Ontario

Cliffs Natural Resources is proposing to develop a large chromite deposit in a remote area of northern Ontario that has been dubbed the Ring of Fire. Recognising that chromium is a toxic metal that has never been mined in Canada, MiningWatch has conducted a literature review of environmental and human health issues associated with mining and processing the metal. The complete literature review and three summary fact sheets are available here.

With an overwhelming emphasis on reducing expenditures, this week's Ontario Budget misses an important opportunity to increase provincial revenues from the mining sector. When compared with other Canadian jurisdictions, Ontario has the lowest corporate tax rate for mining and recoups the lowest share of the value of mineral production.

News release: This week, Canadian taxpayers will cover the costs of eleven journalists from eight Latin American countries – and Mongolia – to attend the Prospectors and Developers Association of Canada’s (PDAC) 2012 conference. This appears to be another attempt on the part of Canadian authorities to manage the message instead of seriously addressing the roots of mine conflicts in countries such as Argentina, Honduras, Guatemala, Peru, and Ecuador.

News release: For over a decade, MiningWatch has been saying that Ontarians should be getting a better share of the resource wealth that is extracted in the province. MiningWatch welcomed the recommendation to eliminate a key tax break for mining companies and to review the mining tax system in the recently released report from the Commission on the Reform of Ontario’s Public Services, chaired by Donald Drummond.