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[Innovation Cluster Theory] Saguenay: Next-Gen Aluminium – by Brian Banks (National Post/December 1, 2009)

The National Post is Canada’s second largest national paper. This column was originally published in the Financial Post Magazine on December 1, 2009.

No. Of Companies: 70, R&D Jobs: 350, Production Jobs: 7,000

The Aluminium industry cluster in the Saguenay-Lac St. Jean region of Quebec, about 200 kilometres northeast of Quebec City, is a success story born of adversity. The first seeds were sown at a 1984 provincial economic summit when Alcan (now Rio Tinto Alcan, or RTA), a key employer and the region’s primary aluminium producer, announced plans for job cuts. New technology and the need to reduce costs left it no choice.

Rather than surrender, local entrepreneurs, civic leaders and Alcan itself hit upon a critical job-creation strategy — build upon Alcan’s massive presence and technical expertise by establishing companies to pursue value-added secondary and tertiary aluminium-related opportunities. Within two years, a $10-million venture capital fund had been established — with $5 million coming directly from Alcan — and the diversification had begun. Twenty-five years and several waves of private-sector, university and government-backed incentives and investments later, more than 70 spin-off companies, employing more than 7,000 workers — making everything from specialized heavy equipment to tubing and other fabricated products to world-class casting technologies for domestic and international markets — call the “Aluminium Valley” home.

While every firm is unique, the story of Mecfor Inc., based in Chicoutimi, is representative of the region’s evolution and the ways in which the cluster concept can foster success. Founded as a small forestry services firm in 1987 and later absorbed as an operating unit within a larger, local engineering and consulting firm, Mecfor took aim at the aluminium business in the late 1990s.

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[Innovation Cluster Theory ]Fields of Dreams – by Karen Mazurkewich (National Post/December 1, 2009)

The National Post is Canada’s second largest national paper. This column was originally published in the Financial Post Magazine on December 1, 2009.

Economic shifts and recession have brought innovation cluster theory to the forefront. Will it deliver? Entrepreneurs, venture capitalists and governments are saying, ‘yes’

It was the little conference that could.

On a cloudy day this past June, a tight group of technology nerds met in Stratford, Ont., to discuss their ambitious new digital media plan. What started as a small meeting of minds mushroomed to 1,000 delegates as momentum gathered. “It surprised us, it snowballed,” organizer Tom Jenkins, executive chairman and chief strategy officer of Kitchener-Waterloo, Ont.-based Open Text Corp., would later comment. Whether motivated by fear over where the economic crisis was taking the country, or simply the chance to hobnob with Canada’s top innovation executives like Michael Lazaridis, president and co-chief executive officer of Research in Motion, the conference ended on a high with a proclamation from above: the gurus — Jenkins and Lazaridis — decreed that this pastoral town (known mostly for its annual Shakespeare festival) would be transformed into Canada’s new digital media centre. Just as they had built nearby Kitchener-Waterloo into a vibrant hub for information and communication (ICT) technologies, they now planned to reshape Stratford, starting with the construction of the proposed Stratford Institute, a digital media innovation centre to be housed at the University of Waterloo.

It was as if the local dream team were channelling fiction by positing: “If we build it, they will come.” Only in this case the “they” are entrepreneurs, and the “field of dreams” a vibrant new industry to help drive the faltering economy in southern Ontario. Even the chosen leader of the project, Ian Wilson, a 66-year old retired librarian and archivist who has never written a line of code, is an unlikely saviour. But he has a vision that the new technology push into interactive digital media will be driven by creativity not just algebra. “[Firms like Open Text] know that the future means they need employees that have both the creativity of an artist and the knowledge of technology,” says Wilson, the former chief librarian and archivist of Canada, who embraced a Sisyphean task of digitizing all national publications.

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Liberals Eye Ontario’s Northern Resource Riches [in Ring of Fire] – by Tanya Talaga (Mar 26, 2010)

Tanya Talaga is the Queen’s Park (Ontario Provincial Government) reporter for 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. This article was originally published March 26, 2010.

