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Ontario Mineral Industry can be First Nation Friendly – by Bill Bradley

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

Canadian Arrow Mines Given Award by Chief

Though some prospectors fumed about consulting with First Nations at the provincial Mining Act consultations last week in
Greater Sudbury, one upstart junior company has already shown it can be done.

Kim Tyler, president of Sudbury-based Canadian Arrow Mines, with over a dozen properties in northwestern Ontario, is comfortable
with a new emphasis by the Ministry of Northern Development and Mines on dealing properly with First Nations and environmental concerns.

The province is hosting meetings across Ontario as part of an effort to modernize the Mining Act.

“Dealing with First Nations is easy. Try knocking on their door first. Inform them who you are, what you are doing and what
opportunities there are for their members in terms of future jobs,” Tyler said at the sessions.

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Can Coal-to-Hydrocarbons Replace Oil? – by Marilyn Scales

Marilyn Scales - Canadian Mining JournalMarilyn Scales is a field editor for the Canadian Mining Journal, Canada’s first mining publication.

Like our readers, we at Canadain Mining Journal have watched the price of crude oil skyrocket and heard the voices of the “greens” calling for a more environmentally friendly energy source.

We don’t usually comment on the oil industry except the massive mining operations of the Alberta oil sands. The oil sands have been roundly criticized as one of the least environmentally friendly fuel sources. Their mining and processing could be made cleaner with a liberal injection of money, but the oil sands still produce conventional hydrocarbons in the end.

Ethanol has been suggested as a replacement for hydrocarbons. But the use of corn, rice and wheat in the manufacture of ethanol has played a major part in the rise of food staple prices, placing an unbearable burden on the world’s most disadvantaged people.

Coal, of course, is the second most popular energy source, behind hydrocarbons. It has a reputation of being dangerous to mine and dirty to burn.

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Mixed Reaction at Ontario Mining Act Consultations – by Bill Bradley

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

Reaction was mixed at the provincial Mining Act consultations Wednesday night at the Howard Johnson Hotel on Brady Street. Some prospectors fumed they were not being properly consulted and bolted from the meeting while others stayed to express their concerns.

There is a process now underway to revise the Mining Act arising from promises made during the last provincial election.

“There is going to be new legislation developed this fall from issues arising from the far north protection of the boreal forest initiative by Premier McGuinty announced July 14 to bring in the interests of First Nations,” said Anne-Marie Flanagan with Northern Development and Mines Minister Michael Gravelle’s office.

“But the Mining Act covers the whole province including the rights of private property owners.”

The sessions are the first step in a consultation approach according to a discussion paper entitled Modernizing Ontario’s Mining Act: Finding A Balance that was handed out in the Sudbury session.

To be included in the discussions are the minerals industry, municipalities and other stakeholders, First Nations and Metis leaders, as well as input from First Nations communities across Ontario.

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Miners Need to be Wary of Ontario Premier McGuinty – By John Cumming

John Cumming MSc (Geology) is the editor of the Northern Miner, Canada’s global mining newspaper.  jcumming@northernminer.com

The week ended July 19, the 29th trading week of 2008, kicked off with a surprise announcement by the Ontario government that it would “protect” at least 225,000 sq. km, or roughly half of the province’s boreal forest.

The scope of the proposal is broad. It includes: banning economic activity within at least half the province’s boreal forest; holding meetings across the province with every conceivable stakeholder to come up with new land-use plans; giving local aboriginal communities veto power over proposed economic activities; revamping the way resource businesses are taxed, including more taxes going to local aboriginal communities; and building up bureaucracies to create and implement land-use plans.

The government also restated its intention to rewrite the province’s mining act before 2010, including changing the process for staking and exploration. It starts reviewing the act this August.

Given that you can’t trust anything Premier “I-won’t-cut-your-taxes-but- I-won’t-raise-them-either” McGuinty says, and that his professed environmentalism is driven by pure political expediency, figuring out what this latest proposal means for miners in Ontario is tricky.

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Xstrata Copper Announces $121 Million New Investment in the Timmins Kidd Mine

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 Xstrata Copper has announced a new $121 million investment to deepen and extend the projected operating life of the Kidd Mine in Timmins.  This investment will not only have a positive impact on the company´s future but also on the fortunes of its employees, suppliers and contactors, Timmins, Northern Ontario and the economy of the entire province. 

The Kidd Mine is the deepest base metal mine in the world.  This new project will expand the copper-zinc orebody´s mining zone from 9,100 feet below surface to 9,500 feet and extend the mine life to 2017.  This zone is estimated to contain 3.4 million tonnes of ore with a grade of 1.48% copper, 6.22% zinc and 80 grams of silver per tonne.

“The investment approval reflects Xstrata Copper´s commitment to the sustainability of Kidd Mine and the Timmins community and its business strategy to continually implement improvements to enhance the value of its operations,” said Claude Ferron, Chief Operating Officer for Xstrata Copper Canada. 

