Questionnaire from KGHM Ajax public-opinion poll

Below are the questions from the public-opinion poll referred to in today’s column.

KGHM Ajax Perception Audit Draft Survey Questions

S1. RECORD GENDER

S2. To ensure we have accurate representation of population, into which of the following age groups can I place you? READ

1. 18 to 34

2. 35 to 54

3. 55 +

4. Prefer not to answer – THANK & TERMINATE

1. What industries contribute most to your local economy?

DO NOT READ – CHECK ALL THAT APPLY

a) MINING

b) LOGGING

c) THE MILL (PULP, PAPER, LUMBER ETC)

d) OTHER PLANTS (SUCH AS INSULATION PLANTS, SMELTER, ETC)

e) TOURISM

f) MANUFACTURING, TRANSPORTATION

g) SHIPPING

h) LOTTERIES/GAMING

i) SMALL BUSINESSES

j) RETAIL

k) HEALTH CARE

l) PROVINCIAL GOVERNMENT

m) INSURANCE AND FINANCIAL SERVICES

n) OTHER (specify:_______________________)

o) DON’T KNOW

p) REFUSE

2. Now I’d like to focus on the mining industry in your area. Which of the following statements best describes how you feel about the mining industry’s current impact on your local economy in the way of jobs, taxes or other contributions?

READ

a) Mining does not significantly affect our local economy.

b) Mining does contribute somewhat; however, these contributions are not integral to our local economy.

c) Mining is an integral part of our local economy.

d) REFUSE

3. Which of the following connections, if any, do you have with the mining industry?

READ (Multiple mention)

a) Currently or previously worked in the industry

b) Have friends or family that work in the industry

c) Current workplace or company has economic ties to the industry

d) Have investments or own property related to the industry

e) None of the above

f) REFUSE

4. Have you heard about the proposed Ajax mine project?

g) Yes – GO TO Q5

h) No – GO TO N1

ASK IF Q4 = NO

N1. The Ajax Mine project has been proposed by KGHM Ajax. Their goal is to develop a new copper-gold mine near and partially within the city of Kamloops with a production capacity of approximately 22 million tonnes of ore per year. The mine is expected to operate for 23 years. The Ajax mine proposal is currently undergoing the environmental review process.

On a scale from 1 to 7, with 1 being not interested and 7 being very interested, how interested are you in obtaining more information about the Ajax mine project?

N2. What, if any, sources of information would you use to increase your knowledge of the Ajax mine project? DO NOT READ – CHECK ALL THAT APPLY

a) Newspaper

b) Radio

c) Television

d) Ajax community relations center

e) Internet-Social media

f) Internet-Company Website

g) Internet – blog

h) Internet – social media

i) Internet – news

j) Internet – City of Kamloops

k) Internet – Other

l) OTHER (Specify:___________________________)

m) Don’t know

n) REFUSE

N3. When thinking about the Ajax mine, how important is it that information be available on each of the following? Please use a scale of 1 to 7 where 1 is not important and 7 is very important. (go to Q 10)

a) Potential mine location

b) Proposed hours of operation

c) Potential employment

d) Health and safety of employees

e) Potential tax revenue for the city

f) Potential for local businesses

g) First Nation participation

h) Environmental impact

i) Community health and safety impact

j) Community transportation impact

 

5. ASK IF Q4 = Yes,

Which of the following statements best describes how well informed you are about the Ajax mine project?

READ

a) I am aware of the project but have not heard about it in the media

b) I have heard about the project in the media but have not followed the project closely

c) I have been following the project closely in the media but have not actively sought information from other sources

d) I have actively sought information from sources other than the media

e) REFUSED

6. What, if any, sources of information have contributed to your knowledge of the Ajax mine project? DO NOT READ – CHECK ALL THAT APPLY

a) Newspaper

b) Radio

c) Television

d) Ajax community relations center

e) Internet-Social media

f) Internet-Company Website

g) Internet – blog

h) Internet – social media

i) Internet – news

j) Internet – City of Kamloops

k) Internet – Other

l) OTHER (Specify:___________________________)

m) Don’t know

n) REFUSE

7. When thinking about the Ajax mine, how important is it that information be available on each of the following? Please use a scale of 1 to 7 where 1 is not important and 7 is very important.

