Page 16 Contd from pg 14 mins Ontario Flood told the confer ence participants and in conjunction with of fering full drilling and blasting service W orking towards establishi ng their T immins Plant Austin Powder has en tered into agreements with their First Nations partners Moose Cree T ayk wa T agamou Constance Lake and Bingwu Neyashii as the major share holders owning the business The Memorandum of Understanding signed with the First Nations outlines a partnership in which the First Na tions will have 51 interest and Aus tin Powder 49 W e will see a transfer of knowledge and trai ning to ensure our partners are fully involved in running the busi ness Flood said It has also acquired an ammo nia plant in Brandon Manitoba and will need rail links to T immins in order to ship this key ingredient in explosives man ufacturing to its proposed new plant The facility will cost 5 million to build and will generate 100 million worth of business annually Austin Powder has submitted an application for a Northern Ontario Heritage Fund NOHFC grant valued at 1 million Austin Powder has purchased the land for its T immin s plant The plant will employ 10 people to start up and will grow to 500 employees at full capac ity Jason Batise Economic Development and T ech Services Advisor W abun Council The W abun Council represents 5 First Nations within the T immin s region which is within the W abun traditional lands These lands are most exposed to mining It has been explored and mined This is our homeland and we ab solutely require consenting agree ment Batise said Agreements have been signed with Osisko AuRico Lakeshore Gold Goldcorp and IAM GOLD The scope of the agreements is based on Supreme Court Decisions that found that where the lands are First Nations and the First Nations must be accommodated The compensation in IBA is for impact to First Nation and Aboriginal T reaty Rights Batise said partnerships can have sev eral components revenue sharing employment and training workplace conditions and cultural components provisions for environmenta l inves tigation monitoring and reporting Opportunities for First Nations can include contracts bid preference eq uity participation and evalu ation of contracts based on aboriginal engage ment The fnal speaker of the Aboriginal Procurement and Developing Part nership Conference was Leonard Rickard Aboriginal Af fairs Man ager for Detour Gold Our Aboriginal engagem ent ap proach is to be collaborative support ive and transparent Rickard said W e are not in the middle of nowhere we are in someone s backyard Rick ard said emphatically Detour Gold s mine at Detour Lake is within the T reaty 9 lands and it im pacts three First Nations and Metis rights holders Rickard said Detour Gold has a commitment minimizing environmental impacts and maximiz ing economic benefts for their Ab original partners The success Detour Lake has achieved has occurred in cooperation with its Aboriginal Partners and with respect for the well being of the Aboriginal Community and their lands Five en vironmental assessments were held prior to commencing development of the Detour Lake gold mine Four Impact Beneft Agreements have been signed Rickard said Detour Gold is committed to provide apprenticeship and manageme nt training and has es tablished an Aboriginal Employment and T raining Committee to provide onthejob training programs In addition to direct participation of Aboriginal employees and business Detour Gold also requires nonAb original businesses who bid on service tenders to hire Aboriginal employees or sub contrac tors and provide train ing Finally Rickard said that Detour Gold promotes ongoing dialogue with their Aboriginal partners to maximize par ticipation in the economic spinof fs and they encourage feedback by their partners W abun Council r epr esents 5 First Nations within the T immins Gold camp www mininglifeonlinenet Canada s Mining Portal Check It Out