For an extensive list of articles on this mineral discovery, please go to: Ontario’s Ring of Fire Mineral Discovery

“We’ve lost 60 mills in Northern Ontario and some 45,000 well-paying
manufacturing and resource jobs from Dalton McGuinty’s tax hikes and
increasing red tape in energy policy.” Ontario Progressive Conservative
Leader Tim Hudak (March, 2010)

“For the 21st century, the discovery of chromite in the Ring of Fire could
be as big as the discovery of nickel was in Sudbury in the 19th century.”
Ontario Finance Minister Dwight Duncan (March, 2010)

The Liberal government is offering $150 million in electricity breaks for industry and $45 million for aboriginal job training to promote development in Northern Ontario’s ore-rich land. Opposition leaders say the incentives are “too little too late” for the region, where nearly 60 mills have closed and thousands of jobs have been lost.

Yet the province hopes developing a recently discovered massive deposit of chromite in the Ring of Fire area, 500 kilometres northeast of Thunder Bay, will help drive down the $21.3 billion deficit.

“For the 21st century, the discovery of chromite in the Ring of Fire could be as big as the discovery of nickel was in Sudbury in the 19th century,” Finance Minister Dwight Duncan said in his budget speech.

 The ring’s development will be managed by a new coordinators office, which will bring together competing interests, from First Nations to mining companies, the government and environmentalists.

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Barrick Donation Boosts Health Care in Northwestern Ontario

This article was provided by the Ontario Mining Association (OMA), an organization that was established in 1920 to represent the mining industry of the province.
 

Ontario Mining Association member Barrick Gold’s gift of $150,000 to Lakehead University in Thunder Bay and the Northern Ontario School of Medicine (NOSM) will enhance health care services in Northwestern Ontario.  Matching support for some components of this donation by the Ontario Trust for Student Support increases the size of the gift to $235,000.

“This gift is in keeping with our policy and objective of giving back to the community,” said Jamie Sokalsky, Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer of Barrick Gold.  “We want to share our success in the communities where we operate.”

Barrick Gold owns and operates Hemlo Mines in Marathon, which includes the Williams Mine and the David Bell Mine.  The donation was made earlier this week at a ceremony. The funds will be used for a number of purposes. The bulk of it ($100,000) will be employed to support the NOSM.

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Sudbury Calls the Shots, Says [Vale’s] John Pollesel – by Carol Mulligan

Carol Mulligan is a reporter for the Sudbury Star, the City of Greater Sudbury’s daily newspaper. cmulligan@thesudburystar.com

“As a matter of fact, in the North Atlantic, we are the centre of excellence for
underground mining globally for Vale. Vale’s operations are mostly open pit,
big iron ore mines. However, if we’re to develop a deposit in Africa … they will
come to us for mining expertise.” (Vale’s John Pollesel January 20, 2011)

The head of Vale’s North Atlantic operations isn’t putting much stock in rumours that Roger Agnelli could be on his way out as chief executive of Vale’s parent company in Brazil.
John Pollesel, chief operating officer for Vale in Canada and the UK , said a report that a majority shareholder in Vale is trying to replace Agnelli is unfounded.

When asked if things might change in Sudbury if Agnelli were replaced, Pollesel said: “Sudbury directly may not feel the effects of something like that, but that’s just a rumour. There’s no, in speaking to (Vale CEO) Tito (Martins) earlier this week, he explained to us that … that’s just a rumour.”

Another frequent comment that is untrue is that Vale operations in Canada are being run out of Brazil, Pollesel told The Sudbury Star in an editorial board meeting this week.

“We hear often, and I get a little frustrated when I hear this, that things are being run out of Brazil. Well, no, that’s not the case,” said Pollesel.

