The recent provincial by-election in the Sudbury riding – ultimately won by NDP turned Liberal candidate Glenn Thibeault – caught the attention of the all important Toronto media for alleged political improprieties by Premier Wynne, one staffer and a local fund raiser.
This was unfortunate, as serious policy issues related to the city’s status as a centre of mining excellence, while briefly mentioned by the Premier and the green candidate was largely overlooked. Notwithstanding the current downturn in the resource sector, Sudbury’s extraordinary polymetallic ore deposit – primarily nickel, copper, cobalt, gold, silver and platinum group metals – is the richest mining district in North America.
And with roughly 130 years of production, new mines are still being found and the community has become a centre of excellence in mining education, research and contains a vibrant supply and services sector.
However, if Premier Wynne is truly serious about promoting Sudbury’s role as a centre of mining excellence, than she must merge and relocate all of Ontario’s university mining programs to Laurentian and significantly expand the faculties creating a “Global Harvard of Hardrock Mining” with a mandate to educate the next generation of miners in Canada and from around the world.
Government “differentiation” policy encourages specialization
With this consolidation, not only would the Premier solidify Sudbury’s premier role in underground mining expertise in Canada, she would also dovetail with current policy from her own Ministry of Training, Colleges and Universities (MTCU) that is trying to cut duplication in the university sector and increase the number of international students attending the province’s universities.
The Higher Education Quality Council of Ontario (HEQCO) was established to improve the quality and effectiveness of universities and colleges in this province at a time of severe funding restraints due to unsustainable billion dollar deficits. Their key policy initiative is called “differentiation”.
A government news release states, “Research shows a differentiated post secondary education system supports greater quality, competitiveness, accountability by allowing institutions to spend resources more efficiently, focusing on their areas of strength.”
In other words, “all universities can’t be all thing to all people” and that they should start focusing on specializations which will enhance their global standing and further entice international students who pay much higher tuition fees, ranging from three to four times the standard rate.
Last year, the federal government committed to almost doubling the number of foreign students coming here by 2022 to 450,000. The economic impact can be significant as the Australian educational market is that country’s fourth largest export following iron ore, coal and gold and valued at $15 billion.
There are three mining engineering faculties – University of Toronto, Queen’s (Kingston) and Laurentian – and, astonishingly, 11 earth sciences/geology departments in Ontario’s 22 publicly funded universities. The only communities that have operating mines are Sudbury and Windsor which has an underground salt operation. However, the earth science programs at Windsor, focused on southwestern Ontario’s unique geology and Lakehead in Thunder Bay as the mineral potential of northwestern Ontario, including the Ring of Fire is so vast, should be kept.
Economic clusters and universities
Economic clusters are composed of interrelated industries and institutions that create value added wealth primarily through innovation and the export of goods and services. Harvard Professor Michael Porter, whose ideas are taught in almost every business school in the world, is a key proponent of industry clusters that enhance economic development, competitiveness and encourage growth.
Every successful high technology cluster around the world is anchored by one or more large engineering/research universities with well funded programs.
In addition to the Ontario government’s new differentiation and international student outreach policies, the main reasons why all post-secondary mining programs should be relocated to Sudbury’s Laurentian are to help further support the four mining clusters located in the Sudbury Basin.
The first cluster is the primary mineral producers, Vale, Glencore, KGHM and two juniors, First Nickel and Wallbridge and their many mines, two mills, two smelters and one refinery.
When you include the geological terrain between Sudbury, Timmins, Kirkland Lake and North Bay, no other place on the planet has the concentration of hardrock mines and expertise except for two regions in South Africa – the Witswaterand gold mining district and the Bushveld platinum-chromium mineral belt – and the Antofagasta copper region in northern Chile.
In 2014, Vale opened its first new mine – Totten is its sixth local mine – in the Sudbury Basin in 40 years while Glencore opened its exceptionally rich Nickel Rim South mine in 2010. Both of these operations embody the high tech digital mines of the future, integrating highly sophisticated data and communications systems and using cutting edge technology for ground control and ventilation systems that significantly improve worker productivity and safety.
The second major cluster is the roughly 300 SME mining supply and service companies that employ about 13,000 people, significantly more than the mining facilities below and above surface, which have their own association called SAMSSA.
The supply and services industry is composed of a wide variety of companies that include shaft sinkers, specialty pipe manufacturing, developers of wireless sensor detection programs, robotic and automation systems, specialty mine software and numerous mine engineering and design firms, just to mention a few. A new generation of entrepreneurs is looking beyond the local and regional mines and focusing on advanced technologies and innovation that can be globally exported.
Mining education and research clusters
The final two clusters are mining education and extensive research and innovation which are done within the mining companies, post-secondary facilities, supply and service companies and as stand-alone institutes.
Laurentian University’s well respected Bharti School of Engineering and Earth Sciences faculties are supported by the recently established Goodman School of Mines that is promoting the expansion of mining related programs in occupational health and safety, Indigenous relations, finance and mine/mineral exploration management.
Two local colleges – Cambrian and French language Collège Boréal – offer mining engineering technology programs, alongside a wide variety of trades, civil engineering, mechanical, and environmental related courses. In addition, both conduct some mining related research and innovation.
The Northern Centre for Advanced Technology (NORCAT) is a leading private, non-profit centre that concentrates on innovation, entrepreneurship and life-long learning. The centre has an operating mine that is used for training, project demonstration and the development of new products.
The Centre for Excellence in Mining Innovation (CEMI) is part of the ultra-deep mine consortium which is focused on economically and sustainably mining at extreme depths in excess of 2.5 km. There are extraordinary challenges operating at these depths and the consortium is focused on rock stress risk reduction, energy costs due to cooling requirements, transporting material at these great depths and managing the enormously hot environment for the workers.
T
he Mineral Exploration Research Centre (MERC) which is associated with Laurentian’s Earth Sciences department conducts leading edge, field-based collaborative research on mineral deposits. This semi-autonomous research centre is one of the largest clusters of mineral exploration and education. Its facilities are adjacent to the Ontario Geological Survey and the provincial Geoscience laboratories.
The Vale Living with Lakes Centre works closely with Vale, Glencore and other academic institutes to study the effects and potential remediation of northern wetlands impacted by mining activities.
Mining lands restoration research and implementation by the universities and local government, alongside with company tailings re-greening and expertise in tailing dam management need to be mentioned and the billions spent on sulphur pollution controls – current and past projects – by both Vale and Glencore all contribute to Sudbury’s world-class environmental expertise.
Without a doubt, Sudbury has become North America’s Silicon Valley of the hardrock world.
By default, the lack of an Ontario mining education strategy only encourages the wasteful duplication of three mining engineering faculties and 11 earth science/geology programs across provincial universities that are not economically sustainable in the current deficit and debt plagued era.
Does Premier Wynne have the vision and determination to consolidate all of Ontario’s university mining programs at Laurentian and create a global powerhouse of underground educational expertise that will benefit the entire province?
*Stan Sudol is a Toronto-based communications consultant, mining columnist and owner/editor of www.RepublicOfMining.com He can be reached at stan.sudol@republicofmining.com
Comments