I made a pitch the other day to the Ontario
Mining Association. It wasn’t that risque, really. I told them that
given Sudbury, over and above being the home of Inco and
Falconbridge, has a couple of hundred mining service and supply
companies and it would be a good place for the association to plant
its flag.
This is particularly true given the city they are
in doesn’t much notice them, or even appreciate the stunning amount
of money many of its natives have made funding the mining industry
in Canada over the last 100 years. It is a fact that much of
Toronto’s early wealth was built on mining.
But I digress.
As I wrote the speech, I had no idea the
association had never had its annual meeting outside of Toronto
until this year. I was freelancing an idea that made sense to me. I
was as baffled to learn about their Toronto-centric life, as they
were about my suggestion they consider a change of venue.
There is good reason for them to come to where
the action is.
To begin with, there is a ton of economic
research that identifies the obvious power of economic clusters.
The official definition to the extent there is one comes from
Michael Porter, a well-known economist, author of The Competitive
Advantage of Nations, and huge influence on the federal
government’s economic strategy over the last decade or so.
“Clusters are geographic concentrations of
interconnected companies, specialized suppliers, service providers,
firms in related industries and associated institutions
(universities, standards agencies, trade associations) in a
particular field that compete but also co-operate.”
My theory on the Mining Association is that it
needs its own city-state. A place to mount a hiring and training
offensive, where they can shape their own 21st-century employment
strategy. A place to launch a political offensive on the role and
importance of mining to the economy of the province and the
country, and a place to encourage the growth of the cluster to help
offset the coming consolidation of the mining business, which will
take decision makers elsewhere.
A place where they could help concentrate
research and development from the mining sector, and address their
largest problems, which include overcoming prohibitive energy
costs, learning how to deal with first nation communities in
Northern Ontario, and satisfying environmental opposition to the
impact of mines on the landscape.
It is a time for all the people and institutions
in the mining sector to work together and that means they need to
be together.
On the social side of the equation, my pitch to
the association is no different than my pitch to Northern
Ontarians.
What the hell are we going to do when we run out
of trees and ore?
Will there be anything to show for 200 years of
mineral wealth?
Will we have sufficient intellectual capital to
continue to be a major player in the mining business because of our
know-how instead of our ore. If there is anything left it will be
in Sudbury and area, not Toronto.
If we don’t build our cluster, we are fools. We
will deserve what we get. We have plenty of practice being fools in
Canada with pulp mills closing down and fishing grounds destroyed
on both coasts as a result of greed and stupidity. Must it happen
again? No, but it takes everybody on the same page to avoid
it.
Recently Toronto opened the first phase of the
$400-million MARS (Medical and Related Sciences centre) project.
They have renovated the old Toronto General Hospital and they will
proceed to “commercialize scientific discoveries, create a globally
significant centre that attracts the best people, bringing together
science, business and capital under one roof,” says CEO Ilse
Treurnicht.
It is big. It is exciting. It is cluster
building.
There will be no MARS for mining in Toronto. If
you want that, you come to Sudbury where it is already built.
Michael Atkins is the president of Laurentian
Media. He can be reached at[email protected]
.
