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McGuinty’s Forestry Policies Lost in the Northern Ontario Woods – by David Robinson

Dave Robinson is an economist with the Institute for Northern Ontario Research at Laurentian University. robinson@laurentian.ca This column was originally published in the May, 2010 edition of Northern Ontario Business

The Growth Plan for Northern Ontario is based on a simple prediction. The majority of communities in Northern Ontario will continue to decline. Behind that prediction is an economic analysis that says the forests of Northern Ontario will provide fewer and fewer good jobs.

The analysis is convincing. The forest industry must cut costs to compete. There will be fewer mills. Mills will be more automated. Jobs will vanish. The wood industry is trying to respond. It has created organizations to develop new technologies, new products and new markets. FPInnovations, which was created in 2007, now claims to be “the world’s largest private not-for-profit forest-sector research institute.

” Wood WORKS!”, a program led by the Canadian Wood Council is campaigning to make wood the main building material for all types of construction.

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Northern Ontario Heritage Party Wants a Separate Province for the North-by Michael Atkins

Michael Atkins is the president of Laurentian Media Group matkins@laurentianmedia.com This column was originally published in the May, 2010 edition of Northern Ontario Business

Somewhere out there, just ahead of the blackflies is a small group of people across Northern Ontario knocking on doors looking to sign up enough people to bring the Northern Ontario Heritage Party (NOHP) back to life.

If you have any gray hair at all you will remember Ed Deibel tried to win some seats with the same party and many of the same ideas some 35 years ago. His effort brought no seats, but it did have an impact. Back then the objective was to separate provincial status. The current objective seems less clear.

It is no accident the province currently administers a $100-million investment fund called the Northern Ontario Heritage Fund Corporation (NOHFC). You can thank Ed. It is no accident the province of Ontario set up the original Ministry of Northern Affairs and Development in the shadow of the Heritage Party so many years ago and appointed the first minster, Leo Bernier, from Hudson, just down the road from Sioux Lookout. Leo was a staple on the rubber chicken circuit in Northern Ontario for years. He had a great passion for the North, but was ineffective when it came to actually getting anything done. He had no clout.

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Ontario Premier McGuinty Welcomes U.S. to OUR Ring of Fire – by Gregory Reynolds (Part 2 of 2)

This column was originally published in the Spring, 2010 issue of Highgrader Magazine which is committed to serve the interests of northerners by bringing the issues, concerns and culture of the north to the world through the writings and art of award-winning journalists as well as talented freelance artists, writers and photographers.

Gregory Reynolds is a Timmins, Canada-based columnist who writes extensively about mining and northern Ontario issues.

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

Using a subsidiary of KWG Resources, Canadian Chrome Corporation, (Cliffs had quietly became KWG’s principal shareholder before the project leaked out in a one paragraph item in a monthly magazine in September 2009) Cliffs was able to avoid publicity.

What people should be asking McGuinty is two things: when did he become aware of the project and more importantly, what did he promise Cliffs to get it to commit to a project where native groups were likely to block it for many years, perhaps decades?

Cliff has said it expects to put the $800-million mine into production by 2015. It plans to spend $10 million this year on the project.

The original plan was to have Cliff’s railway link up with the Canadian National Railway main line and transport ore to Thunder Bay where a smelter and electric arc furnace complex would be built.

The 400,000 to 800,000 tonnes of ferrochrome produced per year would be shipped to U.S. steel companies.

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Ontario Premier McGuinty Welcomes U.S. to OUR Ring of Fire – by Gregory Reynolds (Part 1 of 2)

This column was originally published in the Spring, 2010 issue of Highgrader Magazine which is committed to serve the interests of northerners by bringing the issues, concerns and culture of the north to the world through the writings and art of award-winning journalists as well as talented freelance artists, writers and photographers.

Gregory Reynolds is a Timmins, Canada-based columnist who writes extensively about mining and northern Ontario issues.