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John T. Williamson – (1907-1958) – 2011 Canadian Hall of Fame Inductee

The Canadian Mining Hall of Fame was conceived by the late Maurice R. Brown, former editor and publisher of The Northern Miner, as a way to recognize and honour the legendary mine finders and builders of a great Canadian industry. The Hall was established in 1988. For more information about the extraordinary individuals who have been inducted into the Hall of Fame, please go to their home website: http://mininghalloffame.ca/
 
John T. Williamson (1907-1958)Canada’s recent emergence as a centre of excellence for diamond exploration and production owes much to the pioneering efforts of John Williamson, a brilliant geologist from McGill University who discovered, built and operated the highly successful Williamson diamond mine — also known as Mwadui — in Tanganyika (now Tanzania). His efforts to build and operate a diamond mine in remote East Africa, where he spent much of his life from the mid-1930s until his death, are legendary. The mine’s total production from 1941-2008 has been estimated at 20 million carats, with a current value estimated at $3 billion. The mine also created thousands of jobs and a socially progressive town-site known for its amenities.

 Williamson also left a valuable legacy in Canada, by recruiting and introducing young scientists, notably McGill graduates, to the newly emerging diamond industry. Decades later, they lent their expertise and credibility to help Canada realize its diamond potential.

Born in Montfort, Quebec, Williamson entered Montreal’s McGill University in 1925, intending to study law, but a summer field expedition to Labrador inspired him to switch to geology. He earned his BA, MSc and PhD degrees in geology between 1928 and 1933.

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Bert Wasmund – (Born 1939) – 2011 Canadian Hall of Fame Inductee

The Canadian Mining Hall of Fame was conceived by the late Maurice R. Brown, former editor and publisher of The Northern Miner, as a way to recognize and honour the legendary mine finders and builders of a great Canadian industry. The Hall was established in 1988. For more information about the extraordinary individuals who have been inducted into the Hall of Fame, please go to their home website: http://mininghalloffame.ca/
 
Bert Wasmund (Born 1939)Bert Wasmund has been a world-renowned leader in metallurgical plant engineering and design for more than 40 years, as well as a driving force in the growth and success of Hatch Ltd., a Canadian firm serving the global mining and metallurgical industry. He is credited with a series of breakthrough contributions to metallurgical operations in Canada and abroad that improved their productivity, cost and energy efficiencies, capability to extract valuable products from lower grade ores and environmental performance in many cases.

He has demonstrated a lifelong commitment to the acquisition and mentorship of the next generation of engineers. This leadership has helped to attract a new generation to the mining and metallurgical industry and provided young professionals with interesting and challenging careers.

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Mike Muzylowski – (Born 1934) – 2011 Canadian Hall of Fame Inductee

The Canadian Mining Hall of Fame was conceived by the late Maurice R. Brown, former editor and publisher of The Northern Miner, as a way to recognize and honour the legendary mine finders and builders of a great Canadian industry. The Hall was established in 1988. For more information about the extraordinary individuals who have been inducted into the Hall of Fame, please go to their home website: http://mininghalloffame.ca/
 
Mike Muzylowski (Born 1934)During a distinguished career spanning more than a half-century, Mike Muzylowski contributed to the growth of Canada’s mining industry as a gifted geologist and mine-finder, innovative financier and respected senior mining executive. His diverse talents were instrumental in the discovery and development of 16 mineral deposits that became producing mines — 13 in Manitoba, two in Nevada and one in the Northwest Territories — and the building of numerous mining companies, notably Granges Inc. and its subsidiary, Hycroft Resources and Development. Along with long-time partner Douglas McRae, he helped to open the doors to European and other foreign financial centres and establish the credibility of foreign investment in Canadian mineral exploration.

Muzylowski left the family farm near Oakburn, Manitoba, to attend the University of Manitoba, where he earned a BSc degree in geology. In 1955, he joined Hudson Bay Exploration and Development Company (HudBay) and spent five years as a field geologist before advancing to senior positions, including senior project geologist, chief geophysicist and assistant superintendent of exploration and development. Several of his Manitoba drill targets became HudBay producers, notably the An d erson Lake mine in the Snow Lake camp and the Centennial mine near Flin Flon.

