Sudbury

Partnering with Our Communities

Our contribution to our community in Sudbury is multifaceted. Beyond creating jobs and paying taxes, we endeavour, as a responsible corporate partner, to help the community remain a strong, vibrant and healthy place to live.

WORKING TOGETHER

Dialogue is essential to good community relations.

We continue to involve senior management at our Sudbury operations in breakfast meetings with key community leaders from the City of Greater Sudbury. These meetings, with a cross-section of some 60 community leaders in the political, social, educational, environmental and mine supply sectors, allow Inco to update company activities and plans while hearing first-hand feedback on issues important to the community. We hold two of these meetings each year at six-month intervals, typically in the spring and fall. In the past year, our Board of Directors, who were in Sudbury to tour area plants and mines, and meet and talk to employees, shared a dinner with these same community leaders at the Inco Cavern at Science North.

"Sudbury is very important to Inco," says Mark Cutifani, President, Ontario Operations. "We are committed to maintaining an open and ongoing dialogue with our community leaders."

LIVELY OPEN HOUSES

For the past two years, we have held two open houses each year in Lively, a suburb of Sudbury. Unlike in 2003, the meetings in 2004 were sparsely attended. "We see this as good news," says Cory McPhee, Government and Public Affairs Manager for Inco's Ontario Operations. "There had been concern about dust blowing into the community from a nearby tailings disposal site. We addressed this concern by bringing in seasonal people earlier and keeping them later to spray and hydroseed the disposal site. As a result, the problem is not nearly as severe."

COPPER CLIFF LIAISON COMMITTEE

We continued an active relationship with the Copper Cliff Citizens Liaison Committee. At our urging, the Committee was developed in 2003 to provide a voice for residents of Copper Cliff, a Sudbury suburb that is built overtop of Inco's South Mine and is subject to noise and vibrations from our operations.

Last summer, we invited members of the Committee to visit Inco's South Mine to meet employees responsible for blasting activities. "Our employees got a better understanding of how blasting affects the residents," McPhee recalls, "and residents got an appreciation of the need to give issues such as safety top priority."

We also met with residents of Copper Cliff to inform them of our plans to a build a new $80 million (Cdn. $100 million) oxygen plant to replace the existing plant located within the community. "Faced with a business need to build a new plant, we asked ourselves, 'how do we construct a new building that would be in the best interest of all stakeholders, including our community neighbours?' " McPhee reasoned.

The outcome, following consultation with the community, was to divert the existing pipeline and move the plant 500 metres beyond the Copper Cliff community. Inco also decided to build a rock wall to further reduce noise levels.

Frank Apolloni, a first-class mechanic who worked for Inco for 38 years before retiring, lives in a house adjacent to the existing oxygen plant. "By moving the plant and building a rock baffle wall, the noise will be reduced considerably," he says. "My only worry is that after living beside the plant for 43 years it will take a while to get used to the quiet!"

MAKING A DIFFERENCE

We continue to support our communities through our active donation programs. In 2004, we contributed approximately $269,500 (Cdn. $350,000) to education, health, community development and environmental organizations in Sudbury. Here are just a few examples:

Great Eggscapade

The Great Eggscapade scavenger hunt and car rally, involving teams carrying and protecting an egg, was held last September with Inco as a presenting sponsor. The event raised $21,200 (Cdn. $27,500) for the Northeast Mental Health Centre in Sudbury. "We made the decision that we wanted our organization and our cause to be more public," says Laura Higgs, Director of Fund Raising and Community Relations at the Northeast Mental Health Centre, which provides mental health and addiction counselling services to Sudbury and the surrounding area.

"To achieve our objective we asked a number of local leaders to participate in our transformation. For its part, Inco has been tremendously helpful. A representative from Inco joined our Board and helped us come up with the concept of the Great Eggscapade. The company also donated $3,800 (Cdn. $5,000) and participated in the actual event by running a "pit stop" in Nickel Park. Participants dressed up in miners' gear and ran an obstacle course while holding an egg. It was a huge success."

Encouraging Environmental Awareness

Inco in Sudbury supports a number of community organizations and initiatives dedicated to improving the local environment. For instance, we donated $7,700 (Cdn. $10,000) last year to support the Junction Creek Stewardship Committee (JCSC). Since 1999, this grassroots organization has been working to re-establish the town-spanning Junction Creek as a healthy aquatic ecosystem.

As part of its efforts, the Committee has organized activities including a canoe portage and trout seeding to promote public awareness. It also enlists local schools and youth groups such as Boy Scouts to clean up garbage and plant tree seedlings on the creek banks. Says Margaret Hoar, a member of the JCSC, "Today, the people of Sudbury are much more aware of Junction Creek and the need to restore it to health. We are making a real difference."

Recognized for Diversity

Last November, the Sudbury Multicultural and Folk Arts Association (SMFAA) presented Inco with a plaque recognizing Inco as Most Distinguished Corporate Friend of the Community. The organization, whose members represent 48 delegate groups, has been promoting multiculturalism and welcoming newcomers to the Sudbury area for the past 36 years. "Inco has been a longtime supporter not only of our association but also of multiculturalism in our community," says Dr. Rayudu Koka, a Sudbury psychiatrist and President of SMFAA. "As an employer and corporate citizen, the company has always championed diversity."

Nickels for Easter Seals

Inco has enjoyed a long and mutually rewarding relationship with the Sudbury and District Easter Seals Society. At the organization's annual telethon, we sponsor the Inco Kid's Play Area where children with physical disabilities create crafts, play games and generally have fun with Inco volunteers on the TV studio set. "Inco has been a long-standing supporter of the kids and the cause," says Cathy Macey, Interim District Manager, Sudbury and District Easter Seals Society. "The company operates on the world stage but exhibits the generosity and sincerity associated with a small town business."

Inco has also helped launch a new fundraising initiative unique to Sudbury called Nickels for the North. As part of this initiative, Inco volunteers deliver presentations about people with disabilities to local school children, who in turn help to raise funds for Easter Seals.

United for the Community

Inco employees raised Cdn. $426,330 for the United Way this year, a record contribution from Sudbury operations.

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The generosity of Inco's Sudbury employees is long-standing and ongoing.

Certainly, their efforts on behalf of the United Way Sudbury and District were again in full evidence last year. Our in-house campaign raised $328,000 (Cdn. $426,330). Employee contributions rose by Cdn. $36,000 in 2004 and overall employee participation grew to 61 per cent. "I think people are more aware that the need in the community keeps growing," commented Denis Theriault, United Steelworkers United Way campaign co-chair.

Employee Food Drive

Inco employee Edgar Burton is another volunteer extraordinaire. In 1987, Burton launched a Christmas food drive for needy local families on the prompting of his school-age daughters. It was a small beginning.

Last year, the drive raised 42,000 tonnes of food worth $65,000 (Cdn. $84,000) and helped 5,000 families. Today, Burton is coordinator of what has grown to become the City of Greater Sudbury Business and Employee Food Drive, one of the largest such undertakings in Canada.

Inco employee Edgar Burton (left) coordinates the City of Greater Sudbury Business and Employee Food Drive, which raised a total of 42,000 tonnes of food and helped feed 5,000 families last year.

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"For three months each year Inco allows me to do work for the Food Bank on company time," Burton says. "The company also provides me with the use of trucks to transport the food. We are in this together."