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

Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty is a man whose word is worthless. There is no question about his string of broken promises; as a politician, he considers his word merely another election tool.

Thus the question to be considered is this: Was he being dishonest in 2008 when he promised to freeze all development, that mainly being mining and forestry projects, in a 225,000 square km swathe of the Boreal Forest; Or was he being dishonest on March 8 this year when he put a promise to allow development of the Ring of Fire into his government’s Throne Speech?

The Ring of Fire is located about 500 km northeast of Thunder Bay and about 100 km directly west of the De Beers Victor diamond mine in the James Bay Lowlands. It is in the middle of the Northern Boreal Forest.

The Ring is believed to be a huge basin, perhaps created by an asteroid, even bigger at 5,120 square km than the fabled Sudbury Nickel Basin.

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Improving the Effectiveness of Foreign Aid Through Mining Development – by Paul Stothart

Paul Stothart is vice-president, economic affairs of the Mining Association of Canada. He is responsible for advancing the industry’s interests regarding federal tax, trade, investment, transport and energy issues. www.mining.ca

The Canadian development aid community, like many aid providers around the world, is often described as slow, inefficient and disorganized.  In a recent article in the Globe and Mail, aid consultant Ian Smillie noted that it takes Canada’s official agency CIDA an average of almost four years to move an aid project from concept to approval, while projects sent to the CIDA Minister for approval are often returned for revision a dozen times.   

It is important to note that the leveling of criticism toward Canada’s aid agency is not particularly new, nor is it restricted to the present government.  Many past studies and evaluations have lamented the inefficiency of global aid delivery.  A recent report provided to Australia’s foreign minister concluded that the performance of AusAID suffers from having no clear objective.  Globally, western democratic countries have spent $2300 billion on foreign aid over the last five decades with minimal progress.  Aid systems seem incapable of delivering cheap medicines to children or inexpensive bed nets to families to prevent malaria deaths.  Extreme poverty and preventable diseases continue to kill thousands of men, women and children each year in developing countries despite these hundreds of billions of dollars in aid flow. 

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PDAC 2010 – Ring of Fire and the Rebirth of Ontario Mining – by Stan Sudol

(L to R) FNX Mining Company Inc. Chairman and CEO Terry McGibbon and Laurentian University President Dominic Giroux

Stan Sudol is a Toronto-based communications consultant, who writes extensively about mining issues.(stan.sudol@republicofmining.com)

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

The mood at the annual Prospectors and Developers Association of Canada convention in Toronto was definitely more upbeat and promising. As the world’s major economies start to recover from last year’s market crash and the collapse of commodity prices, most observers agree that China’s insatiable appetite for metals will continue.

The recent announcement of China’s Jinchuan Group Ltd.’s $150 million offer to buy Canadian nickel junior Crowflight Minerals and the announced merger between Quadra Mining Ltd. and FNX Mining Company Ltd. confirms that the metallic meltdown is over.

Interestingly enough, if Jinchuan’s takeover succeeds, it will give the Chinese government a small foothold in the Sudbury Basin. Crowflight owns or has under option about 800 square kilometers of advanced-stage base metal exploration properties in this region, the Thompson Nickel Belt as well as the Bucko Lake Nickel Mine, both in Manitoba.

Without a doubt, Ontario’s mining sector was one of the top discussions at this year’s PDAC. The Ring of Fire mining camp, located in the muskeg swamps of the James Bay lowlands, 500 kilometres northeast of Thunder Bay, has almost single handedly heralded the rebirth of Ontario mining industry.Richard E. Nemis and his daughter Jennifer Nemis

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Ramp-Up: A Study on the Status of Women in Canada’s Mining and Exploration Sector – Executive Summary

Women in Mining (WIM) Canada is a non-profit, industry-led group tasked with advancing the interests of women in the metals and minerals sectors. WIM Canada seeks to provide Employers, Employees, and Educators with tools and resources to break down barriers to employment, improve advancement opportunities, and ultimately increase the representation of Women in leadership positions. www.wimcanada.org

Executive Summary

Canadian women in mining and exploration represent a highly-skilled talent pool in a range of occupations, from CEOs, engineers, and geologists, to heavy equipment operators, and related industry workers. Recognizing the value of this resource to the sector, and concerned about women’s under-representation and underemployment, Women in Mining (WIM) Canada initiated the Ramp-UP study. Its purpose is to gather data on the issue and establish a baseline for measuring improvements.

