for China. The country accounts for 40 per cent of world demand for the four key basic metals – copper, aluminum, zinc and nickel – while the U.S. consumes less than 10 per cent. “China really does dominate the commodity outlook,” Ms. Mohr says.

HISTORY: Porcupine Camp ablaze [The Great Fire of 1911] – by Karen Bachmann (The Daily Press – June 30, 2011)

July 4, 2011

The Daily Press is the newspaper of record for the city of Timmins. Karen Bachmann is the director/curator of the Timmins Museum and a local author.

As local milestones go, next week will mark a very important one for the Porcupine Goldfields. July 11, 2011 will mark the 100th anniversary of the Great Porcupine Fire of 1911. Environment Canada described this event as one of the five greatest Canadian fire disasters. Its magnitude and severity shaped the early mining communities and truly tested the rugged pioneers.

Just barely two years into its existence, the small towns that had sprung up around the mining camps were annihilated by a huge forest fire. It is because of the determination of those early people (and let’s face it – the lure of untold riches from the gold in the area) that we are still here today.

It didn’t take long for the world to learn about the tragedy. A number of Canadian and American newspapers were quick to file stories. Some of these first-hand accounts give us a glimpse into that fateful day and graphically describe how events unfolded.

The Globe (Toronto) sets the tone with this article printed on July 12, 1911:

Even the dying and the doctor support chrysotile mining in Asbestos – by Julian Sher and Bill Curry (Globe and Mail – July 2, 2011)

July 3, 2011

Digging in: The politics of asbestos mining

ASBESTOS, QUE. AND OTTAWA – Donald Nicholls remembers when the white fibres from the open pit mine that still dominates this town blanketed its streets like snow.

“You could leave tracks from the dust that fell overnight,” said Mr. Nicholls who started working in the mine fresh out of high school back in 1950. “It was much, much worse back then.”

He’s slowly dying of asbestosis, a respiratory disease brought on by inhaling those white particles. But like almost everyone else in town, the 79-year-old supports the reopening of the mine, allowing Canada to ramp up its export of chrysotile asbestos – a variant of the very mineral that is killing him.

In the face of widespread international hostility, Canada too has become an unabashed proponent of exporting a product linked to lung disease and cancer. The Conservative government’s decision last week to block an international agreement to restrict the sale of chrysotile incited condemnation around the world and across the country.

The Canadian Cancer Society called it an “unethical decision” that left it “shocked and embarrassed.”

Coltan a minefield in the Congo – by Jennifer Wells (Toronto Star – July 3, 2011)

July 3, 2011

Jennifer Wells is a feature writer with the Toronto Star, which has the largest circulation in Canada. The paper has an enormous impact on Canada’s federal and provincial politics as well as shaping public opinion. No stranger to the mining industry, Ms. Wells won the 1999 National Business Book Award for Fever: The Dark Mystery of the Bre-X Gold Rush as well as covering many other major mining stories.

“Don’t just shock us. Make us understand.” — Jason Stearns, Congo watcher

So you want to see the minerals!” Edouard Mwangachuchu, senator, Democratic Republic of the Congo, quickly advances toward a cargo trailer situated high on a verdant emerald hilltop in Masisi Territory. It is a glorious day.

Masisi, in the Congolese province of North Kivu, is lush and agriculturally rich, rising in terraced steps more visually fitting the postcard pastures of today’s Rwanda, or possibly the rice plateaus of Vietnam, than the Congo, which often — too often — seems a desiccated and wretched place.

In Masisi the sweet peas are white, the lupines are purple, and the senator, in his straw hat and pink golf shirt, looks the part of the weekend farmer, which he is, crowing that he produces the finest Gouda cheese in all the Congo. The senator is also a mine operator of a modestly mechanized operation, and on this day he is in an expansive mood.

The lock on the cargo trailer is surprisingly slight, given the riches stored inside.

The Congo’s tin soldiers (Blood Minerals) – by Jennifer Wells (Toronto Star – June 26, 2011)

July 3, 2011

“You’ll say I walked across Africa with my wrists unshackled, and now I am one more soul walking free in a white skin, wearing some thread of the stolen goods, cotton or diamonds, freedom at the very least, prosperity.” — Barbara Kingsolver, The Poisonwood Bible

BISIE, CONGO—The figure stirs suddenly, rising on one elbow, eyes blinking out from the dark, hand-dug mine shaft. Rough-hewn post-and-beam construction frames the entrance to the pit, partly obscuring the small cot upon which the creuseur has claimed a moment’s rest, a break from the brain-dulling monotony of hacking at the rock face with mallet and chisel and then, by brute strength, hauling broken ore to the surface, toward the sunlight.

At midday the heat is searing, baking an endless vista of rubble painted in colours of titian and yellow ochre. The treeless moonscape is a 45-minute roller-coaster climb beyond the tiny town of Bisie, itself a nine-hour walk — for the fleet of foot — from the nearest road in the eastern reaches of the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

The Bisie “mine” isn’t really a mine at all, but a cassiterite deposit that has enticed creuseurs like diggers to the Klondike. From pits that run to 100 metres deep and more, miners excavate the ore that ultimately will be smelted to tin by big players in the smelting game, players that reside outside of the Congo. The tin is used not just for cans and containers, but in considerable measure by electronics manufacturers for lead-free solders, forging the link between a mountain in the Congo and shopping malls thousands of kilometres away displaying the latest in smart phones and laptops.

Mining the Congo: From the Earth to the moon – by Jennifer Wells (Toronto Star – June 25, 2011)

July 3, 2011

In the first part of the series Mining the Congo, Jennifer Wells recounts a trek through the Congo toward a remote, cratered mountainside where miners toil.

The heat of the day was coming on. Suspended above a smoky fire a meaty gnarl of antelope, the size of a small ham, twisted lazily. A group of women sat nearby, having lowered their heavy panniers, seeking a moment’s respite.

Mari stood in the umbra of the woodland, her sloe eyes, her round face, a funny little knit cap on her head, tatty pants under a blue and yellow floral piece of cloth that she had tied about her waist. Her pannier of cassava leaves lay at her feet.

Those eyes. They seemed to scan in slow motion before Mari swiftly and dismissively swept the back side of one hand across the palm of the other. “You will not make it to Bisie before nightfall,” she said firmly in Swahili, steadying her gaze not upon photographer Lucas Oleniuk, but upon my determinedly un-weary person. “You will have to sleep in the forest.”