a) Potential mine location

b) Proposed hours of operation

c) Potential employment

d) Health and safety of employees

e) Potential tax revenue for the city

f) Potential for local businesses

g) First Nation participation

h) Environmental impact

i) Community health and safety impacts

j) Community transportation impacts

8. What would be your preferred method of communicating with the mining company?

READ

a) Phone

b) Email

c) Website

d) Social media (facebook, twitter)

e) Face to face personal meeting

f) Face to face community meeting

g) OTHER (Specify:____________________________________)

h) I do not wish to communicate with or provide feedback to the company

i) REFUSE

9. Please indicate which of the following statements reflects your opinion on the Ajax mine project?

READ

a) I have formed an opinion, but want more information to clarify questions I have

b) I’m waiting on more information before I form an opinion

c) I have a strong opinion about the project and nothing can change that

d) I don’t really have an opinion about the project and it doesn’t interest me

e) OTHER (Specify:___________________________________________)

f) Refuse

10. Overall, on a scale of 1 to 7, with one being completely disapprove and 7 being completely approve, how do you feel about the Ajax mine project based on the information you have?

11. What is the highest level of education that you have completed?

READ

a) Some high school

b) High school

c) Vocational or trade school equivalent

d) Some college or university

e) College or university graduate

f) Some graduate work

g) Completed graduate degree (i.e. Masters or PHD)

h) Don’t know/refuse

Those are all of our questions today/tonight. Thank you for taking the time and participating in this survey.

 

Ajax locomotive getting tougher and tougher to derail

More and more, Ajax is looking like a 270,000-pound locomotive that can’t be derailed.

“It’s ours to lose,” was how project manager Jim Whittaker put it when I sat down Tuesday with him, chief executive officer Marcin Mostowy and community relations manager Norm Thompson.

Our boardroom chat was at least the second for the trio with media that day. Whittaker and Thompson are familiar faces, but this get-together served as a meet-the-press for Mostowy — though he’s been in Canada for a year and a half and says he’s been to Kamloops several times.

He has something of the manner of an accountant and, indeed, he holds a master of finance degree from Wroclaw University of Economics in Poland, and graduated from the London Business School. Before being assigned to guide the Ajax project from its Vancouver office, he was a risk manager for KGHM.

During our discussion, it immediately became clear he’s a strong defender of KGHM both on its environmental and labour relations record (see related letter on this page).

We hadn’t gotten very far before I mused about the split in public opinion, and was about to ask if the partners had done any polling when Thompson pulled out a document called the KGHM Ajax Perception Audit, a poll done by an outfit called NRG Research Group.

NRG is described by Industry Canada as a “leading North American public opinion and market research company,” with offices in Vancouver, Calgary, Winnipeg and Toronto, and associates in Halifax, Montreal and the U.S.

So anyone harbouring the hope that NRG is some home-office pollster that knocks off surveys to suit whoever signs the cheque, or that the poll is off the mark, should think again.

Polling companies live on their reputations, and those reputations depend on valid results obtained from carefully worded questions and rigorously controlled random sampling methodology. But every pollster will tell you his results are good only on the day they’re done — public opinion can turn on a dime, as was demonstrated in the recent Alberta election.

The NRG results come down to one thing — this issue, at the time the twin surveys were taken last September and again last month, has divided the community down the middle. The 52-48 split pro and con, when the plus-or-minus five-per-cent margin of error is considered, means the race for the hearts and minds of the Kamloops public is dead even.

Could it change dramatically, like that Alberta election or so many other political trends? Well, it could, but issues polling tends to show more consistent results than political polls do.

In my humble view, minds have been made up on Ajax, and there’s not much that can change them. The bad news for opponents is that 50-50 isn’t going to get them where they want to be.

The best hope for the stop-Ajax side is that politics intervenes. Now, politicians — including City council and those at senior levels — will feel enabled to vote for the business benefits of the mine.

KGHM Ajax, meanwhile, will stay the course of gradual, controlled public relations. The answer to the question of town hall meetings, for example, was pretty clear in the responses that came across the table on Tuesday — not likely.