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Ontario Ring of Fire Chromite Mine Operator Still to be Determined -by Norm Tollinsky

Norm Tollinsky is editor of Sudbury Mining Solutions Journal, a magazine that showcases the mining expertise of North Bay, Timmins and Sudbury. This article is from the March, 2010 issue.

For an extensive list of articles on this mineral discovery, please go to: Ontario’s Ring of Fire Mineral Discovery

The discovery of a massive chromite deposit in Ontario’s Far North will create thousands of jobs and trigger an estimated $1.5 billion of spending on an open pit mine, a 350-kilomtre railway, a concentrator and an electric arc furnace, but a decision on who the operator of the mine will be was still up in the air at press time.

Cliffs Natural Resources’ acquisition of Freewest Resources gives the Cleveland, Ohio-based iron ore pellet and coal producer the green light to develop its wholly-owned Black Thor deposit or work with joint venture partners KWG Resources and Spider Resources to develop the Big Daddy deposit seven kilometres to the southwest.

“It’s still not clear which part of the chrome intrusion will be developed first. It’s in my interest to make it Big Daddy, but it could be Black Thor,” said Frank Smeenk, president and CEO of KWG Resources. “Big Daddy has the width, the grade and the consistency and seems to be the more concentrated portion of the intrusion…but there’s no data indicating a compelling case in favour of Big Daddy or Black Thor, so I think the source of financing may determine it.

“If KWG is able to put together a project financing package, then that would add to the attractiveness of Big Daddy being first.”

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Sudbury Better Off With Vale – by Carol Mulligan (Sudbury Star)

Carol Mulligan is a reporter for the Sudbury Star, the City of Greater Sudbury’s daily newspaper. cmulligan@thesudburystar.com

For an informative six-minute interview between Sudbury Star staff and Vale top executives, John Pollesel, chief operating officer for Vale’s North Atlantic operations and Jon Treen, general manager of Vale’s Ontario operations click here: http://www.thesudburystar.com/ArticleDisplay.aspx?e=2935261&auth=John

Sudbury Better Off With Vale

There is no question in John Pollesel’s mind that Sudbury is better off with Vale running its largest mining company than it was in the old days of Mother Inco.

Vale’s chief operating officer for the North Atlantic doesn’t necessarily agree with Industry Minister Tony Clement’s opinion that Sudbury would have become the “Valley of Death” if Brazil-based Vale had not purchased it four years ago.

“Inco on its own, without somebody coming in, it would have been a tough go, there’s no question,” Pollesel said Tuesday.

When you look at the $2 billion Vale will invest in its atmospheric emissions reduction project in Sudbury, and its total projected investment of $3.4 billion to the year 2015, “We needed an investment of capital here, and that’s something that Vale has provided,” said Pollesel.

The Vale executive, who took on new duties as chief operating officer with Vale in Canada and the UK last October, participated in a 75-minute editorial board meeting with The Sudbury Star.

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We Need Tougher Rules on Foreign Investment – by Diane Francis (National Post)

The National Post is Canada’s second largest national paper. This column was originally published in the Financial Post on January 15, 2011.

“A new Canadian foreign investment policy need involve only four pillars: investor reciprocity, resource protection, reverse onus and a veto for any affected provinces.”    Diane Francis (January 15, 2011)

The Potash Corporation of Saskatchewan Inc. rejection hasn’t abated interest in takeovers in Canada. Just look at this week’s contest to buy two iron-ore plays or news that China’s sovereign fund is opening a Toronto office.

It also hasn’t harmed Potash Corp.’s stock price either, which is trading much higher than BHP Billiton PLC said it was worth.

The point is that the come-and-get-it Canada mentality has to end. The open-door mindset is ideological and rooted in the misconception that globalization and free markets exist. They do not and the world’s economic players have been cherry-picking naive nations like Canada for as long as our government has let it happen.

