Republic of Mining

Mining Women in the City (Toronto-style) – by Jane Werniuk

January 17, 2009November 4, 2008

Small groups, organizations and networks of women related to the mining industry have existed for decades all over the world. Until recently, there has been little or no interaction between any of them. That all changed in the summer of 2007 when a major fund-raising effort captured the imagination of mining industry people across the country and beyond.

The Women in Mining (WIM) – Toronto Branch decided to form a team for the two-day, 60-km Weekend to End Breast Cancer, an annual event benefiting the Princess Margaret Hospital Foundation, one of the top five comprehensive cancer research centres in the world.

During lunch in June after one of the many training walks, one of the team suggested that a goal of $200,000 and taking first place in the overall fund-raising was “not only reasonable but easily achievable” given the links that each of the members had and the size of the industry. This was quite a feat considering the event had over 5,300 walkers, 1,000 volunteers and raised $17.3 million that year.

The goal was achieved through extensive communication and networking. Links were established with branches across Canada, the US and around the world. Everyone was committed to the cause as it represented a very loud voice for women in mining and also showed just how much the mining industry cared. Over 399 donations came in, including money from 66 companies involved in mining, engineering, law or finance—a virtual Who’s Who of large and small mining firms. The WIM team was recognized for its efforts by Canadian Mining Hall of Fame chair Don Worth during his organization’s annual dinner in Toronto in January 2008.

The walk was a major catalyst for other opportunities: increasing membership across all Branches; seeking out, discovering and communicating with other WIM groups around the world; launching WIM networks in other locations, across Canada and in such places as Moscow, Brazil, Argentina, Chile and Peru.

The Inaugural International WIM Reception at the PDAC convention in March 2008 drew a crowd of 450. Golder Associates shared half its double booth at the PDAC trade show with WIM, giving the group a highly coveted base for publicizing its reception.

China as an Economic Superpower – Implications for the Canadian Mining Industry – by Paul Stothart

December 9, 2010November 3, 2008

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. This article was originally published in May, 2007.

There is no shortage of printer’s ink being spilled in recent years writing about the emergence of the Chinese economy. This is, without question, one of the top global news stories of the past decade. After 15 years of double-digit annual growth, the size of the Chinese economy has now reached a state where continued double-digit growth has very meaningful implications for many industries and countries.

Where 10 per cent growth in 1990 may not have had much impact on a global scale, similar growth in
2007 on a much larger economic base has reverberations throughout the global economy.

The emergence of China as a world economic power, and its continued growth, will have direct implications for the Canadian mining industry in three important areas.

Impact 1 – Driver of World Mineral Prices

First, China remains the prime driver of world mineral prices. China is building a domestic infrastructure for 1.3 billion people and is concurrently expanding its role as the world’s manufacturing centre for many product areas. The country simply cannot meet its own needs for copper, zinc, nickel, and other core ingredients of a transportation, power, and communications infrastructure.

Mister Stewart Goes to Washington – by Walter Stewart – Macleans (September 1975)

May 12, 2010November 3, 2008

We wheeled the car out of Cooper Street and south along the Driveway, beside the Rideau Canal, past the carefully tended flower gardens of the National Capital Commission, past the even-more-carefully tended bureaucrats, marching memo-laden back to work after the lunch break, past couples disporting themselves on the greenward, and young mothers rolling their kids out for sunshine and compliments, past, in a word, the mixed panorama of central Ottawa on a summer’s day. My wife said: “Let’s not go.” A foolish fancy, but alluring. We were leaving Ottawa after 12 years, and heading for Washington. We had lived here for eight years, and spent a week out of every month here for four years, and not it was over, and I said: “Ah, hell.”

I was surprised at myself. Canada’s capital has always been a national joke. Transport Minister Jean Marchand’s line that “The nicest thing about Ottawa is the train to Montreal” has become an unofficial city motto, and bitching about the place – its lack of class, good restaurants, sense of history and all the neat things you find in Washington and London and Paris – has become a pastime not only for its citizens but for Canadians everywhere.

Well, nuts to them. Ottawa is not only a superior city, it may even be a model from which other cities can learn. It makes the best of a modest setting – as opposed to, say, Vancouver, which makes the worst of a magnificent setting, or Sudbury, which squats in its glum background like a whore in a hovel – and it has all the amenities most people require.

Sudbury Dumped on the Slag Heap of History – Stan Sudol

May 15, 2012November 3, 2008

This article was originally published in the Sudbury Star – Friday, February 6 , 2004

Sudbury should work extra hard to control its image

Ed Burtynsky is a very successful art photographer who, unfortunately for Sudbury, has become somewhat of a celebrity within the tiny Toronto media establishment. Why should the city be concerned? Mr. Burtynsky’s principal subject matter happens to be industrial environments and many of his photos were taken in the Sudbury region. In fact one particularly photo titled, Nickel Tailings #34, Sudbury, Ontario is not only on the cover of his new book, but is also being highlighted by the Art Gallery of Ontario (AGO) in their media promotions of his show.

