(1)

Northern Caucus

A meeting of the Northern Caucus and Assistant Deputy Minister, Ring of Fire Secretariat, Christine Kaszycki will take place on August 22nd to discuss opportunities for the OCC to assist in moving the Ring of Fire project forward.

Link is below:

http://occ.on.ca/2012/policy-commitee-and-task-force-update/

(2) Another New Job Posting from Cliffs. They are looking for a environmental mine manager for Thunder bay area.

Link is below

http://jobs.cliffsnaturalresources.com/us/thunder-bay/full-time/jobid2602324-environmental-manager-mine

(3)

http://www.dcnonl.com/article/id51570

Confederation College of Thunder Bay prepares for mining construction boom in Ontario Ring of Fire

DON PROCTER

correspondent

August 22, 2012

As mining exploration ramps up in the Ring of Fire in northwestern Ontario, the construction industry in the region awaits busy times.

Along with the expected building construction boom, there will be bridges, roads and power infrastructure to build plus “a whole range of unprecedented development,” says Don Bernosky, vice-president, Regional Workforce Development (RWD), at Confederation College in Thunder Bay.

“It could be as big as the Sudbury mining basin or the whole Timmins area.”

Meeting the demand for a skilled workforce will be challenging. For training institutes like Confederation College, it is good news that mining companies are still a few years away from construction.

That gives the college “limited time” to develop appropriate training programs for building, says Bernosky.

With nine campuses in northwestern Ontario, Confederation is the only community college in the region. It offers apprenticeship training in carpentry, electrical, motive power trades, and construction trades.

In conjunction with the multi-billion dollar Ring of Fire developments, there are 12 potential mining projects around Thunder Bay, he says.

“We’ve been meeting with the (mining) companies, the government and local communities to establish a plan for the development of a future workforce,” points out Bernosky.

The first step is to identify the scope of work and schedule for each major project, he says. Training initiatives will target a wide range of industries, starting with the construction trades.

The training model is not new to the college. For the development of the Meno Ya Win Health Care Centre in Sioux Lookout, RWD teamed up with the construction trades and the Sioux Lookout Area Aboriginal Management Board to supply identified labor needs from the community to build the hospital.

“Some of the people we trained for that project went on to pursue careers in construction,” Bernosky points out.

The hospital is among a number of examples where the college has worked closely with the community and developers. It has never, however, taken on a training agenda as big as the Ring of Fire.

One of the key’s to the college’s success at meeting the skilled workforce requirements is that it gets plenty of advance notice about a planned development and its scheduled delivery, Bernosky emphasizes.

Harold Lindstrom, manager of the Construction Association of Thunder Bay (CATB), sees the college’s model as innovative.

Confederation is on the right track with how it will develop its training courses geared to work on the horizon, says Lindstrom, who sits on advisory committees at the college which review curriculum of training programs in construction, architectural and engineering.

In the meantime, he says local contractors will try to keep their skilled tradespeople gainfully employed in preparation for the increase in work.

“It can be very easy to lose some people in the (economic) condition we’re in right now. But if you lay someone off they could go to work for someone else and you won’t get them back.”

Lindstrom says before developments in the Ring of Fire move ahead, he hopes developers will discuss their manpower needs with surrounding city and community leaders.

“We’re hoping that the companies won’t put everything (projects) out all at once — and it sounds like they are willing to listen to communities on this — which helps to keep northwestern Ontario trades employed on a continuous basis,” he points out.

Such development strategies minimize materials and labour shortages.

“They (developers) will pay a premium (in wages and materials) if they put everything out at once,” he adds.

In addition to the Ring of Fire, construction is on the upswing in Thunder Bay itself where pulp and paper mill upgrades are under way after a lull of over a decade, says Lindstrom.

“We wouldn’t describe it as a boom, but rather a coming back to where we used to be 15-20 years ago.”

Furthermore, Northwestern Ontario is on the radar of unemployed or underemployed tradespeople from other parts of Ontario.

As an example, about 100 carpenters from other union locals are working in the region under permits obtained through Carpenters’ Local 1669 in Thunder Bay.

Bernosky says Confederation College recently signed a partnership with the Infrastructure Health & Safety Association to provide health and safety training.

“We will work in conjunction with IHSA to embed health and safety in all of our delivery, including health and safety for all apprentices and pre-apprentices in the building trades.”

