Why Nuclear Power Won't Save Us (But Might Kill Us All)
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Saturday, November 14, 2026
Next year can we please have a brave politician condemn war
Remembrance Day highlights the immense power of militarism and imperialism in Canada. Almost every significant political force promotes militarist nationalist mythology, including the primary victims of the Canadian state. To mark Remembrance Day CTV published an article on “A generation apart, these Palestinian Canadians found purpose through the military”. The article quotes George Al-Koura, who became a signals intelligence officer, saying “we have inconveniences, but Canada allows us to be ourselves and gives us the freedom to live without essentially warfare in the background of our lives.” But Al-Koura deployed to the Middle East and the Canadian military bombed Iraq, Syria and Libya as well as occupied Afghanistan. Additionally, since Royal Military College of Canada graduate Charles Macpherson Dobell commanded Britain’s 1917 Second Battle of Gaza and hundreds of Canadians fought with General Allenby in the subsequent successful conquest of Palestine this country has supported violence against Palestinians. Hundreds of Canadians, mostly World War II veterans, fought to ethnically cleanse Palestine in 1948. On Wednesday The Maple reported on briefing documents “showing that a Canadian defence official travelled to Israel for a “strategic dialogue’ at the height of Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza and weeks after Israel killed a Canadian army veteran. The meeting reflected the fact that ‘Israel remains a priority defence engagement country for Canada due to its reliability and mutual commitment to regional security in the Middle East,’ according to the documents.” While it’s absurd for a media outlet to put a Palestinian gloss on a Canadian military celebration, it doesn’t compare to the relatively widespread phenomenon of indigenous leaders promoting militarist nationalism. Rooted in a British force that conquered today’s Nova Scotia by putting the heads of Mi’kmaq soldiers on spikes and suppressed First Nations in British Columbia through ‘gunboat diplomacy’, thousands of Canadian troops were deployed to counter Mohawk opposition to the expansion of a golf course and housing on an Indigenous burial ground in 1990. The Canadian Forces (CF) have played a smaller role in recent conflicts with Indigenous communities at Gustafsen Lake, Ipperwash and Elsipogtog as well as in monitoring Indigenous groups. Canadian military intelligence spied on Idle No More and a draft version of the military’s 2007 counter-insurgency manual highlighted “radical Native American Organizations, such as the Mohawk Warrior Society” as potential military targets. On Wednesday the head of the Assembly of First Nations formally participated in the official Remembrance Day ceremony in Ottawa. After a multiyear battle, the AFN won the right in 1995 to lay a wreath at the National War Memorial as part of a ritual organized by the reactionary, militarist Royal Canadian Legion. For three decades November 8 has been National Aboriginal Veterans Day. At a previous National Aboriginal Veterans Day ceremony, Grand Chief of the Union of B.C. Indian Chiefs Stewart Phillip said Indigenous soldiers were “fighting for the common good” and were “on the right side of history.” But Canadian soldiers have only fought in one war that could be considered morally justifiable: World War II. Ignored in the Remembrance Day style commemoration are the Afghans or Libyans killed by Canadians in recent years, the Serbians and Iraqis killed two decades ago, and the Koreans killed in the 1950s and the Russians, South Africans, Sudanese and others killed before that. With large numbers of Indigenous people having fought in Sudan, South Africa, World War I, World War II and Korea, cenotaphs in many Indigenous communities commemorate those who fought in Canadian/British wars. The Millbrook band council placed 27 Millbrook Remembers banners to “honour and remember our veterans who served in the First World War, Second World War, Korean War, Vietnam War, NATO conflicts; Bosnia, Kosovo, Afghanistan, Iraq and also those who served during peacetime operations.” A growing number of landmarks bear the names of Indigenous soldiers and most of the books and articles detailing First Nations’ contribution to Canadian/British wars echo the military’s perspective of those conflicts. So, ironically, while First Nations have more reason than most to reject the Canadian state’s use of force to enforce a neo-colonial world order, ties to the military have shaped the outlook of many of their organizations. A slew of unions and left politicians also reinforced militarist mythology on Wednesday. In an embarrassing example, former NDP MP Peter Julian posted, “Today at 11:00 AM, Canadians across our nation pause to honour Remembrance Day, and pay tribute to the millions of soldiers throughout Canadian history who have made