The study gathered baseline statistical data on the representation of women as well as the perspectives of four key stakeholders, Female Employees, Employers, Female Students, and Educators on issues such as:

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Deals Underscore Chinese Interest in Canada’s Mineral Riches – by Marilyn Scales

Marilyn Scales is a field editor for the Canadian Mining Journal, Canada’s first mining publication. She is one of Canada’s most senior mining commentators.

Not so long ago, say 10 years, the Chinese were thought of as a poor, insular nation, mysterious and of a peculiar political stripe. Now we must lay aside those notions and recognize that China is an economic powerhouse. Whatever remains of “communism” in that country is proving to have very capitalistic talents. Hence, the many foreign investments made in the last two years while the rest of the world suffered economic meltdown.

Here are a few of the investments made by Chinese investors outside that country in the past two years:   
 
-Aluminum Corp. of China (Chinalco) attempted to invest US$19.5 billion in Rio Tinto
-China Minmetals made a A$2.6 billion bid for Australian miner Oz MineralsChina Mining United Fund bought into Canadian juniors including

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Interview with Steelworkers International President Leo Gerard About Sudbury Vale Inco Strike – by Heidi Ulrichsen

Northern Life, Greater Sudbury’s community newspaper. www.northernlife.ca

In Steelworkers international president Leo Gerard’s opinion, every time his union or Vale Inco publicly criticizes the other, the further they get from ending the labour dispute between the two parties.

Steelworkers Local 6500 members were “insulted” when Vale Inco CEO Tito Martins recently published a letter on a company website, accusing the union of using racism and xenophobia to further its position, Gerard said.

For his part, Gerard admits he “blew his lid” when speaking about the letter at a recent Steelworkers’ rally.

“Neither one of us are going to resolve this by rhetoric,” he said.

“Each time we get each other ticked off, we’re only further from the settlement.”

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The Northern Miner 2009 “Mining Persons of the Year” Osisko Mining’s Sean Roosen, John Burzynski and Robert Wares – by TNM Editorial

Since 1915, the Northern Miner weekly newspaper has chronicled Canada’s globally significant mining sector.

The Northern Miner’s Mining Persons of the Year for 2009 are Osisko Mining’s president and CEO Sean Roosen, vice-president of corporate development John Burzynski, and executive vice-president and chief operating officer Robert Wares.

These three are most responsible for taking Osisko in five short years from just another junior with ho-hum assets trading at 13¢ to a polished, $2.8-billion company on the verge of opening a large, long-life gold mine in one of the world’s best mining jurisdictions.

Osisko’s flagship is its Canadian Malartic project in the town of Malartic, some 20 km west of Val d’Or, Que., where in-pit resources now exceed 10 million oz. gold.

Over those five years, Osisko’s management, led by Roosen, Burzynski and Wares, has time and again showed its ability to seize opportunities and solve problems with creativity, spirit and aplomb — and turning many early shareholders into millionaires along the way.

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Mining Gains Economic Boost From 2010 Ontario Provincial Budget

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.

The provincial budget delivered by Finance Minister Dwight Duncan yesterday in the Legislature has made the future of mining in Ontario significantly brighter. The budget not only boosts the prospects of existing mineral producing operations but it reduces economic resistance to new developments.

“The budget begins to chart a course to a stronger economic future for the people of Ontario,” said Mr. Duncan. Several measures in the budget, which support statements in the Throne Speech of March 8, indicate that course will go through Northern Ontario and involve mineral production as a cornerstone.

