Manitoba-raised mining exec goes global

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This article was published 08/08/2018 (2838 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

When he was going to high school in Birtle 30 years ago, Kelvin Dushnisky said he would never have imagined that he’d one day be moving to Johannesburg, South Africa, to take over management of the third-largest gold-mining company in the world, AngloGold Ashanti.

But that’s exactly what Dushnisky will be doing in a couple of months.

The former president and second in command at Toronto-based Barrick Gold, where he’s risen up the ranks for the past 16 years, said he has never forgotten his Manitoba roots as he’s travelled the globe negotiating complex mineral resource enterprises with local and national governments and workers alike.

In fact, he said his small-town upbringing is one of the valuable assets he is able to bring when negotiating and planning out investments of hundreds of millions of dollars around the world.

After a recent family reunion in Clear Lake (Jeff Hnatiuk, president and CEO of Sport Manitoba, is Dushinsky’s cousin), he visited Birtle and the small towns his parents grew up in and remembered the distinct lifestyle of a kid who grew up on a small farm in Manitoba.

“In some ways, growing up in a small community prepared me well,” said the senior mining industry executive whose pay scale is now in the millions of dollars. “Sometimes people might presume I grew up on Bay Street or Wall Street. But my upbringing gave me a different perspective. I feel comfortable relating to people at the local level in a way that I may not have otherwise been able to.”

After graduating from the University of Manitoba, Dushnisky went to the University of British Colombia for a master’s degree in science and began working for an environmental consulting firm that helped mining companies navigate their way through the permitting process.

After then earning a law degree at UBC, he was invited to work at a former client’s mining company and that began his career in the industry.

But still, after living in Vancouver for 20 years and another 16 in Toronto, whenever he’s asked, he always says he’s from Manitoba.

AngloGold Ashanti has 14 mines and three exploration projects in four different regions — South Africa, continental Africa, Australia and South America.

Dushnisky said every successful mining company has safety and environmental concerns as the top two priorities and that localizing every operation as much as possible — engaging the local workforce, utilizing local suppliers and becoming partners with local jurisdictions — becomes the next most important priority.

Although neither Barrick or AngloGold has operations in Manitoba, Dushinsky said he has continued to be aware of mining industry operations in his home province, and despite its recent struggles, he believes it has a promising future.

Part of his favourable impression is due to meetings he had earlier this year in his Barrick offices with Growth Enterprise and Trade Minister Blaine Pedersen and his staff while they were at the Prospectors and Developers Association of Canada conference in the spring in Toronto. Dushnisky said he was impressed that the province really wanted to understand what it is that the industry is looking for in a jurisdiction.

Dushnisky said he thinks Manitoba can distinguish itself if it can develop a framework that will allow companies like Barrick and others to invest in the province knowing there is certainty around Indigenous rights and Indigenous consultation.

Meanwhile, he said the geology of a region is obviously fundamental for any mining company and “we know Manitoba has the geology.”

martin.cash@freepress.mb.ca