The Reminder is making its archives back to 2003 available on our website. Please note that, due to technical limitations, archive articles are presented without the usual formatting.
Flin Flon has much in common with Timmins, Ontario. Both communities are carved out of the Canadian Shield, and both see their winters dominated by hockey and curling and their summers ruled by camping and fishing. Both are also dependent on a mining and processing industry whose volatility will soon prompt the closure of two of Canada's three remaining copper smelters. The Timmins smelter, owned by Xstrata Copper Canada, will cease operations on May 1, two months before HBMS's self-imposed deadline to shut down its Flin Flon smelter. Combined, the two cities will lose nearly 900 jobs Ð about 225 in Flin Flon and another 670 in Timmins. But as the smelters enter their final weeks, the atmosphere in each community could not be more divergent. Whereas Flin Flon is now focused on post-smelter scenarios, Timmins remains fixated on ways to save its facility. Last week, according to the Timmins Times, Timmins City Council voted to purchase placard signs for a local coalition fighting to keep the Xstrata smelter in business. The symbolism counted much more than the $500. The coalition is aiming its efforts not only at Xstrata, which plans to refine ore from Timmins at its Quebec smelter, but also the Ontario government. They want the province to lower industrial electricity rates and introduce legislation to ensure mining communities enjoy the benefits of processing their own ore. Under the slogan "Our Resources Stay Here!", the coalition, along with city council, has squeezed a promise out of Premier Dalton McGuinty to explore new options for the smelter, but not much else. Little sense Timmins City Councillor John Curley sees little sense in Xstrata, the Swiss copper giant, shifting its smelting from Timmins to Rouyn-Noranda, Quebec. "By shipping it outside of the province when you have the capability of refining it here in Ontario, that's the question that a lot of people are asking," said Councillor Curley, as quoted by the Times. "It would be different if we didn't have the facilities. We definitely do have the facilities. It should stay in the province of Ontario." Recent months have also seen the Ontario Northland General Chairperson's Association, a union group, call on the federal, provincial and municipal governments to assist in keeping the Xstrata smelter open. It does not appear such efforts will be successful. They certainly weren't in Flin Flon. Initially, Flin Flon's "save the smelter" battle revolved exclusively around the federal government's tightening pollution-reduction targets. Those targets were the rationale Peter Jones, then CEO of HBMS, gave when he first stated, back in 2004, that the smelter would likely close before 2009. His announcement was initially downplayed by some as either a caustic bargaining tactic or a veiled plea for a handout to modernize the smelter. Others predicted that Ottawa, realizing the damage its quest for cleaner air would do, would back off. "You know, surely the government isn't foolish enough to pass legislation that would shut us down," then-mayor Dennis Ballard said at the time. "Somewhere along the line, I see the problem is, the legislators pass the legislation and the bureaucrats, I don't blame them, follow it to the letter, and sometimes it's just not reasonable. The legislators have to look at both sides: at what is good to have in place and what you can afford to have in place." With that, an earnest push to soften the pollution targets commenced. HBMS, the Manitoba government and then-MP Bev Desjarlais launched into lobbying efforts to prevent what Jones called an "arbitrary reduction" from seeing the light of day. City council was also in touch. After several months, however, the matter seemed to fade from the public consciousness. HBMS began wracking up record profits under a new owner, HudBay Minerals, and many assumed the smelter was now safely tucked under a blanket of black ink. Then in late 2007, the smelter question resurfaced, this time with greater potency. Jones, now the head of the HBMS parent company, reiterated his 2004 announcement Ð with additional detail. Speaking to The Reminder, Jones stated that the federal pollution targets Ð now slightly less rigid than they were three years earlier Ð were just one challenge facing the smelter. The facility now had to contend with the extremely low treatment and refining fees paid to HBMS for processing copper concentrate from other mines. The amount of the fees was out of HBMS's hands, dictated by the global market. Another problem was the skyrocketing cost of oil and its ripple effect on supplies Ð particularly troublesome for an operation as energy-intensive as the aging smelter. See 'Jones' on pg. Continued from pg. Jones' comments to The Reminder would be echoed two years later when Xstrata announced the pending shutdown of the Timmins smelter. "Global smelting overcapacity is driving treatment and refining charges to record lows while the costs to operate and maintain these facilities continue to increase," Claude Ferron, Chief Operating Officer for Xstrata Copper Canada, would say. 'Any time' While HBMS had initially said the smelter would probably shut down before 2009, it could now happen "at any time" in the lead-up to 2015, when the toughest of the new pollution targets take effect. Again some viewed Jones' pronouncement as a bargaining ploy, particularly since the Reminder article was published less than a month before Christmas. (For the record, this newspaper had requested the interview with Jones, not the other way around). Just like in 2004, another bout of optimism afflicted politicians. Jim Rondeau, then Manitoba's mines minister, said the province would work with HBMS to help it meet its emissions targets Ð even as the company openly declared that this would not be possible. And once more comments were made to the effect that the federal government Ð now led by the pro-business Stephen Harper, not Paul Martin Ð would simply give HBMS a pass if the pollution rules were a sticking point. It did not. It's unknown whether the Harper government ever contemplated loosening Martin's air quality mandate, which applied to all Canadian smelters. But the optics of reversing such a policy would have certainly cost the Tories support among an electorate that grows greener by the election. In the end, pragmatism was forced to take hold in Flin Flon. That was obvious late last year, months after HBMS unveiled a firm closure deadline of July 1, 2010, when Flin Flon MLA Gerard Jennissen was asked about the matter. "...the end result is that the company makes the decision," he said. "We can't hold a gun to their head. They decide it's in their best financial interests to close it." MP Niki Ashton also conceded the powerlessness of governments and any other group on the outside looking in. "Certainly I believe government has a role to play to support the community," she said last year. "Now, if some decisions are made that the government doesn't have any control (over), that is a bit different." While there are similarities between the Flin Flon and Timmins situations, this is not an altogether apples-to-apples proposition. For one, the pollution rules are a non-issue in Timmins. Xstrata said the targets were already being met or else would have been met with some adjustments. Secondly, the financial picture is much brighter at the Timmins smelter than it is at the Flin Flon facility, at least according to Councillor Curley of Timmins. "Their smelter is losing money. This smelter is not," he was quoted as saying by the Times.