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Global Solidarity for Unions: A Vision That Works – by Patrick Veinot

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

(Re: editorial written by Michael Atkins,Chickens coming home to roost with Inco Contract,July 15 edition of Northern Life)

Thank you Michael Atkins for the opportunity to clarify some of the differences between organizations. As well as correct some of your opinions on the leverage or the strength of USW Local 6500, when bargaining with, or as you would so have it, against Vale Brazil.

Let me begin by saying that the CAW is a National Union, run from the top down, focused largely on the Canadian Auto Industry. This is manufacturing, not mining, and since NAFTA the manufacturing Industry has, not surprisingly, been in trouble.

While their leadership continues to negotiate higher wages it could be said to be true, that almost in parallel they have been forced to negotiate lay-offs, often forming awkward relationships with unfriendly politicians for taxpayer subsidies.

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More Mines, Lower Commodity Prices on Horizon – by Marilyn Scales

Marilyn Scales - Canadian Mining JournalMarilyn Scales is a field editor for the Canadian Mining Journal, Canada’s first mining publication.

We have all heard that “timing is everything”, and that truism applies as much to mine development as to anything. It seems that there is a growing number of new mines planned in Canada just as analysts warn of major corrections in commodities prices.

Softer prices are a result of a strengthening U.S. dollar, according to analysts. Oil prices have dropped to a three-month low, if one considers $119/bbl to be low. Perhaps it is compared to $140/bbl. The much-anticipated $1,000/oz threshold for gold was topped only three days in March 2008. The price of the yellow metal has been bouncing up and down since then from $850 to $990, averaging $900 so far in August. Copper has fallen from its high of over $4.00/lb in June this year back to approximately $3.50, and the pundits predict further losses. The zinc price is continuing to slide from its late 2006 high of slightly over $2.00/lb to under $1.00. Nickel reached a high of $24.00/lb in the first half of 2007, but it, too, is giving up ground, finishing June 2008 in the $8.00 neighbourhood. Analysts are beginning to say that even potash prices have peaked. And so it goes.

All of us mining industry watchers know this is a cyclical sector. Five years of rising prices have spurred exploration efforts around the world and across Canada. Many would-be miners want to cash in on the boom. The question becomes how many of them can do that before prices soften to the point that projects are once again shelved?

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Vale Preserves Aboriginal Traditions in Canada and Bazil- by Vivian Rangel

The following article was first published in Engagement, Vale’s magazine for socially responsible and sustainable mining.

In partnership with Vale Inco, aboriginal peoples from Canada keep their ancestral customs alive while they learn to deal with new technologies

Known as First Nations, or aboriginal peoples, two of the first ethnic groups that inhabited the continent, the Innu and the Inuit, have lived for about 7000 years in the province of Newfoundland and Labrador in the northeast of Canada.  The nomadic tribes confront the intense cold and survive by fishing and hunting animals such as deer and moose.  The men chant ancestral music to attract whales to request and conduct ceremonies of blessing of the shaman, torngak, especially for their hunting equipment.

However, over time the ancestral traditions have been losing out to the encroachment of Christian and colonists’ religious customs.  In 1995, concerned about the gradual loss of customs and high degree of dissatisfaction in the relationship of the Innu and Inuit and other inhabitants of the provinces, the Canadian government recognized the original rights of the aboriginal peoples to land, signing partnership agreements with governments representing the indigenous groups.  Five years later, this was one of the major concerns of Inco when it began its mining activities in Newfoundland.

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China Demand Keeps Xstrata Business in Sudbury Booming – by Bill Bradley

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

Demand for nickel is booming and will continue to do so well into the future, said Mike Romaniuk, vice-president Ontario Operations, Xstrata Nickel. He was a speaker at a luncheon for the Rotary Club earlier this week at the Howard Johnson on Brady Street.

Close to $400 million is expected to be invested in Sudbury operations. In 2007, 300 workers were hired and another 400 are expected to join the company this year, said Romaniuk.

Why the good times?

In China, they are building the equivalent of a Greater Toronto Area city every year, he said.

“I was there three years ago and saw a sign in the dirt saying a new city of 15 million to be built at this site within three years. They did it. Cities like that require a lot of nickel in their infrastructure and consumer products. That’s why we are prospering,” said Romaniuk.

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Ontario Mining Industry Safety Performance Update

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.

For the first half of 2008, the Ontario mining industry´s safety performance was holding steady keeping the sector among the three safest industries in Ontario.  For the first six months of 2008, the mining industry had a lost time injury rate of 0.6 per 200,000 hours worked, which is the same as the first six months of 2007.  The total medical injury frequency for the first six months of 2008, at 7.4 per 200,000 hours worked, is up slightly from the rate of 6.7 for the January to June 2007 period.  The severity of injuries remains virtually the same at 16 days for the first half of 2008, compared with 15 days for the first half of 2007.

According to numbers from the Mines and Aggregates Safety and Health Association (MASHA), the mining sector´s safety prevention organization, and similar organizations representing other industries, mining´s safety record would not quite match, but be in line with, the top performing electrical and education sectors.  Mining´s safety performance, however, would rank ahead of sectors such as manufacturing, services, forestry, construction, health care, municipal workers, farming and transportation.   