The mentality, by the way, is fiercely propagated by banks, and their mergers and acquisitions departments seeking fat fees, which would have happily sold Potash Corp. to foreigners and denied untold billions of dollars in head office benefits to Canada.

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[Viola MacMillian] The Prospector in the Pink Penthouse – by Christina MaCall

This article was originally published in Maclean’s magazine on July 20, 1957.

Viola MacMillan believes “anybody can do anything” and has mink, a mansion, a Miami apartment and mines worth $10,000,000 to prove it

Mining papers credit her with building the Prospectors and Developers
Association from a loosely knit agglomeration of fieldmen and promoters
into a powerful organization representing one of the most important
segments of the mining industry.

The Prospector in the Pink Penthouse

Canada’s sprawling two-billion-dollar mining industry owes its boom to a motley army of men: sleek brokers in big city offices, lonely prospectors in frontier camps, geologists and bush pilots, road builders, professional engineers. But their spokesperson is a women who lives in a pink penthouse, wears a mink coat and buys size ten dresses from Sophie of Saks.

For fourteen years Viola Rita MacMillan has been president of the Prospectors and Developers Association, the largest organization of mining men on the continent, and in that time she has made scores of biting speeches that lash out at anything and everything impeding the development of mining. The sophisticated apartment and the soigné clothes are really only trappings. As she says herself, “I’m a miner. I love this business and I want to stay in it until I die.”

She doesn’t look much like a miner she so proudly calls herself. A small woman, she stands just over five feet tall and weighs little more than a hundred pounds. She has alert cobalt-blue eyes and short dark hair. The most striking thing about Voila MacMillan is the agility and speed of her movements. She darts about so quickly that bigger people sometimes feel almost cumbersome, when they are in her presence.

Mrs. MacMillan often says with firm conviction that Canada’s future greatness depends to a large extent on the growth of the mineral industry. For more than thirty years she has dedicated her unusual energy and persistence to that industry. In returen she has gained both money and prestige.

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Viola MacMillan: From the Ground Up: An Autobiograpy (Afterword) – by Virginia Heffernan (Part 2 of 2)

Virginia Heffernan, principal of GeoPen Communications, is a science and business writer who specializes in writing about mineral and energy resources. She provides research and writing services to both corporate and government clients and is a regular contributor to publications such as Investment Executive, The Northern Miner and Canadian Consulting Engineer. www.geopen.com/

“From the Ground Up” is an autobiography of one of Canada’s most notable mining women Viola MacMillan, best known for her involvement in the infamous Windfall mining scandal of 1964. Although her autobiography presents her side of the controversial story some gaps and context were missing. Virginia Hefferernan’s thorough investigation cleared up many of those gaps and provided much needed context in the “Afterword” final chapter of the autobiography.

Afterword (March 2001)

The frenzy begins

“Some of the drillers started buying stock through their brokers, who would have told their other clients that if the drillers were buying, there must be something in the core. The market activity just blossomed from there, almost regardless of what the MacMillans did,” says Ford. Blossomed is an understatement. On Monday morning, Windfall shares opened at $1.10. Before the market closed at 3:30 PM, 1.57 million shares had changed hands and the price had reached $2. When rumours that the core contained 2.4% copper and 8% zinc surfaced later in the week, the trading accelerated and by the closing bell on July 10th, the price had doubled again to $4. “Such trading removed from the market any semblance of order and reduced it to a scene of uncontrollable speculative frenzy,” observed Justice Arthur Kelly, the judge who presided over the royal commission.

In the absence of any concrete information, the press and brokerage houses latched onto rumour. They became enthusiastic boosters of the Windfall play, fuelling even more optimism in the market. The Northern Miner congratulated the “Mining MacMillans” for taking an intelligent gamble on the Prosser claims and The New York Herald Tribune reported a “major base metal drill core.” Brokers added credence to the rumours by reporting them to investors as fact. “Frustrated by their efforts to get accurate information and feeling under compulsion to provide whatever information was available, (the brokers) gave out such reports as they were able to gather,” concluded Justice Kelly. Just like during the Bre-X mining scandal that was to hit three decades later, the  information mongers whose impartiality is so vital to the investing public were either unable or unwilling to see that the emperor was wearing no clothes.

