Few Canadians know that the majority of the world’s industrial mining companies are located in Canada. Many of those companies are responsible for violating human rights abroad through practices condemned by Amnesty International, NGOs, and human rights and church groups. In the Porgera mine of Papua New Guinea, villagers are routinely shot by mine guards, and there are numerous reports of rapes, detentions, and beatings by local militia and guards. Graham Russell of Rights Action, an advocacy group in Honduras and Guatemala, has recorded hundreds of instances of murder, torture, and beatings by mining companies. He notes that these cases are typical of abuses by Canadian mining companies operating abroad.
Environmentally, water depletion and water contamination are problems. Mines produce massive amounts of toxic waste that cause acid mine drainage and heavy metal contamination. Gold mining and metal processing uses vast amounts of water, often in drought stricken areas of the world such as Australia. It also utilizes dangerous chemicals such as cyanide in its leaching processes, posing a threat to local water systems, and releases deadly arsenic into ecosystems. Cyanide has caused havoc in water systems across the world with over 30 spills in the last five years.
An estimated 50 per cent of mining operations occur on native lands. For many indigenous people, who often rely on their environments for food and necessities, mining threatens not only their livelihood, but also their traditional way of life. Their lands tend to be vulnerable to encroachment because of their lack of power within their country’s political system; their land and water rights are often ignored and their environments destroyed. Examples include the Pueblo Diaguita, an indigenous group in Chile, trying to stop the Pascua Lama mine from destroying traditional lands, the Wiradjuri of Australia, the Western Shoshone of Nevada, and, closer to home, the Ardoch Algonquin.
Despite these problems, there are currently no laws to regulate what Canadian companies do abroad and no way to hold them accountable. According to the Canada’s Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs and International Trade, “Canada does not yet have laws to ensure that the activities of Canadian mining companies in developing countries conform to human rights standards, including the rights of workers and of indigenous peoples.”
The Norwegian Pension Fund decided to divest from Barrick Gold earlier this year. The Porgera mine has been a prime target for criticism because of its use of the local river for tailings disposal, a practice banned in almost every country in the world. Green Party deputy leader Adriane Carr has noted that, “It’s got to be bad news for Canada when a foreign government says it’s going to sell its shares in a Canadian company they figure is unethical.” According to Sakura Saunder of ProtestBarrick.net, a site dedicated to tracking the abuses of Barrick Gold, it is time for the rest of the world to catch up with Norway’s example.
In 2006, the government launched a series of national roundtables to find ways to ensure that Canadian mining companies operating abroad adhere to social responsibility standards. The process was recommended by the Commons’ Foreign Affairs committee. Stephen Harper’s Conservative government recently rejected the roundtable recommendations to tie diplomatic and economic support for Canadian extraction companies operating in developing countries to socially responsible conduct abroad. Liberal MP Bernard Patry called the government’s plan a “disgrace,” questioning why it took the government two years to put together what he believed was a worthless response. NGOs are holding the Canadian Chamber of Commerce and Barrick Gold—neither of which participated in the roundtables—responsible. They point to letters that the two organizations sent to Canadian officials in the summer of 2007 warning against adopting the recommendations. Liberal MP John McKay has now tabled a private member’s bill looking to codify many of the roundtable recommendations in legislation.
It is well known that the University of Toronto accepted money from Barrick Gold CEO Peter Munk to build the Munk Centre for International Studies. U of T also trains engineers to enter the mining trade, and is financially tied to several Canadian mining companies, as well as to investment in the tar sands expansion. U of T even has a “Mining Building.” A U of T campus club, the Toronto Mining Support, recommend that U of T cut it ties to Barrick Gold, Munk, and the mining industry as a whole, on the grounds that the industry has proven unethical, socially irresponsible, and environmentally destructive. Corporate funding also endangers academic freedoms, as the case of Dr. Nancy Olivieri illustrates.
A conference on mining issues is scheduled at the University of Toronto for April 26. Participants include Protest Barrick, Rights Action, Bob Lovelace and Ardoch Algonquin, the Beehive Collective, presenters from Papau New Guinea, Chile, the Philippines, First Nations affected by the tar sands, Congo, and other affected communities. For more details go to www.underminingsustainability.worldpress.com or visit “A Question of Sustainability” on Facebook.