(4)

http://www.chroniclejournal.com/content/news/local/2012/08/22/leaders-want-action-mining-infrastructure

Bryan Meadows

Northwestern Ontario municipal leaders are outlining their priorities this week during the Association of Municipalities of Ontario annual conference in Ottawa.
One of those priorities, being touted by the Northwestern Ontario Municipal Association, is that the province lead plans for mining infrastructure in the region.
“Northwestern Ontario is on the cusp of a mining explosion, and we need to ensure that both government and opposition members recognize the full impact of these developments for the province,” NOMA president Ron Nelson said Tuesday.
“This is not just a northern project as it has the potential to drive the economy of Ontario for decades to come,” he said, adding that “the province needs to take the lead by planning, developing and owning the roads and energy infrastructure that is needed to support mining developments in the Northwest.”
“It will be expensive, however,” Nelson said, “the return on that investment through provincial tax revenues over the next 100 years will be immense.”
In its presentation to cabinet ministers, NOMA said that the province has a key role to play in ensuring First Nations communities benefit directly from the mining-related economic growth; and that the government must work closely with workforce planning boards and training providers to ensure sufficient training and apprenticeship opportunities are in place to address projected labour needs.
“We are pleased with the discussions held with the government and both opposition parties,” Nelson said. “We believe that our message was heard and we look forward to working together to ensure the immense opportunity in the Northwest is fully realized.”
NOMA represents the interests of 37 municipalities from Kenora and Rainy River, west to Hornepayne and Wawa.
Another priority for Northwestern Ontario delegates at the AMO convention was traditional infrastructure funding.
Atikokan Mayor Dennis Brown agreed, saying that a consistent and adequate funding program for small municipalities is needed.
“We’re having trouble right now with our arena. The chiller is broken . . . and we won’t be able to use the facility this winter if we can’t get help to buy a new one (worth $132,000),” he said, noting that small municipalities such as Atikokan “need to have dependable infrastructure funding every year.”
And, the municipality’s share of a project cost “needs to be 10 per cent at the most. We can’t afford our share, even a third (of the cost of an infrastructure project) is too much,” he said.
Dryden Mayor Craig Nuttall says municipal funding is also a concern of that city’s council.
Nuttall said they had meetings with Municipal Affairs Minister Kathleen Wynne and Natural Resources Minister Michael Gravelle as well as FedNor Minister Tony Clement.
“We talked with Clement about infrastructure funding,” he said, particularly about the federal government coming up with a third of the $1.8-million cost of repaving Highway 17 through the city.
“The federal government is looking at a new funding program, and it was great to have a meeting to voice our opinion (as well) on where infrastructure money should be going,” Nuttall said.
“We talked to Minister Wynne about the city’s financial difficulties, and that we’re willing to work with her and ministry staff in Thunder Bay (to find solutions),” he said.
“With Gravelle, we talked about the airport, and the lease coming up with MNR’s (fire management centre there), and how we’re going to be fair about (renewing the lease).
“It was good to get the message out there,” he said, of the city’s issues.
Thunder Bay Mayor Keith Hobbs, who is also attending the conference, could not be reached Tuesday for comment.
Northwest municipal leaders are among 1,600 in Ottawa for the AMO conference which wraps up today at the Ottawa Convention Centre.
This year’s program featured close to 50 plenary sessions and workshops, and more than 75 speakers, reflecting the broad scope of municipal responsibilities. Topics included leadership, municipal law, infrastructure, energy and conservation, public sector pensions, policing costs, accessibility, social housing, planning, water and wastewater treatment, waste diversion, biodiversity.
Ontario cabinet ministers answered questions from conference delegates during an open session on Tuesday afternoon.
AMO is a non-profit organization representing almost all of Ontario’s 444 municipal governments.

(5)

http://www.tbnewswatch.com/news/230291/Boom-preparation

2012-08-22 at 13:49

Boom preparation

By Jeff Labine, tbnewswatch.com

• 
  tbnewswatch.com
  FILE -- City of Thunder Bay At-large Coun. Ken Boshcoff.

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The city has taken another step toward being Ring of Fire ready.