As Whittaker said, they feel it’s theirs to lose.

 

Big day on Friday — the International hits the road

The beloved International, as she looked from the inside yesterday. By tomorrow, the re-upholstered bench seat should be installed.

A major event is happening in this city Friday, June 1 — the International is scheduled to be ready for the road. The old cornbinder, which I inherited from my dad, has been at Jay’s Service for the past seven years.

Bringing her back to life has required patience. The International has been moving in and out of the shop at Jay’s all those years, and has earned a bit of a following. People ask about it all the time. They want to know who owns it, if it’s for sale, or if it will ever see the highway again.

The question I get asked most often is, whose idea was it to paint it pink and gold? That would be my brother Bernie, way back when he and my father operated Wendego Lodge, the fishing camp at Tranquille Lake, and used the International to haul just about everything. Bern thought the original red paint job wasn’t distinctive enough, so he gave it new colours. No truck deserves to be pink and gold, but that’s water under the bridge. Some day, the beautiful red will be restored. For now, it’s enough to get it running.

There have been any number of delays in getting to this point. The latest was waiting for a metal worker to fashion a new floorboard panel so that my feet won’t drag on the pavement when I’ve driving. That done, we’re just about ready to hit this year’s June 1 deadline (every year, we have established a “this is the year” target and assign a fictitious deadline for getting it done — but this really is the year).

I snapped this picture of the interior yesterday. That isn’t the permanent seat, in case you were wondering. Kamloops Upholstery did a fabulous job of restoring the original bench seat, which had largely been consumed by pack rats. And while the rest of the truck still looks a mess, the seat will be comfortable and the motor will run like a damn.

If anyone out there knows where to source out 1955 IH bumpers and such, I’d appreciate knowing.

Roadside spandex blooms in the spring

I may be imagining it, but cyclists and motorists seem to be treating each other with more respect. Must be Bike to Work Week.

Put another way — the armchair mayor is writing about cyclists again; it must be spring.

Indeed, the first sign there’s been a change in weather is the sudden appearance of cyclists, proliferating along rural roadways like dandelions and purple haze, a very profusion of colour in their spandex and Lycra.

Goodwill is in the air. I’ve not once seen a driver, in the past couple of days, refuse to give a cyclist an appropriate berth when passing, or heard one honk with annoyance upon pulling up behind a furiously peddling two-wheeler.

Bike to workers are, of course, quite different from the weekend speed demons who spread along our roads on Saturday and Sunday mornings.

Those who bike to work are in it for a very special purpose — to get from A to B without being killed, and to save 20 bucks on fuel. It is a noble cause, this going green and clean.

Drivers for whom cycling to work from Barnhartvale or Heffley Creek just isn’t practical, or who would rather die than exercise, respect what the bike-to-workers are doing (and here, I must salute our own Daily News B2WW team).

I suspect, sadly, that next week the workday cyclists — except for Donovan Cavers, of course — may well hop straight back into their gas guzzlers and wheel downtown to the office just like they always did.

But not the weekend road warriors. They’ll be out there come rain or shine in their skin-tight togs tearing along roads that are under built for automobile traffic, let alone bicycles.

They come in flocks, like multi-coloured mandarin ducks migrating north, their only sound the humming of their wheels or the yelling they do at each other as they glide along side by side taking up an entire laneway, ignoring the bumper-to-bumper traffic that has lined up behind them waiting for a straight stretch to pass.

A second species of road hog is the lone ranger who refuses to pull over and allow traffic to pass whether or not there’s a shoulder to rely on.

We shall not, on this day, reprise the many complaints cyclists and motorists have with each other, nor dwell on the dangers they mutually create. We could get into the debate over making cities and countrysides more bicycle friendly, but we all know they were built with the automobile in mind and we’ll have to share the woefully inadequate infrastructure for a good long while yet.

Instead, let’s get along at least for the rest of the week, and continue to demonstrate the good behaviour we’ve started out with.

And, speaking of Bike to Work Week, and that postponed official opening of the Valleyview multi-use pathway overpass, I received a message from MP Cathy McLeod after Saturday’s column, in which I had noted she hadn’t yet confirmed her availability for next week’s event.