Throughout this frenzy, the MacMillans kept their lips sealed save for two statements issued to the press on July 7th and again, under orders from the TSE, on July 15th. Both releases were equivocal, saying little more than that the first hole had been stopped at 530 feet, the core had not yet been sent for assay and drilling would continue. The second release read as follows:

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Viola MacMillan: From the Ground Up: An Autobiograpy (Afterword) – by Virginia Heffernan (Part 1 of 2)

Virginia Heffernan, principal of GeoPen Communications, is a science and business writer who specializes in writing about mineral and energy resources. She provides research and writing services to both corporate and government clients and is a regular contributor to publications such as Investment Executive, The Northern Miner and Canadian Consulting Engineer. www.geopen.com/

“From the Ground Up” is an autobiography of one of Canada’s most notable mining women, Viola MacMillan, best known for her involvement in the infamous Windfall mining scandal of 1964. Although her autobiography presents her side of the controversial story some gaps and context were missing. Virginia Hefferernan’s thorough investigation cleared up many of those gaps and provided much needed context in the “Afterword” final chapter of the autobiography.

Afterword (March 2001)

The name Viola MacMillan evokes one of two responses. Those who knew her personally describe a generous and dynamic professional who became the sacrificial lamb of a corrupt Bay Street. Those introduced to her by the press recall a scoundrel who swindled innocent investors out of their savings. Will the real Viola Rita MacMillan please stand up?

If MacMillan were alive today, she would readily rise and state her case, just as she did on the 1960s television program, “To Tell the Truth.” As her memoirs divulge, she was an aggressive personality who rose from humble beginnings to achieve success in the mining industry: Canada’s own Horatio Alger, some would say. Despite her tiny stature – she stood just five feet tall and weighed little more than 100 pounds – she fought her way to the top of a man’s world by sheer force of will and a refusal to take ‘no’ for an answer. “Anybody, regardless of sex or circumstance, can do anything they want to do. All you need is the guts to stick to things,” was her favourite response to queries about the secret of her success.

But she rarely spoke of what became known as the Windfall affair, a mining scandal in the 1960s that triggered a royal commission investigation, exposed weaknesses in the market regulatory system and shamed several high-ranking officials. Even MacMillan’s otherwise detailed autobiography gives scant attention to an event that not only rocked her world, but changed the dynamics of share trading in Canada forever. MacMillan carried a long list of accomplishments to her grave, but her name will always be synonymous with Windfall.

MacMillan and the mining industry were joined at the hip.

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Golden Hope For a Timmins, Ontario Wasteland – by Nick Stewart

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. This article was published in the January, 2011 issue.

Goldcorp Inc. is just months away from making a production decision to dig up the literal “heart of gold” a stone’s throw from downtown Timmins. 

The Vancouver-based producer is working fervently through the winter months to build a case for a series of open pit mines at the very centre of the historic mining community, potentially making Timmins a unique portrait of modern mining in Ontario.

The project will carve out a patch of land just south of Highway 101, the main drag along which most of the city’s major commercial activity is located. The 250-acre property is surrounded by a pharmacy, a fast food outlet, a hotel, the Shania Twain Centre, the Gold Mine Tour and residential suburbs on two sides. The downtown core is across the street to the west.

This large area is the site of the shuttered but still treacherous underground Hollinger Mine, closed in 1968. Its hundreds of miles of tunnels have plagued the community with sinkholes and subsidences, creating a restricted wasteland and resulting in millions in property damage.

By mining out the area, Goldcorp stands to not only tap into the abandoned riches beneath the soil, but also to later transform it into safe, usable land. Like the issues surrounding the property itself, the new mining project is rife with logistical challenges, not the least of which involves determining what was left in the ground following nearly a century of mining.

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