The massive chromite in Northern Ontario is expected to bring an economic boom to the area. In an effort to be ready for that boom, the city has prepared a Mining Readiness Strategy. But the strategy is meaningless if it doesn’t have provincial support.

Getting that provincial support was one of the city’s main goals as local delegates swarmed Ottawa this week for the Association of Municipalities Ontario conference. City councillors Joe Virdiramo, Ken Boshcoff, Brian McKinnon, Mayor Keith Hobbs and City Manager Tim Commisso attended the four-day conference, which started Sunday, to advocate for the city to provincial ministers.

Boshcoff is now calling the trip a success as it appears the city now has commitment from ministers that should help move the city’s mining strategy forward. Specifically, ministers were appointing administrators to oversee the development of the mining strategy.

“One of our goals was finding out who the point person for the minister of the mine readiness study was,” Boshcoff said.

“Each department assigns a senior public servant so we get answers quicker and they expedite what’s happening. The fact that so many departments made their commitments right away and others will be appointing someone in the near future is a great check list that we have that done.”

The strategy developed by the city focuses on specific areas such as creating a workforce, ensuring a mine has enough power and that Thunder Bay can handle the potential thousands of new residents.

It’s also meant to prepare the city for the proposed Ring of Fire development.

He added that it’s the first time that something like this has happened.

“It was very, very positive, more than in many years,” he said.

“On many of the fronts we received very quick responses and commitments on some things and on others we have established lines of communication that’s going to help the city.”

The city delegates also advocated for ReGenMed and dealt with shortfalls with ambulance services.

Boshcoff said it was a broad meeting with the ministers but giant strides were made in each issue their brought up.

City officials also asked for an update on the Thunder Bay Generating Station switching from coal to natural gas to conform with the province’s long-term energy plan to get Ontario off of coal by the end of 2014.

But the conversion hit a snag when Ontario Power Authority and Ontario Power Generation had a dispute over a power purchase agreement.

Boshcoff said despite this dispute, they were assured that the conversion of the plant would continue and that it would meet its intended goal.

Councillors also spoke about the proposed event centre at the conference but Boschoff would only say that the city’s review on which location it should be located at would be released sometime in September

(6)http://www.dcnonl.com/article/id51630

August 28, 2012

Private infrastructure financing on agenda of Ottawa meeting

PATRICIA WILLIAMS

staff writer

Following up on a series of regional roundtables held over the summer, Infrastructure Canada is scheduled to host a meeting in Ottawa Wednesday to look at the role of the private sector in infrastructure development.

“I think it is important that we have these discussions,” said John Gamble, president of the Association of Consulting Engineering Companies-Canada, one of the organizations invited to attend the meeting.

“I think this roundtable will constitute a good basis for moving forward.”

The provincial and territorial roundtables, which wrapped up in late July, were designed to gather first-hand input from key stakeholders on development of a new long-term infrastructure plan.

The plan will set the stage to replace nearly $2 billion in annual infrastructure funding that is due to expire in 2014.

Representatives of ACEC member organizations participated in five roundtables in different parts of the country. A national roundtable is scheduled for this fall.

Gamble said financing “clearly” will be one of the items on the agenda at today’s meeting.“I think it’s appropriate that we look at all of the options that are available in terms of how we stabilize and begin to chip away at the infrastructure deficit,” he said.

“Quite frankly, that’s not going to happen unless there is some opportunity to bring some private financing into the equation.”

One of those options is public-private partnerships (P3s).

While such partnerships can be an “extremely successful” mechanism for leveraging financing for infrastructure projects, Gamble said this approach does not represent “a one-size-fits-all” solution. Potential projects need to be “prudently” identified, he said.

In Canada, municipal governments own 65 per cent of public infrastructure. The provinces own 31 per cent and the federal government, 3.1 per cent.

“Some municipalities are quite comfortable with the notion of P3s,” Gamble said. “Others are not.”

ACEC itself is “neither for nor against” this method of project delivery, Gamble said, noting that member firms have participated in P3s both as parts of consortia and as owners’ representatives.

“Certainly, we want to make sure that experience and expertise is part of the discussion as we talk about an appropriate role for private financing in developing public infrastructure.”Gamble said he hopes the discussions will involve some “blue-sky thinking” as well.“I think this (development of the new plan) represents a major opportunity for both the consulting engineering industry and the municipalities to look at new ways of doing things.”