It’s time to consolidate mining university programs

The mining industry is facing a perfect storm of skills shortages – mining engineers and geologists – at a time of severe budget constraints that can only diminish mineral sector post-secondary education.

In Ontario, for example, the only economic and strategic solution in my opinion is to consolidate all of the post-secondary mining programs at Laurentian University in Sudbury and pro-actively recruit students from northern and First Nations communities who have a more realistic and familiar relationship with the mining sector.

John McGagh, Head of Innovation, at Rio Tinto – the world’s third largest mining company – has said, “In the next 25 years, demand for metals could meet or exceed what we have used since the beginning of the industrial revolution. By way of illustration, China needs to build three cities larger than Sydney or Toronto every year until 2030 to accommodate rural to urban growth, this equates to the largest migration of population from rural to urban living in the history of mankind.”

It is believed that 60 per cent of geo-scientists in Canada will be 65 or older by 2015. How are we going to replace a greying generation of geologists and mining engineers, as well as increase the numbers for expanding production? Anecdotal evidence seems to indicate that the current generation of students, who are used to the amenities of large urban centres, are increasingly reluctant to relocate to small northern mining centres that usually don’t provide employment opportunities for spouses or – in their opinion – good educational services for their children.

Ontario has three post-secondary mining engineering faculties located at Laurentian in Sudbury, Queen’s in Kingston, and the University of Toronto. Each of these schools also has a major earth science or geology program. In addition, there are nine other geo-science departments across Ontario. It is very expensive to train mining engineers and geologists, and the current situation is not economically sustainable, especially with the Province’s current $18 billion deficit. Balanced budgets are years away and expanding health care costs due to retiring baby boomers are competing with university funding.

An October, 2010 study by the Higher Education Quality Council of Ontario (HEQCO) – a provincial agency – found that Ontario universities should stop “trying to be everything to everyone” and focus on a specific areas of expertise. HEQCO’s role is to provide government policy recommendations to improve the quality of post-secondary education. HEQCO President Harvey Weingarten said at the time, “You will have institutions doing what they do best, not trying to do what everybody else is doing.”

By consolidating mining education at Laurentian University in Sudbury, the Province can turn that institution into a world-class “Harvard of the hard rock mining sector” with an international mandate.

Why Sudbury and Laurentian? Half of all mining activity in Ontario, the largest mineral producer in Canada, takes place in the Sudbury Basin. In fact, Sudbury and northeastern Ontario are the hard-rock mining heartlands of the Americas. Only the deep gold mines of the Witwatersrand and the platinum deposits of the Bushveld – both in South Africa – can match the concentration and hard-rock mining expertise of Sudbury and the northeast.

Many mining experts feel the easy open-pit mineral deposits have been discovered and the only way to significantly increase mineral production to meet the urbanizing and industrializing economies of China, India, Brazil and other developing countries is by deeper underground mines. In addition, Sudbury has the second largest concentration of mining supply and service industries after the Greater Toronto Area and already has a cluster of mining education programs that include two colleges and local high schools as well as Laurentian’s established programs.

Laurentian’s Earth Sciences geology department’s Mineral Exploration Research Centre (MERC) represents the largest cluster of geoscientists conducting ore deposit-related research of any university in North America. The affiliated Centre of Excellence in Mining Innovation (CEMI) focuses its research in mine process engineering, deep mining and environmental reclamation. Rio Tinto recently donated $10 million to further enhance CEMI’s research capabilities in deep mining.

Roughly 10 per cent of Laurentian’s student body is Aboriginal, a potentially excellent demographic to recruit the next generation of mining engineers and geologists, as many of Ontario’s new mines, especially in the Ring of Fire camp, are on traditional First Nations territory.

An explosive demand for skilled mining geologists and engineers to find and develop future deposits and keep the present ones in operation will be one of the most significant challenges the Ontario and global industry faces, in these fiscally challenging times. Consolidating the Province’s post-secondary mining programs at Laurentian with a global mandate, as well as increased First Nations recruitment, will immensely benefit the industry and regional economy and save Ontario’s fiscally challenged university system enormous amounts of money.