Ken Michaluk has lived in Thompson for decades. He worked at the mining operation in the northern Manitoba city, seeing it exchange hands several times, and undergo expansions and cuts.
Now retired, he said things can’t get much worse for the operation, as Vale SA, a Brazilian company and the nickel operation’s owner, is considering a potential sale.
“Business is business,” said Michaluk. “They’ve laid off … pretty much all they can lay off. I don’t think that’s an issue. I don’t think they’re going to just shut it down. And it wouldn’t make much sense in that, that’s for sure.”
A Jan. 23 news release said the company “has launched a strategic review to explore and evaluate a range of alternatives, including the potential sale, for its mining and exploration assets in Thompson.”
Vale Base Metals owns two mines and a mill in Thompson, a city of roughly 13,000 that’s 650 kilometres north of Winnipeg, along with what it describes as “significant exploration opportunities” in the region. Its Thompson operation employs about 900 people, according to Vale.
Michaluk said the glory days of the operation ended when Vale shut down its smelter — which extracts base metal out of ore — in Thompson in 2018. Now, the raw ore is shipped off to other provinces to be processed.
He said he would like to see smelting brought back to Thompson — and with it, hundreds of extra jobs.
For others, like Thompson resident Dysart McKay, layoffs are a concern.
“Some workers could maybe get laid off. Who knows? I guess it really depends on what happens to them [Vale], what they’re going to go with, if they decide to keep them or not,” he told CBC.
The local president for United Steelworkers, the union that represents workers at the mining operation, said the company has been reluctant to invest in the community.
Warren Luky, president of USW Local 6166, said he’d like to see a new owner that would invest in both the community and the mining operation.
“For the steelworkers and for the community, it is very important that we find the … right company to take the ore body we’re sitting on,” he said, hoping for a long-term solution for “a mine that can offer a lot to the country that we live in.”
Luky said he understands that metal markets are cyclical and downturns are possible.
But “we used to make the greenest, best nickel in the world, plating nickel. Now we’re just a feed — and we’re a very good feed,” he said.
“So ideally we could go back to creating a finished product, but in reality we can’t do that without the development capital money needed to get the mining operation deeper and to extract the ore body.”
Ethel Timbang is trying to stay positive about the future of mining in Thompson, a city she moved to from the Philippines over a decade ago. She’s now the manager at a local hotel and the president of the Chamber of Commerce.
She wants mining to be one of many industries in Thompson, not the only one, and sees value in diversifying into industries like aviation and manufacturing.
“We’re a little bit worried with [the potential sale], but if there is a potential company that will acquire it, which I think there is, that is a little bit hopeful,” Timbang said.
Like others, she holds out hope that Thompson’s mining operation will begin processing ore locally again, but said she’s not holding her breath for mining to revitalize the community.
“Right now, I am hoping for other ventures … industries other than the mining operation to come here, so that we are not just dependent on the mining operation,” Timbang said.
“I hope the new owners will invest more in the community.”
CBC News reached out to Vale for comment, but the company did not respond to multiple email requests.
Thompson Mayor Colleen Smook was not available for an interview.