the ultimate sacrifice in service to our country and in defence of the rights and freedoms we enjoy today.” Is Julian referring to the 2011 destruction of Libya, which he voted for? Or the occupation of Afghanistan, which the NDP backed for several years? Even internally, Canada’s military has undercut Canadians “rights and freedoms”. They have been used to clamp down on social movements with military intelligence in recent years caught spying on Black Lives Matter, Occupy and peace activists. Between 1867 and 1933 the military was involved in suppressing dozens of labour strikes and was later used against Québecois nationalism. They killed at least four anti-conscription protesters in Québec City in March 1918 and thousands of troops were deployed to the streets of Montreal under the repressive War Measures Act in 1970. Among Canadian politicians with some power, BC Green party leader and MLA Emily Lowan released the best (least bad) statement I saw. But leftist French leader Jean-Luc Mélenchon, who is polling second in that country’s presidential race, puts them all to shame. On Wednesday Mélenchon travelled to a memorial inscribed with “Maudite soit la guerre” (Cursed be war) and depicting an orphan raising his fist towards the names of soldiers killed in combat. Mélenchon stated, “Down with war! We will not wage it, we will not organise it, we will not prepare it!” If we work at it maybe at a Remembrance Day ceremony next year a major Canadian politician could say the same. |
Siemens Energy Targets 22% Margin as Annual Profit Jumps 145%
German energy technology giant Siemens Energy has reported record financial results for fiscal 2026, with annual net income surging 145% as rising investment in power generation and electricity grids fueled growth across its core businesses.
The company reported net income of €4.13 billion for the fiscal year ended September 30, up from €1.69 billion a year earlier. Revenue reached €44.24 billion, representing comparable growth of 15.5%, while orders climbed 18.8% on a comparable basis to €68.1 billion.
Siemens Energy's order backlog reached a record €164 billion, up from €138 billion a year earlier, providing substantial revenue visibility as global electricity demand continues to expand.
The company's profit before special items more than doubled to €5.49 billion, with its corresponding margin improving to 12.4% from 6.0% in fiscal 2025.
Siemens Energy's Gas Services and Grid Technologies divisions were the strongest contributors to its financial performance, benefiting from rising investment in electricity generation, transmission networks, and energy security.
Gas Services generated €14.5 billion in annual revenue, representing comparable growth of 20.3%. Its profit before special items increased to €2.39 billion from €1.58 billion a year earlier.
Grid Technologies recorded revenue of €14.1 billion, up 26.2% on a comparable basis, while profit before special items climbed to €2.66 billion.
The company expects demand for gas turbines and electricity infrastructure to remain strong as artificial intelligence data centers, industrial electrification, and aging power grids drive investment in new generation and transmission capacity.
North America remains a particularly important growth market. Siemens Energy's U.S. orders increased 70.8% on a comparable basis to €27.7 billion during fiscal 2026, highlighting the scale of investment in American energy infrastructure.
Siemens Energy also reported progress in its efforts to turn around Siemens Gamesa, its wind turbine subsidiary.
The business achieved a small full-year profit before special items of €8 million, compared with a €1.36 billion loss in fiscal 2025. However, it continued to report a loss after special items, while annual order intake declined.
Siemens Gamesa also delivered its second consecutive quarter of positive profit before special items, supported by improving offshore wind project execution and cost efficiencies.
Fourth-quarter group results reflected the broader improvement, with Siemens Energy recording net income of €1.36 billion compared with €236 million in the corresponding period last year.
Siemens Energy raises long-term ambitions
Following its record performance, Siemens Energy announced new financial targets through fiscal 2030, aiming for compound annual comparable revenue growth of 12% to 14% and a profit margin before special items of 20% to 22%.
For fiscal 2027, the company forecasts comparable revenue growth of 14% to 16%, a profit margin before special items of 14% to 16%, and net income of approximately €5 billion.
Strong cash generation is also supporting increased shareholder returns. Siemens Energy proposed raising its annual dividend to €2.30 per share from €0.70 and announced plans for additional share repurchases of up to €9 billion through 2030, following €3.1 billion in buybacks during fiscal 2026.
Annual free cash flow before tax nearly doubled to €8.8 billion, with management forecasting approximately €10 billion for fiscal 2027.