Seems she only received her email invitation on Friday. Unfortunately, she must be in Ottawa on June 5 (the date to which the opening was postponed after MLA Terry Lake couldn’t make it on the day that had originally been chosen). An assistant will attend in McLeod’s place.

Somewhere, there’s got to be a manual for these things.

Valleyview bike overpass ready to open — well, not quite

Tuesday, May 29, would have been a fine day to officially open the new Valleyview bike-pedestrian overpass. Next week, after all, is Bike to Work Week.

But, the opening won’t be held that day as City officials had hoped. Instead, the opening of what is officially called the Valleyview Interchange Multi-use Pathway (somebody really must come up with a better name) will be a week later, on June 5.

The reason has to do with the way politics work. When governments write cheques using our money (in this case, the province put up $2.7 million, the feds $2.1 million and the City the rest), they want to be there for the photo-op.

It takes a bit of co-ordination. Schedules must be matched; microphone times agreed upon, press releases approved.

In this case, after the date was picked, a memo was sent off from City Hall to Victoria. Unfortunately, the message got mired in the bureaucracy for awhile before making its way to Kevin Krueger and Terry Lake.

By that time, the MLAs were under whip orders not to stray from the legislature as the clock winds down on the current session and bills back up.

Colleen Lepik, the City’s transportation coordinator, diplomatically describes the change in dates as being due to “some scheduling issues.”

For his part, Lake says the whole thing was due to “a miscommunication” and he badly wanted to attend since he’s been involved with the project going back to when he was mayor.

“We can’t leave (Victoria) because the numbers are tight,” he explained. “It was just unfortunate.”

While the path is already in use, marking the milestone with an official opening is a big deal — the project has been a decade in the making, spanning the terms of four City councils. After years of complaining from Valleyview residents back at the turn of the century, the council of the day agreed to build the overpass, and began saving money.

As the years passed, the estimated cost went from less than $2 million to double that, then, by 2008, more than $4.2 million and then close to $6 million. Last fall, council had to add another $171,000 for the final phase when only one suitable bid came in.

To boot, working around train schedules proved a challenge.

The need for the project has its origins in construction of what we call “the bypass” in the 1970s, the whole focus of which was on moving traffic past Kamloops as quickly and efficiently as possible. Unfortunately, the bypass doesn’t bypass Valleyview at all, going right through it and severing that community from the core of the city.

Valleyview residents, already chafing from being forcibly amalgamated with the City, have always regarded the bypass barrier as an irritant.

The new crossing isn’t without its detractors. Some people think the money could have been better used for other things. But while few understood it at the time, it became a necessity as soon as the route for the so-called bypass was drawn on paper those decades ago.

Bike to Work Week provided the perfect time for the official opening. Instead, next week there will be a “celebration station” at the site, with the main event a week later.

As of yesterday, MP Cathy McLeod hadn’t confirmed whether or not she can attend on the new date. Let us hope she has an opening in her calendar.

And now, for last year’s news on KGHM

Tuesday evening, a story began circulating around Kamloops that KGHM mine workers were rioting in Poland.

Yesterday, the email was stirring up some online conversations about the implications of a riot involving employees of the Polish mining giant that wants to build the Ajax project in Kamloops.

Here, in part, is the email sent out from the Stop Ajax Mine address to members of City council, MLAs Terry Lake and Kevin Krueger, MP Cathy McLeod and local media:

“Several hundred Polish miners have attacked the company headquarters of KGHM mining in Lubin. Europe’s number two copper miner is in talks with unions over pay, and company boss Herbert Wirth was in the building when it was attacked. Prime Minister Donald Tusk condemned the violence….’”

The post carries a hyperlink to a video of the riot, then offers some commentary:

“This is appalling. We do not advocate any kind of violence, but is this any indication of how KGHM treats their workers? Do we really want someone like this to run a mine in our town? And can we ‘trust’ that they’ll be a good corporate neighbour? Remember that the worst facts are never made public… what is worse than this?”