The $450 million Northern Industrial Electricity Rate Program (NIERP), the $45 million new project based skills training program for Aboriginals and Northern Ontario residents, the appointment of a Ring of Fire Co-ordinator and the $1.2 billion in infrastructure development to strengthen Northern communities all represent positive commitments for the mineral sector.

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Former Premier Peterson’s Northern Ontario Vision Beats Current McGuinty Policies – by David Robinson

Dr. David Robinson drobinson@laurentian.ca is an economist at Laurentian University in Sudbury, Canada. His column was originally published in Northern Ontario Business.

The year 1990 was the high point in development planning for the North. The most dramatic and successful initiatives came from a southerner, David Peterson.

Peterson was elected in 1985. He immediately created a new Ministry of Northern Affairs and Mines. He appointed himself minister and went to work. He moved the Ministry of Northern Development and the Ontario Geological Survey to the North. This was the most effective single development decision of the last 30 years. Then the Northern Ontario Heritage Fund Act was passed in 1990. And that was the year the voters threw Peterson out. Not much has happened since.

Leonard Cohen must have been thinking of this wild affair when he sang:

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Canadian Mining Sector Partnerships with Aboriginals Create Enormous Benefits – by Marilyn Scales

Marilyn Scales is a field editor for the Canadian Mining Journal, Canada’s first mining publication. She is one of Canada’s most senior mining commentators.

A new wave of co-operation between Aboriginal peoples and the mineral industry can be felt across Canada. It is evidenced by the growing number of impact and benefit agreements that are created every month. Gone are most of the adversarial relationships between mining and Aboriginals in favour of participation and sharing.

Time was, 35 years ago when I first took an interest in the Canadian mining scene, that the words “land claim” could strike fear into the heart of any mine builder. As long as a specific claim was not settled, the land under discussion was essentially off-limits for exploration and development.

Today’s impact and benefits agreements provide cultural, educational, training and employment opportunities for the descendents of Canada’s original inhabitants. Explorers and developers spend millions to provide these opportunities. The native population has taken up the challenge by becoming trusted employees and owners of their own businesses that serve the mineral industry.

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Meet the Miners at the Ontario Legislature Celebrates Industry Contributions

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.

The contributions of Ontario’s mining sector to society and the economy were celebrated yesterday at Queen’s Park by politicians of all stripes and industry officials at the Ontario Mining Association’s Meet the Miners event.  The industry can’t take the legislature to the mines but it can take the mines to the legislature at least one day a year.   Meet the Miners is an OMA initiative at Queen’s Park involving member companies and their employees, which helps shine the spotlight on the industry in government circles. 

At an evening reception, OMA Chairman and President of mining contractor JS Redpath George Flumerfelt welcomed guests and encouraged them to celebrate the 90th anniversary of the OMA, which has been representing mineral producers in the province since 1920.  He noted that the importance of mining to the future prosperity of the province was highlighted in the Throne Speech to open this session of the Legislature on March 8, 2010. 

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The other side of the podium – by Michael Atkins

Michael Atkins is president of Northern Life

I remember chairing a meeting of an economic self-help group in Sudbury 30 years ago called Sudbury 2001. We were at the Cambrian College boardroom and a group of union members and politicians burst into the room to bust up the meeting. We were in about month eight of the last debilitating, vengeful, violent, desperate conflict between Inco and its union, and Sudbury was not only suffering through the strike, they were suffering through the knowledge of massive layoffs on the way. In those days there were 20,000 or so Steelworkers, not 3,000.

The interlopers were livid that David Patterson, president of the Steelworkers Local 6500, would sit at the same table as an Inco executive during the strike. You see, Sudbury 2001 was a community group. We all swore to leave our politics at the door, no matter how dismaying the conflict. David stood up; pushing and shoving, screaming and yelling ensued. When David came back in, and the uninvited guests retreated, the meeting reconvened.

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