If you read last Saturday’s Globe and Mail, you would have seen a “full-page” advertisement for Mr. Burtynsky’s AGO show using a striking photo of a river of slag with denuded trees in the distance. The Globe and Mail is Canada’s most influential newspaper, read by the country’s corporate and political elite – the type of people who make decisions on where factories should be built and where significant government investments should be made.

In the February issue of Toronto Life, journalist Gerald Hannon writes a lengthy profile on Ed Burtynsky’s work and eloquently describes that slag-dump photo as, “One image in particular has become almost iconic. Nickel Tailings #34, Sudbury, Ontario gives us a black and blistered landscape, a fragile line of trees huddling disconsolately in the background, the foreground dominated by a stream so crimson it is as if the earth has bled.”

In a recent review in the Toronto Star, the country’s largest circulation paper, art critic Peter Goddard describes another Burtynksy photo titled #13, Inco Abandoned Mine Shaft, Crean Hill Mine, Sudbury, Ontario as “… that left a pool of lime-green water so toxic and yet so clear – and lovely to look at – that the vertical striations in the rock are reflected in the surface of the deadly pool.”

Taking a Beating

Sudbury’s public relations image is certainly taking a beating. In fact, many in my business might suggest that the past twenty-five years of trying to change the city’s image from a polluted, industrially ravaged moonscape into a transformed, regreened landscape has been dealt a mortal blow!

Canadian Gold Hunters Undeterred by Sliding Price – by Marilyn Scales

May 4, 2015November 3, 2008

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.

It seems like only yesterday pundits looked at the price of gold as it topped US$1,000 an ounce and predicted it could only go up. Actually it was seven months ago, near the middle of March 2008, and we all wish the price would return to that level. Instead, the mess in the global financial markets has for some reason made the U.S. dollar stronger and the price of gold dip to the $750/oz range.

Nonetheless, many Canadian juniors are pressing ahead with work at what they hope will someday be this country’s next generation of profitable gold mines. Here is a sampling that have landed in my inbox during the last two weeks.

ALTO VENTURES of Vancouver sais drilling has begun on targets at its Mud Lake and Three Towers properties in the Beardmore-Geraldton Gold Belt in Ontario. High grades have been unearthed in the region in the past. (www.AltoVentures.com) WESCAN GOLDFIELDS of Saskatoon is earning a 50% interest in the Mud Lake project.

BRIGADIER GOLD of Toronto has extended the gold zone to more than 200 metres vertical depth at its Larder Lake project near Kirkland Lake, Ontario. The intersections were made beneath trenches in which visible gold was discovered in 2005. (www.BrigadierGold.com)

Boomtown Brat – Personal Reflections on Sudbury’s Made in China Economic Recovery – by Mick Lowe

December 8, 2010November 3, 2008

This article orginally appeared in the Christmas 2004 edition of Highgrader Magazine – a Northern Ontario publication that brings the issues, concerns and culture of Ontario’s vast forestry and mineral rich north to the world.

In the latter half of 2003, in the wake of yet another failed marriage, I was forced to indulge in one of the most dreaded of all male pastimes, an activity ranking somewhere between visiting the dentist and plumbing: I had to go shopping. In the act of replacing the myriad of consumer goods that are forfeited when a household is split asunder, I made several discoveries. Ever the nosy parker, (and hoping to support Canadian industry) I made a point of determining the country of origin of almost every purchase: from patio furniture to kitchen utensils, from an inexpensive stereo to a weed-whacker.

The results were astonishing: virtually everything had come from, or at least been assembled in, the People’s Republic of China. Also amazing was how cheap most things were, and that the quality nevertheless appeared relatively high. The world was awash in cheap electronics. It appeared that, at a conservative estimate, 90 per cent of the merchandise in the local Dollarama store was from China. Multiplying the inventory in all the dollar stores in Sudbury times all the dollar stores in Canada conjured up a mental image of a chain of container ships crossing the Pacific from west to east, disgorging an unending stream of consumer goods produced by a nearly infinite supply of cheap labour in a nation of 1.3 billion souls.

Mick Lowe – Journalist and Former Northern Life Columnist

December 8, 2010November 3, 2008

Mick Lowe was born in 1947 in Omaha, Nebraska. He is a 1965 graduate of Lincoln Southeast High School.He emigrated to Canada in 1970, after attending the University of Nebraska- Lincoln for four years,majoring in history, English literature, and philosophy. He also attended the University of Calgary from 1973 to 1974, before moving to Sudbury …

Financial Woes Trim Mining Sector’s Capital Budgets – by Marilyn Scales

May 4, 2015October 30, 2008

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. The global financial crisis looks to be the new reality for most mineral producers. Slumping stock markets, wobbly banks and lack of consumer demand are having an effect on Canadian miners, …

Barrick Gold Brings Artisanal Miners into the Fold – by Nancy J. White

October 27, 2008October 27, 2008

This article was first published in “Beyond Borders”, a BARRICK GOLD quarterly report on responsible mining, edited by Nancy J. White, the company’s communications director for responsible mining. “Beyond Borders” contains several other items highlighting Barrick’s initiatives around the world. It will be posted soon at www.barrick.com.