The results underscore Siemens Energy's growing exposure to the global expansion of electricity infrastructure, positioning its gas turbine and grid businesses to benefit from rising power demand and continued investment in energy security.
By Charles Kennedy for Oilprice.com
On November 3, retired four-star General Jack Keane, the Army's former Vice Chief of Staff, put a warning on the record: China "has made clear it is prepared to use [America’s] dependence as leverage."
The dependence he's talking about is America's reliance on Chinese rare earths. And he didn't say it from a cable news set.
He said it as a director of REalloys [NASDAQ: ALOY], the company the Army recently selected for exclusive negotiations to build a plant to process dysprosium and terbium on one of its own military bases.
And the timing couldn't be more critical. According to U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, the truce that has kept Beijing's widest rare earth rules on hold now runs only until January 10, 2027.
That's just nine days after the Pentagon's new magnet rules take effect.
In short, Keane is warning about a pressure tactic China has already used, and one it could use again this winter. And the Army is preparing as if that threat will be around for decades.
China Has Already Shown What It's Willing to Do
Beijing has spent the last year and a half showing exactly what that leverage against America looks like.
In April 2025, it put seven rare earth elements under special export licenses, and dysprosium and terbium were on the list. Western factories felt the impact within weeks.
Ford CEO Jim Farley said the company "shut down plants for three weeks because we cannot get high power magnets."
If a company the size of Ford couldn't get the magnets it needed, it's easy to see what the same shortage would mean for the companies building America's weapons.
Then, in October 2025, China went even further. Its new rules would have required Beijing's approval to export even magnets made outside China if they contained trace amounts of Chinese rare earths, and they took direct aim at the military.
Under those rules, requests to use rare earths for military purposes "will be automatically rejected," according to Gracelin Baskaran, director of the Critical Minerals Security Program at CSIS. She called the measures "a sharp escalation in Beijing's long-running strategy to weaponize its dominance in rare earths."
The truce between Washington and Beijing has kept those October 2025 rules on hold for now, but they could come back in place as soon as January 10, 2027.
And Beijing hasn't waited on the truce to go after the defense industry.
On June 22, 2026, China's Commerce Ministry banned exports of goods with military uses to 10 U.S. companies and organizations it tied to the American military, two of them U.S. rare earth companies.
It even barred anyone, anywhere in the world, from passing those Chinese goods along to them.
In other words, Beijing has moved past squeezing overall supply and is now picking which American companies get cut off. So, for American defense planners, the real question is not if, but when China will use that leverage next.
Why the Pentagon Can't Build Without These Two Metals
Dysprosium and terbium aren't household names, but the Pentagon can't do without them. They go into the heat-resistant magnets inside radar and sonar, electric motors, and precision-guided munitions.
So, when the supply of those metals tightens, the companies building those weapons can end up waiting on Beijing just to keep their production lines running.
This is the vulnerability Keane, and the rest of the REalloys team, are pointing at. "For too long," he said, "the United States has depended on adversaries and others for the materials inside its most advanced defense technology."
And he spelled out what's at stake. "Our ability to deter conflict, and to prevail if deterrence fails, depends on producing munitions and weapons systems at scale," he said, "and that requires supply chains we control."
Washington has now written that idea into its own rules. From January 1, 2027, defense contractors can't deliver magnets containing materials from China, Russia, North Korea or Iran at any stage, from the mine to the finished magnet.
For big defense contractors like Lockheed Martin (NYSE: LMT) and RTX (NYSE: RTX), that deadline is now only weeks away, and you can't simply build that kind of supply chain overnight.
What that means is the hardest thing to find in this market right now is processed metal with a paper trail that never touches China.
Why the Army Is Planning 75 Years Ahead
That’s exactly what the Army is trying to lock down at Tooele, and the length of the proposed deal says a lot.
The Army first named REalloys to a short list of four companies cleared to negotiate for critical mineral plants on Army land back in June. On November 3, the two sides tentatively agreed on terms for roughly 200 acres at Utah's Tooele Army Depot.
The non-binding term sheet sets an initial 50-year lease with the option to renew for 25 more, even though federal law normally caps leases like this at five years.
In other words, the Army isn’t planning around this winter’s deadlines. It’s planning for a world where China’s leverage lasts for generations, and it wants a supplier on its own land for just as long.
Under the deal, the Army gets the first shot at buying any dysprosium and terbium made on the base. It isn't required to buy, but this term would mean no other customer gets ahead of it.
But Tooele isn't REalloys' only door into the Pentagon. Earlier this year, the Defense Logistics Agency tapped its Ohio unit to design a plant for samarium and gadolinium metal, two more rare earths the company wants to bring back to U.S. production.
None of this depends on what Beijing decides in January, though. Even if China extends the truce, the Pentagon's 2027 rules still apply, and if it doesn't, contractors will need a domestic source even more.
The 75-year deal is still pending, and site plans, environmental reviews, permits and approvals all have to come before it becomes a binding lease.
But the size and scale of that deal signals just how serious the Pentagon is about securing its supply chain over the next century.
Why Keane Isn't the Only Name Worth Noticing
The people behind REalloys know exactly what’s at stake, starting with Keane himself.
Keane spent 37 years in uniform, commanding the 101st Airborne Division, serving as acting Chief of Staff and Vice Chief of Staff of the Army, and helping shape the "Surge" strategy in Iraq.
Today he chairs the Institute for the Study of War, and in 2020 he received the Presidential Medal of Freedom.
But he isn't the only heavyweight in the room.
The chairman is Steve duMont, president of GM Defense, who describes the company's mission as securing "the industrial foundation of the free world."
Former Saskatchewan Premier Brad Wall and David MacNaughton, Canada's former ambassador to the United States, also sit on the board.
Put together, that's a board with deep roots in both the U.S. defense world and Canada, where REalloys' first new production is taking shape.
But a board only matters if the company can deliver, and that comes down to one hard step in the supply chain.
The Step Most Rare Earth Companies Skip
Most rare earth headlines are about mining the minerals still in the ground. New mines and processing plants get all the attention.
But rock in the ground is still a long way from something a defense contractor can use in its weapons and defense systems.
It has to be turned into metal and then approved by a buyer who needs to trace it every step of the way.
That’s the step REalloys has built its business around. And because those buyers need to trace every gram’s origin, where REalloys gets its raw material matters just as much.
So far, that answer runs through Canada and Greenland. In Saskatchewan, REalloys has supply rights to most of the output from the Saskatchewan Research Council's fully funded expansion, which is built to turn out dysprosium and terbium.
The first metal production from Saskatchewan is targeted for early 2027, just as the Pentagon's new rules kick in.
And in Greenland, Critical Metals has locked in 15% of its Tanbreez rare earth output for REalloys for 15 years, starting once the mine is up and running.
In other words, REalloys is lining up its supply in places well outside China's reach.
What sets REalloys apart, it argues, is that it's bringing the technology, the raw material, the know-how and the factories together under one company. And it plans to go all the way to finished magnets.
What Happens the Next Time Beijing Pulls the Lever
China has already shown it's willing to use its rare earth leverage, first against carmakers and then against the defense industry itself. What's yet to be seen is whether America will have its own supply of these metals the next time Beijing pulls that lever.
The calendar is already set. The Pentagon's sourcing rule takes effect January 1, and REalloys' first metal from Saskatchewan is targeted for the same quarter.
Keane called the Tooele terms "an important step toward bringing heavy rare earth processing onto a U.S. defense installation."
With the Army’s selection in hand, a potential 75-year lease on the table and its first production months away, REalloys is lining up to be one of the first companies to give the Pentagon a supply of these metals that China can't switch off.
By. Josh Owens
India found alternative LPG supplies while global fertilizer markets adjusted to wartime disruptions, although high costs and some shortages persisted.
Europe avoided widespread jet fuel shortages but faced higher energy prices and entered winter with unusually low natural gas inventories.
Global oil reserves have fallen sharply as emergency stock releases, longer shipping routes, and reduced consumption helped offset supply disruptions.
Six months ago, I wrote that Americans were experiencing the Iran war primarily through higher prices, while much of the rest of the world was confronting something more serious: actual shortages of fuel and other critical products.
In “The U.S. Feels Higher Prices While The World Is Facing Fuel Shortages,” I highlighted several pressure points created by the disruption of traffic through the Strait of Hormuz. India was struggling to secure liquefied petroleum gas, or LPG, fertilizer markets were tightening, Europe faced potential shortages of jet fuel and other refined products, and Asian economies were scrambling to replace energy supplies normally sourced from the Persian Gulf.
At the time, the biggest unknown was how long the disruption would last and how successfully global supply chains could adapt. Six months later, the picture is much clearer. Some of the worst fears did not materialize, but that was largely because countries drew down inventories, rerouted supplies over much longer distances, released emergency stocks, reduced consumption, and paid more to keep products moving. The global energy system proved remarkably adaptable, but much of that adaptation came at a substantial cost.
India Found New LPG Supplies
India provided one of the clearest early examples of a physical shortage. The country traditionally sourced about 90% of its imported LPG from the Middle East, leaving it highly exposed when traffic through Hormuz collapsed. The government reduced LPG allocations to industry to protect household cooking-gas supplies, encouraged some users to switch fuels, and took steps to discourage hoarding as Middle Eastern LPG exports plunged.
India and other Asian buyers eventually found replacement supplies, particularly from the United States. U.S. LPG cargoes were redirected toward Asia, but replacing nearby Gulf production with supplies from the U.S. Gulf Coast meant longer voyages and higher transportation costs. By fall, the immediate shortage had eased as imports diversified and Middle Eastern supplies began to recover.
The episode demonstrated both the strength and the weakness of global energy trade. India did not simply run out of cooking gas, because alternative suppliers responded to higher prices. But securing those alternatives required longer supply chains, higher costs, government intervention, and substantial losses by state fuel retailers that continued selling subsidized LPG below market prices. The shortage eased, but the economic cost did not disappear.
Fertilizer Markets Adapted, but Not Completely
Fertilizer was another major concern because the Persian Gulf plays an outsized role in global agriculture. Gulf producers account for a large share of global urea and ammonia exports, while the region is also important to sulfur markets. Sulfur is a critical input for phosphate fertilizer production, so disruptions can spread well beyond the countries that actually produce it.
Those concerns materialized quickly. Urea prices surged after Hormuz traffic was disrupted, and millions of metric tons of Gulf fertilizer exports were temporarily removed from the market. That raised fears that fertilizer shortages could eventually reduce crop yields and push food prices higher.
The outcome has been less severe than initially feared. China increased urea exports, demand moderated after the Northern Hemisphere application season, and nitrogen fertilizer prices retreated from their wartime peaks. Phosphate markets have remained tighter because sulfur shortages continue to constrain production. Instead of one prolonged worldwide fertilizer shortage, the shock migrated through the supply chain as some bottlenecks eased and others persisted.
That distinction is important. Commodity shortages rarely remain static. High prices encourage conservation, attract new suppliers, and change trade flows, but those adjustments take time and usually impose costs somewhere else in the system.
Europe may provide the best example of a feared shortage that largely failed to materialize. In April, the loss of Middle Eastern jet fuel raised concerns that European airlines could face physical shortages during the busy summer travel season. Europe had become increasingly dependent on imported jet fuel as domestic refining capacity declined, leaving it vulnerable to the disruption of Gulf supplies.
Instead, European refiners increased jet fuel production while imports from the United States and West Africa helped replace missing Middle Eastern barrels. Inventories provided an additional cushion, and the summer passed without the severe shortage that some had feared.
But that does not mean Europe escaped the consequences. Jet fuel became considerably more expensive, forcing airlines to absorb higher costs and reconsider routes that no longer made economic sense. The market solved much of the physical shortage through higher prices, alternative supply routes, increased refinery output, and reduced demand.
Natural gas presents a similar story. Europe entered this conflict in a stronger position than it occupied during the 2022 Russian gas crisis because LNG import capacity had expanded and supplies had become more diversified. Nevertheless, higher global gas prices made it more expensive to refill storage. Germany entered November with unusually low storage levels for the beginning of winter, leaving Europe with less margin if the coming winter is particularly cold.
The World Used Up Part of Its Safety Margin
The most important development since April may not be any individual shortage, but what happened to the inventories and spare capacity that normally cushion supply disruptions. Global oil inventories have fallen substantially since the war began despite major releases from emergency reserves. Tankers are traveling farther, transportation costs have increased, and diesel inventories remain tight in several regions.
Those buffers are one reason the global system continued functioning despite the loss of a major energy chokepoint. Inventories existed precisely for this sort of emergency, and higher prices encouraged refiners, traders, producers, and consumers to adjust. Yet every barrel drawn from storage and every unit of spare capacity brought into service leaves less protection against the next disruption.
That is especially important because the Iran conflict did not occur in isolation. Refinery outages, hurricanes, a cold winter, another geopolitical crisis, or simply stronger-than-expected demand would now hit a system operating with less slack than it had earlier this year. Avoiding the worst-case scenarios in 2026 does not mean the underlying vulnerabilities have disappeared.
The Big Picture
When I wrote in April that much of the world was confronting shortages while Americans were primarily experiencing higher prices, the concern was that prolonged disruption through Hormuz could spread into transportation, agriculture, manufacturing, and household energy markets.
Six months later, the results are mixed but revealing. India experienced a genuine LPG shortage and found alternative supplies. Fertilizer prices surged, but nitrogen markets adapted while some phosphate constraints remain. Europe avoided a major jet fuel shortage, although airlines and passengers are paying higher fuel costs, and the continent enters winter with less comfortable natural gas inventories.
The global energy system bent much further than many people expected, but it did not break. That is encouraging, and it demonstrates just how effective international trade can be when markets are allowed to redirect supplies toward the places willing to pay for them.
The less comforting conclusion is that much of the flexibility that prevented a worse crisis came from inventories, spare capacity, emergency reserves, longer shipping routes, and demand destruction. Those measures bought the world time, but they also reduced the cushion available for the next shock.
The shortages we worried about in April did not unfold exactly as feared. Markets found substitutes and consumers adjusted, which is what commodity markets eventually do. But the substitutes came at a price, and six months later the global energy system has considerably less room for error.
By Robert Rapier
Mining in Canada pays well but wage growth has sunk to near the bottom
Canada’s miners are the best-paid workers in the country by a wide margin. They are also, this fall, among the worst-rewarded for staying loyal.
New payroll data from ADP Canada, drawn from the paycheques of roughly 1.6 million private-sector workers, shows gross pay for workers who stayed in their jobs in natural resources and mining rose 4.1% year-over-year in October.
Pay increases were unchanged from September and tied for eighth of the ten sectors ADP tracks. It also came in below the national figure of 4.5% for job-stayers. Only “other services” (3.3%), which includes everyone from barbers to pastors, did worse. The sector sharing eighth place with mining and the oil patch is information, the closest thing in the data to tech (but it also includes journalists, for better or worse). Tech may be feeling the first effects of growing AI use especially for junior positions, but finance, which also looks ripe for superintelligence disruption, fared much better, at 5.0%.
Statistics Canada’s payroll survey, which lags the ADP data by two months, puts average weekly earnings in mining, quarrying and oil and gas at C$2,584 in August, against C$1,355 across all industries and C$531 in accommodation and food services. A 5.4% raise on C$531 is about C$29 a week and 4.1% on C$2,584 is about C$106, so any concierge thinking of swapping a Whistler lobby for a Uranium City core shack may want to consider whether C$77 is worth it.
StatCan also shows a significant slowdown in average weekly earnings for those who arrive at work in a cage and carry a self-rescuer – up only 0.8% year-over-year. The all-industry figure rose 3.7%.
Naturally volatile
ADP’s natural resources (mainly oil and gas and a few farmworkers and loggers) and mining category has been the most volatile pay sector in the country over the past three years. It is roughly four times as volatile as manufacturing on the standard deviation of its monthly readings. In July 2023, powder monkeys and rig pigs were living high on the hog, enjoying gross pay growth of 11.5%.
The sector held the top spot for eight straight months. By March 2026 the same series had sunk to 2.9%, the lowest of any sector, where it stayed for five months. Manufacturing’s entire four-year range is no more than 2.4 percentage points while mining’s swings and roundabouts come to 8.6 points. A quick glance at NYMEX or COMEX will explain why.
The onus is on bonus
Base pay – the hourly rate or salary, stripped of overtime, bonuses and commissions – for mining job-stayers is growing at 3.0%. So is base pay in every other sector: all ten are at 3.0% or 3.1%. ADP’s technical notes explain that employers hand out raises in round numbers, and after the inflation tantrum of 2022–2023, the round number Canadian employers have settled on is three.
That matches Canada’s most recent inflation rate of 3.1%, but if you’re planning to escape winter, three won’t do: in September gasoline was 27.8% and air fares 19.4% more expensive than a year earlier. It’s cheaper to party at camp (in between operating heavy machinery, of course): StatCan says alcohol, tobacco and cannabis are only 1.6% dearer.
It’s all boom and bust in mining and gross pay follows the up and down (super)cycles. In October 2023 the sector’s gross pay growth (11.0%) outran its base pay growth (4.5%) by 6.5 points, a bonus-and-overtime gap no other sector came close to. In October 2026 the wedge is 1.1 points, and it has turned negative three times in two years, most recently in March.
FIFO FOMO
Compound the October readings from 2023 through 2026 and miners have seen gross pay grow about 27% since October 2022, the base of ADP’s first Canadian reading. That’s more than any other sector, but only just ahead of reflective-strip-free finance and leisure people, and well clear of the roughly 22% for job-stayers nationally. That one 11% year did a lot of lifting: the best time to be a miner on a fixed payroll was three years ago, the second-best was last summer and the worst was this spring. The minerals may now all be critical, more money for muckers not so much.
Loyalty is for dogs
ADP doesn’t break out job-hopping by sector, but gut feel tells you swapping one cold and remote mine for another is probably less of a temptation than crossing Bay Street to join Frobisher, Quibble & Chase because Whitcomb, Clench & Doolittle won’t make you partner.
Nationally, job-changers saw gross pay rise 10.4% in October against 4.5% for stayers, a 5.9-point premium for switching, the widest since February 2024 and more than three points wider than a year ago, when switchers’ raises bottomed at 7.1%. Base pay tells the same story: 6.0% for changers, 3.0% for stayers.
If the market is paying job-changers 10%, the arithmetic of staying put looks like a grind, least of all for mid-career workers. Among job-stayers across the economy, those aged 35 to 54 saw gross pay rise 4.4% in October, in line with the national average. Those over 55 got 2.9%. Only stayers under 25, at 10.5%, kept pace with switchers, and that is the usual early-career ramp.
For young jobseekers who don’t know what PPE is and won’t mind having it drummed into them for the rest of their working lives, there is good news. Mining is hiring. StatCan’s payroll count for mining, quarrying and oil and gas is up 3.9% year-over-year to 226,600, the fastest growth of any of the 20 sectors it tracks, in an economy where overall payroll employment grew only 0.3%.
Silver demand seen down 5% this year due to weaker jewellery purchases
Silver demand is expected to fall by 5% in 2026 due to weaker jewellery demand and lower consumption in solar cells, where high prices have accelerated substitution, research showed on Friday.
Research done by consultancy Metals Focus for the Silver Institute puts demand at 1.08 billion troy ounces this year.
Silver, used in jewellery, electronics, electric vehicles and solar panels as well as for investment, is down 59% to $50 an ounce since retail buying drove prices to a record high of $121.6 in January.
The base for that rally was created in 2025, when silver surged 147%, as massive inflows of the metal to US inventories due to tariff uncertainty and into silver-backed exchange-traded products (ETPs) tightened liquidity in the London market.
This year, expectations for higher interest rates, a stronger dollar and higher bond yields have weighed on investment sentiment.
Silver released through ETP selling, outflows from stocks in the US and a smaller market deficit improved liquidity in the physical market, the Silver Institute and consultancy Metals Focus said on Friday.
Metals Focus sees net ETP outflows of 45 million ounces this year after 278 million ounces of inflows in 2025. As of early November, ETP holdings stood at 1.25 billion ounces.
Industrial demand is expected to fall by 3% in 2026 as installations in photovoltaics have fallen short of expectations, particularly in China, while January’s record silver prices accelerated substitution.
Meanwhile, demand for jewellery and silverware is forecast to decline by 22% and 17%, respectively, as higher prices and weaker rural spending in India encouraged purchases of smaller, lighter products. Demand in China and the US is also subdued.
Strong retail investment in late 2025 and early 2026 gave way to far more subdued buying from March as silver prices fell, Metals Focus said. It expects global bar and coin demand to fall 2% this year, with US retail investment hitting its lowest level since 2010.
(Reporting by Polina Devitt;Editing by Sharon Singleton)