The Ontario mining industry´s lost time injury rate for 2007 was 0.8 per 200,000 hours worked.  The industry has been steadily improving over the decades on this incident frequency, which stood at 4.7 in 1985.  Credit for these stronger safety performances resides on the shoulders of every individual who works in the industry.  These statistics are moving in the right direction because of the personal diligence on the safety front and concern for oneself and his and her colleagues.  There are a number of initiatives and institutions supporting these gains.

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Canada Reduced to “Branch Office” Status – by Marilyn Scales

Marilyn Scales is a field editor for the Canadian Mining Journal, Canada’s first mining publication. Has Canada been reduced to the level of a mere “branch office” in the global mining industry? That’s what Don Argus, chairman of BHP BILLITON, called this country at a recent business gathering in Brisbane, Australia. He was talking about …

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SAMSSA Welcomes Global Mining Partners – by Dick DeStefano

Dick DeStefano - Executive Director of SAMSSADick DeStefano is the Executive Director of Sudbury Area Mining Supply and Service Association (SAMSSA). Sudbury Mining Solutions Journal showcases the mining expertise of North Bay, Timmins and Sudbury. (This column was orginally published June/2007)

Sudbury has become a global shopping destination for mining visitors in the past few months, especially from South Africa, Brazil and Chile.

“The attraction to our SAMSSA members is overwhelming and exciting to see and augers well for the future of Sudbury and all of Northern Ontario,” said Jeff Fuller, Treasurer of the SAMSSA Board and President of Fuller Industrial.

More than 50 business and government visitors from South Africa’s North West Province, Brazil and Chile have visited SAMSSA members and Sudbury academic institutions in one of the most active months in the history of the Sudbury Area Mining Supply & Service Association’s four-year existence.

Sudbury has become a destination point for mining industry people looking for equipment, technology and talent, and SAMSSA members are one of the main attractions for these global visitors.

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Social Capital, Clusters and Connections in Sudbury’s Global Mining Sector – by Dr. David Robinson

Dr. David Robinson - Laurentian University Economics ProfessorDr. David Robinson is an economist at Laurentian University in Sudbury, Canada. Sudbury Mining Solutions Journal showcases the mining expertise of North Bay, Timmins and Sudbury.

Scott Tiffin is a Canadian who lives in Chile. For the last five years he has been Director of Research and International Relations at the Universidad Alfonso Ibanez in Santiago, one of the best business schools in Latin America. Scott is an expert on entrepreneurship. He wants to help Chileans develop a dynamic mining supply sector, so last week Scott came to Sudbury to steal our ideas.

Scott especially wants to know how universities help resource sector businesses grow. He will look at Chilean, Canadian and Finnish or Australian examples to identify “best practices’’ that can be used to promote Chilean development.

The visit uncovered a few surprises: one Laurentian University Economics professor just back from Chile where he talked about how the supply and service sector developed, a team from the Faculty of Management collaborating with Chilean researchers to study small firms in the mining sector, and a couple of engineers just back from giving a course in Antofagasta. They didn’t know about each other’s work.

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Over Forty Died in the 1910 Spanish River Train Tragedy – Gary Peck

What was termed at the time the worst accident in the history of the CPR took place about 1 p.m. on Friday, January 21, 1910. The disaster occurred about 37 miles west of Sudbury on the Soo line of the CPR at the bridge crossing the Spanish River.
 
Coroner Howey, on instructions from Attorney – General Boy through Crown Attorney J.H. Clary, had a jury summoned for 10 a.m. January 26. The jury consisted of John McLeod (foreman), J.R. Bissett, R. Martin, F.M. Stafford, D. Blue, John Higgins, C. Carmichael, D.L. Burns, S. Jessop, H.S. Young, W. Chalmers, L. Laforest, O Tuvor and D. McDonald.
 
Upon being sworn in, the jury viewed the body of one of the victims. Subsequently, they were taken by a special train to the scene of the wreck.  

After several days deliberation, the jury in February reported their verdict and recommendations. They concluded that the derailment was “…caused by the forward truck of the first-class car leaving the track, and plunging over the embankment, followed by the dining and sleeping car; also causing derailment of the second-class car.” However, they were unable to determine the cause of the derailment.

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The Ghost from Haileybury – by Michael Barnes

The most popular series of books sold in Canada was the Hardy Boys. Most people recall Franklin W. Dixon as the author. But that was just a pen name given to ghost writer Leslie McFarlane from Haileybury.

Leslie McFarlane was 23 in 1926 when he answered an ad for a fiction writer.The young cub reporter, formerly of the Sudbury Star and Cobalt Daily Nugget, felt he had it in him to become a book writer but somehow could not get started.

The ad for a fiction writer was placed by an American, Edward Stratemeyer who operated a stable of writers who churned out pulp novels along certain lines and themes.

There have been several such outfits before and since but Strateymeyer was longer lived than most and covered all the bases. Writers like Leslie McFarlane were given an outline of the characters in a series and then a plot for one book.

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