At age 13, Alfaxad Chacha started digging. He never stopped. Seven days a week, 14 hours a day, he sifted through the red mud and rock of the Tanzanian landscape under an equatorial sun. With a little luck and a lot of backbreaking labour, Alfaxad and his friends eked out a meagre living on the miniscule bits of gold they uncovered.

It was difficult work, using dangerous explosives and toxic chemicals. But for 1.5 million Tanzanians, this primitive form of artisanal mining is a daily reality.

Today, Chacha is 50 years old. He lives in the village of Kerende in Tanzania’s Mara region. A life of digging for gold under the ground has hardened him.

“I am an artisanal gold miner. I have been all my life and so were my parents before me, but I’m not too proud of what I do,” Chacha says. “My work is barely able to support me, my family and my community. It is very hard work for very little money. This is not the life I dreamt of, but it is all I have.”

Like many others, Chacha spends his days digging, crushing and grinding ore, to unlock the small particles of gold it contains. He sells his product for a fraction of its true value to gold dealers who pass through the village. It’s part of an underground gold industry in Tanzania – one with no government regulation or oversight of any kind.

Arming Private Security in the Philippines – by Marilyn Scales

May 4, 2015October 27, 2008

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.

Halloween is fast approaching, and I am filled with scary thoughts. I can imagine little ghosts and goblins shrieking for treats. I can imagine costumed superheroes playing gruesome tricks. But the truly frightening thing that I came across this week is the decision made by the Philippine government to allow mining companies to arm their private security forces.

According to reports from GMANews.TV, mining companies in the Philippines will be allowed to established civilian auxiliary armed groups (CAGs) as an adjunct to the local military. CAG members will carry only low-calibre guns, but that is little consolation to anyone who has ever been on the receiving end of a bullet.

Philippine Defence Secretary Gilberto C. Teodoro reportedly said that miners will be allowed to have a many armed men “as necessary depending on the threat level and the terrain” as along as each company signs an agreement with the Armed Forces.

I find this proposal frightening for several reasons.

Historically, the Value of Gold Always Rises During a Financial Crisis – Gregory Reynolds

December 9, 2010October 27, 2008

When in the midst of a perfect hurricane that is threatening the world’s financial structure, it helps to remember an old adage – To know where you are going, look back to where you have been.

The era that should be examined is the Great Depression which began in 1929 with many similar events to what happened in the past few months. It didn’t officially end until 1939 when the world plunged into the Second World War but the reality is that the worst ended in 1934.

The slow climb to normality took six years but it could be seen and measured.

The single most important step taken by the United States, then as now a world power, was the decision on Jan. 31, 1934 to raise the price of gold from US$20.67 an ounce to $35 an ounce.

As president of the United States, Franklin Delano Roosevelt surveyed the wreckage of the U.S. banking system and decided drastic action was required. On March 6, 1933 he closed all the banks for a three day holiday.

Fighting the Good Fight for Sudbury Labour Unions, Safety and Dignity: The Homer Seguin Story – by Bill Bradley

December 8, 2010October 18, 2008

Northern Life, Greater Sudbury’s community newspaper, gave Republic of Mining.com permission to post Bill Bradley’s article. www.northernlife.ca

Homer Sequin, now retired, but health and safety advocate for the past 50 years, has published his life story.

Entitled Fighting For Justice And Dignity: The Homer Seguin Story chronicles his life from the age of 16, when he started with Inco at the Sintering Plant in Copper Cliff, to his retirement in 1992.

The book is 173 pages, with 40 pictures and is self-published. Journal Printing printed the copies on recycled paper using union labour, said Seguin last Wednesday. Some of the pictures have never been viewed before.

“It chronicles the rise of the whole union movement here and my activity from being a steward on the safety committee to a union trustee in 1963, to vice-president of Local 6500 in 1965, to president in 1967,” said Seguin.

The book is hard-hitting. Seguin had to leave school early to help his mother make ends meet when his 39-year-old father drowned in 1950. At that time Inco did not pay a survivor’s pension, meaning a person had to be alive to receive a pension.

Turbulent Times on the International Mining Scene – by Paul Stothart

December 9, 2010October 12, 2008

Times remain quite good within the global mining industry. There is no shortage of challenges to be sure, ranging from a dearth of workers to mounting social license issues. Nonetheless, the enduring strength of mineral prices continues to drive the industry. Nickel prices grew from $3 per pound in 2002 to $17 in 2007, and copper from 70 cents to over $3. Gold and silver are at prices not seen in decades. The result is record mineral exploration spending, high capital investment, and buoyant stock prices and mergers and acquisitions activity. Demand from emerging economies will continue to drive strong mineral prices in future years.

In this context, a key challenge for the industry worldwide relates to increased international turbulence as governments of many countries aim to capture a larger share of the overall mining revenue streams. Towards this end, governments in many regions are taking a range of actions and, in some cases, following questionable processes. For example: