IAMGOLD: We are pink

Tipping the scales at just a little under half a page, the Weekend to End Women’s Cancers ad in the Globe and Mail last week trumpeted IAMGOLD CEO Steve Letwin’s participation in the Princess Margaret Hospital Foundation mega event that’s has raised $120 million in the past 10 years.  His team’s name?  We are pink.

That’s so sweet thought the right side of Your Working Girl’s brain. Perhaps it’s because a woman in his life has been, as they say, ‘touched by cancer’?

Then the left side of Your Working Girl’s brain kicked in.  Are you sure, it whispered,  absolutely sure, Mr. Letwin’s involvement has nothing to do with the fact that “many surgical instruments, electronic equipment and life-support devices are made using small amounts of gold” according to geology.com, a brilliant website featuring “news and information about geology and earth science.”

But what a crazy idea.   Mixing business with charity.

Left brain did, however, go on to say that the IAMGOLD We are pink Team may raise the profile of said Steve Letwin with the serious money maker that Princess Margaret is getting on with now — the Believe it! campaign to raise $1 billion to “conquer cancer in our lifetime.” Perhaps, in addition to giving to a ‘great cause’ these high net worth individuals might like to invest in a gold company with a lovely man who walked the walk.

Surely not.  Because then you’d have the people who donate millions of dollars to cancer hospitals so they have the money to purchase millions of dollar of gold-enhanced cancer equipment making money from their ever-more profitable shares of a gold company.

Clearly Your Working Girl’s left brain is being plain silly or is just plain overworked.  Rationality can be a chore.

But she can tell you that these itty-bitty bits of gold add up.  Geology.com reports that there is about 50 cents worth of gold in every cell phone.  Nearly one billion cell phones are produced each year.  That’s $500 million in cell phones alone.  Big money.

And for more big money,  you can look across the street from the Princess Margaret Hospital and see the Peter Munk Cardiac Wing of Toronto & Western General Hospital.  Peter Munk’s day job?  Founder and CEO of Barrick Gold Corporation.