On Tuesday morning, Chris Haldane, of Marathon Gold Corp., was looking at the price of gold and looking at his stock price: Gold had climbed US$17 per ounce, but the company stock was barely moving."It just seems like the junior gold space has gone into a pause mode," said Haldane, who handles investor relations for Marathon, and had just issued a press release touting positive drill results for i...Read More
Economic freedom, the ability of individuals to make their own economic decisions, is key to economic and social progress. Hundreds of academic studies have shown that economic freedom leads to higher rates of economic growth, higher levels of income, increased trust and honesty in government, protection of civil liberties, reductions in poverty, and improvements in health and educational outcomes...Read More
The idea of selling mattresses online has remained largely ignored for decades, which is not really surprising. If you think about it, shipping these bulky and huge beddings seem like a ridiculous idea with how unwieldy they are. It's not like you can just squish them into a box, ship them off and be done with it. Traditionally, to get mattresses delivered, you'll need to have burly guys carry the...Read More
OTTAWA — A coalition of business associations are urging Ottawa not to intervene in a months-long backlog of grain shipments, saying the move would only cause widespread delays for other commodity shippers on Canada’s highly integrated rail system.In a letter obtained by the Financial Post Tuesday, a coalition of seven business associations urged Transportation Minister Marc Garneau to...Read More
One of the biggest diamonds found to date has been sold for US$40 million.The 910-carat Lesotho Legend was sold in a tender in Antwerp, Gem Diamonds Ltd. said Tuesday. The company found the stone, which is about the size of two golf balls, at its Letseng mine in the African country this yearWhile it’s the most Gem has yet received for a diamond, other companies have sold for more. Lucara Dia...Read More
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said Canada could use tariffs to fight any “increased pressure” of steel dumping into Canada aimed at circumventing new U.S. restrictions.The tariffs Donald Trump unveiled last week could prompt steel to be shipped instead through Canada to skirt the levies, Trudeau said Tuesday at an ArcelorMittal Dofasco plant in Hamilton, Ontario. The prime minister is...Read More
SummaryBetween 2007 and 2016, Ontario was mired in a prolonged period of economic weakness during which it lost ground compared to the rest of the country on many important economic indicators.This bulletin examines the extent of Ontario's economic weakness during this decade by examining a range of economic metrics.Ontario underperformed the rest of the country in each of the metrics examined in...Read More
MOSCOW — There was a gold rush in Siberia Thursday when the hatch of a cargo plane accidentally flew open upon takeoff — scattering tons of gold bars on the runway, Russian news reports say.An AN-12 plane operated by the airline Nimbus took off for Krasnoyarsk carrying 9.3 tons of gold and other precious metals, said to be worth $368 million, according to a statement from the state Inv...Read More
Maria Ezpeleta was planning to fly to Toronto earlier this month to speak about the impact of mining projects on women when she heard the news: The panel session, on "tackling gender bias" in the mining sector, was called off.In an ironic twist, the discussion of gender bias had been ensnared by #MeToo - the growing movement to stop sexual harassment - because new accusations were surfacing again...Read More
A flurry of new deals announced Monday suggests that mergers and acquisitions among junior mining companies, particularly in the gold space, could be heating up after several slow months.In the biggest mining deal announced so far this year in Canada, the 127-year old Idaho-based Hecla Mining Co. proposed what it estimated as a US$462 million cash-and-share acquisition of Nevada-based Klondex Mine...Read More
Turns out, it may be easier to strike gold by growing green.Just ask Jay Wilgar, a former wind power developer who started a medical marijuana company with friend Travis Kanellos after hatching the idea while lifting weights at a gym. When they began looking at ways to take their startup public, advisers suggested partnering with Newstrike Resources Inc., a Toronto-based firm that had been looking...Read More
Canada has one of the most expensive universal health-care systems in the developed world. However, there is an imbalance between the value Canadians receive and the relatively high amount of money they spend on their health-care system. Of particular concern is the fact that Canada has significantly fewer physicians and acute-care beds, and also ranks poorly for the availability of important medi...Read More
Collectively, the central bank sector claims to hold the world's largest above ground gold bar stockpile, some 33,800 tonnes of gold bars. Individually within this group, some central banks claim to be the top holders of gold bullion in the world, with individual holdings in the thousands of tonnes range.This worldwide central bank group, also known as the official sector, spans central banks (suc...Read More
Main ConclusionsBritish Columbia's NDP government recently announced a series of new policies intended to lay the foundation for "universal", government-subsidized, $10-per-day daycare across the province.This major policy intervention seems unnecessary as there does not appear to be a wide -spread lack of daycare spots in British Columbia: as of 2016, the province-wide average daycare vacancy rat...Read More
With his stock in freefall, First Quantum Minerals Ltd. chief executive Philip Pascall hopped on a hastily arranged conference call Wednesday morning to soothe investors about a surprise US$7.9 billion tax bill that Zambian authorities sent this week.Pascall rejected the US$7.9 billion figure - more than two-thirds of the company's US$9.5 billion market capitalization. Still, Vancouver-based First...Read More
First Quantum Minerals Ltd. is hoping to talk its way out of a US$7.9 billion tax assessment in Zambia. Investors aren’t so sure, with shares down 17 per cent in the two days since news of the claim emerged.The Vancouver-based miner “completely refutes” the claim and doesn’t understand the authorities’ assessment, chief executive Philip Pascall said on a conference ca...Read More
Climate change giveth, and climate change taketh away — that is, if you can attribute anything to climate change.Last December, Toronto-based Centerra Gold Inc. shut down the mill at its Mount Milligan mine in British Columbia after anemic snowmelt runoff and an unexpected extreme cold snap froze the shallow supply of water in its tailing ponds. On Friday, the company announced that same mil...Read More
Main ConclusionsThe Government of Alberta has run nearly uninterrupted deficits since 2008/09 including deficits expected to average over $9 billion annually between 2016/17 and 2018/19.Alberta's deficit today is much larger than the deficit the current government inherited (about $6 billion) when it took office in 2015/16.Blaming depressed oil prices or fiscal challenges that pre-date the recent...Read More
In early March, RT.com, the Russian based media network, asked me for comments and opinion on the subject of central bank manipulation of gold prices.The comments and opinion that I supplied to RT became the article that RT then exclusively published on its website on 18 March under the title “Central banks manipulating & suppressing gold prices - industry expert to RT“. This artic...Read More
On May 6, 2016, just three days after a wildfire engulfed Fort McMurray, Alta., and forced the evacuation of more than 80,000 people, business icon and philanthropist Peter Munk donated $1 million to the Red Cross to help displaced Alberta families.Measured against all of Munk’s charitable donations — which have totalled more than $200 million — it was a small amount. But this gi...Read More