In response, a commenter on the Stop Ajax website said, “This is absolutely ridiculous! Why would anyone want to work for a company who’s own employees literally riot to get what they deserve? Why would we want them in our country, let alone our city?!”

“I hope someone from the Union that is supporting the Ajax bid has a response,” wrote another. “It sounds like they are threatening the Union workers, not a great way to collective bargain and a sign of what the future holds for the Ajax mine? Doesn’t sound like happy, well paid workers to me????”

Coun. Arjun Singh asked via email, “Just for clarification, did the company turn violent? I see that some workers, in this instance, did. I am not sure the company, any company rep, did.”

Good point but the event, as it turns out, happened a year ago. The KGHM miners clashed with a police line for awhile, appear to have briefly entered the building, broke some windows, and left.

Trouble in the Polish mining business isn’t confined, it seems, to worker-employer relations. A month before the KGHM confrontation, six coal mines owned by a different company suspended work for a day to protest the government’s plan to partially privatize the operation.

During the communist era, an article points out, miners were well paid and could retire early. “Now they fear their benefits are at risk as the country shuts down unproductive mines…”

The question is, though, why circulate a year-old news story about KGHM to local media and politicians? Ammunition for the anti-mine side, of course, but pretty low-calibre. Or, there’s this:

“I didn’t notice the date on it,” said Jarrod Goddard, who operates the Stop Ajax Mine website for the Kamloops Area Preservation Association, and who posted the story site after someone sent it to him. “That (circulation of a year-old story) would have just been a mistake,” he told me.

It might have been of more interest to point out last week’s story about KGHM’s big drop in first-quarter net profits. Not that that has anything much to do with Ajax, either, but at least it happened in 2012.

Is there a God? Well, yes and no…

The amazing thing about this past weekend’s Imagine No Religion 2 conference at the Kamloops Convention Centre is that it happened at all.

A few short years ago, it would have been, well, unimaginable in this community. Time was if you were asked, “Are you a Christian (or ‘religious,’ or ‘spiritual’) person?” and you could not answer yes, you were regarded as unworthy.

Now, the theist-atheist debate is on, and neither side has a monopoly on righteousness or wisdom.

Friday night’s debate — “Does a God, or Gods, exist?” — started things off for the conference and I was fortunate to have been invited to moderate it. The evening lived up to expectations, as philosophy instructor Michael Horner and ethics prof Paul Chamberlain debated for the “Yes” side, and humanism activist Christopher DiCaro and atheist Matt Dillahunty for the “No” side.

They were worthy adversaries, if that’s the word, though the debate was waged without the hostility and verbosity that sometimes characterizes the issue. In my view, the most effective debater was Chamberlain — not because of the views he expressed but because of his ability to speak and question forcefully. During the cross-examination, he relentlessly pursued Dillahunty, who seemed frustrated at times in not being able to shut him down with a zinger.

That’s as far as a neutral moderator (and a neutral observer of the issue itself) will go with analysis of the debating techniques, and overall neither side won on either the question or their sum-total success in the argument.

Inevitably, though not by direct reference, the debate wasn’t just about theism and atheism, but about the very meaning of life. A few quotes:

Chamberlain: “You cannot judge a viewpoint by its neglect.”

Dillahunty: “You cannot solve a mystery by appealing to a bigger myster.”

Horner: “The universe is not eternal.”

Chamberlain: “There is no good reason to believe God does not exist.”

DiCarlo: “”Just because the universe had to have a beginning…. This just happens to be the universe that succeeded. That doesn’t mean it got a push from a big god.”

 

 

 

The Dufferin standoff — the end of media competition?

Explosive end to Thursday night’s standoff in Dufferin. (Daily News photo)

Very busy in the newsroom this morning. People gradually showing up for work — some were up all night covering the Dufferin standoff that went on for several hours and ended in the early morning with an explosion in the house that police had surrounded since late afternoon.

Cam Fortems, who was there pretty much throughout, just arrived (10:30 a.m.), Mark Rogers, who was updating our website during the night, is here, too. So are Michele Young and Tracy Gilchrist. I think photographers Murray Mitchell and Keith Anderson are sleeping in — deservedly so. Me, I got to leave for home just after 9:30 p.m., though the trip was slightly delayed when I almost ran into a couple of horses that had gotten loose on the road from a neighbour’s place, and I had to stop to let them know about the strays.

One of the reasons the phone is ringing this morning is that out-of-town media are hungry for photos, as they were last night. In the old days, we’d think twice about giving away our material but it’s different now. In this Internet age, things move quickly. There are no more scoops. Everybody shares with everybody.

There will come a time, in the not-too-distant future, that we’ll be desperately looking for pictures and information on a story, and we’ll ask CBC, or CTV, or the Vancouver Sun or Province, or some other media outlet, to share with us what they’ve got. And they’ll send it along or let us grab it off their website.

A couple of serious highway accidents last winter, too far from us to get to, are good examples. We asked for, and got, what some of the other media had. There’s a bit of a code of conduct in these things — it’s polite to call the other guy and ask if it’s OK to use his material. All such material, after all, is copyrighted. But if nobody’s available at the other end, there’s an understanding that we’re all in this together and it’s not the end of the world if we just use it without their direct permission, because we have these verbal understandings.

The only must-do is to give the other media outlet credit. This morning, a TV station was on the line asking for more photos of last night’s tragic incident in Dufferin — and apologizing for not having given us credit for the use of our video last night.

Is this the end of competition in the media? Yes and no. We all still try to get the story first, and there’s less co-operation among media within the city than between local media and those in other centres. But exclusives are rare, and the public gets the benefit.

To pray, or not to pray; that is the question

It’s not uncommon, when public institutions hereabouts hold a ceremony to open a new building or mark a milestone of some kind, to invite elders from our local First Nations to offer a prayer.

Such a prayer usually consists of a thank-you to Creator for giving us all that we need, and for bringing us together on this important occasion.

The elders are asked to take part in acknowledgement that Aboriginal peoples were here first. Opening a gathering with a prayer or grace is common anyway, so this simply combines the two.

Yet native prayer at public gatherings has been brought into question elsewhere. A recently released letter from Taskeo Mines Ltd. president Russell Hallbauer asks the Harper government not to consider native “spirituality” in its deliberations on the proposed mine.

Hallbauer wrote that the federal environmental review panel “does not have any right to attribute significance to the spirituality of a place per se,” and aboriginal prayer ceremonies should not be allowed at hearings on the mine’s revised proposal.

This has not gone down well with First Nations leaders. I suspect neglecting to invite local Band reps to civic ceremonies in our own city wouldn’t go unnoticed, either.

The issue isn’t just whether First Nations prayers are appropriate at such events, but whether prayers of any kind are appropriate. We do, after all, live in a country and society where freedom of religion includes the freedom not to have any religion or spiritual belief at all.

For my part, I’m a pacifist on such matters. My agnostic-channelled self takes no offence to someone of faith expressing it at a public gathering, whether it be native elders thanking their creator or a service club member giving thanks to his god for lunch or dinner.

I respect their right to believe what they want, and to express it in a public way. At the same time, I trust they will not be offended if there are some in the room who don’t share those beliefs and, therefore, don’t feel inclined to stand and bow and close their eyes in homage to a higher being.

Those familiar with my past musings on this topic may remember the story from long ago about a non-believer pupil banished to the hallway as his classmates recited the Lord’s Prayer.

It would have made so much more sense for the teacher to just let the kid sit passively at his desk while the rest stood and prayed.

So, demanding that First Nations prayers be removed from public hearings on a mine doesn’t, in my view, make any more sense than it would to insist they be banned from civic ceremonies. We just need to re-set our approach a little to recognize that we don’t all think the same way.

Tomorrow night, a very interesting weekend event gets underway in Kamloops. Hosted by the Kamloops Centre for Rational Thought, it brings together atheists who will ponder the concept, “Imagine No Religion.”

The first evening will feature some top-notch speakers debating the existence of God; I’ve been asked to moderate this debate, possibly in view of my neutral position on the matter (agnostic fence-sitter that I am).

I’ll boldly predict the debate won’t settle the issue. But maybe it will contribute to understanding that having different beliefs — if they’re respectfully expressed — is OK.

mrothenburger@kamloopsnews.ca