On September 13, 2007, the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP) — currently the most extensive international guideline on the rights of Indigenous peoples — was adopted with a majority of 143 states. Canada was not one of them. 

Canada was hesitant to adopt UNDRIP due to concerns that it would contradict its national laws. Nearly 14 years later, in June 2021, Canada passed the UNDRIP Act as a commitment to “protect, promote and uphold the human rights of Indigenous peoples in Canada.” 

But even after adopting UNDRIP and affirming that it is an important source for new laws and policies, Canada has failed to transfer this in application. Indigenous peoples, both locally and internationally, have continued to struggle at the hands of Canadian extraction companies. 

About half of the world’s publicly listed mining and mineral exploitation companies — which operate on land all over the world — belong to Canada, making the country an extractive superpower. With all this power comes a degree of responsibility to ensure that the companies’ projects are conducted humanely. Yet, as the years go by, more and more stories have come to light exposing the cruelty behind these projects.

To address the abuses caused by these mining projects, Canada has participated in numerous initiatives, including making international commitments, such as eventually joining UNDRIP, that emphasize the rights of Indigenous peoples. But, Canada has also played an active role in ignoring and masking abuses from mining and extraction companies. In a sense, while the Canadian government advertises practices which protect Indigenous rights, it acts contrary to these principles and norms. 

Indigenous human rights abuses in Canada 

Despite promises by the Canadian government to solve the issue of contaminated water on First Nations reserves by 2021, there were 618 First Nations communities with inadequate access to clean water just last year. In communities with water safety advisories, not only can drinking water be dangerous but also brushing teeth, bathing, and cooking with water. 

Moreover, contrary to the Canadian government’s commitment to Indigenous peoples’ right to self-govern, extraction and construction projects such as the Wet’suwet’en pipeline continue to operate on Indigenous land against the wishes of Indigenous leaders. These are just two examples, but these alone send the message to Indigenous peoples that the government’s promises to respect their right to their land are empty words, and that they will continue to prioritize economic interest over the livelihoods of Indigenous peoples.

In addition to the Wet’suwet’en pipeline, Canadian gold mining projects along the border between Alaska and British Columbia have been violating the rights of Indigenous peoples for decades. Along with exploiting their land without their consent, the mining projects risk the poisoning of the surrounding salmon-rich Taku, Stikine, and Unuk Rivers, which are water and food sources for Alaska’s Indigenous communities. 

Despite having received a petition against the project in 2020 from the Southeast Alaska Indigenous Transboundary Commission — an organization of 15 First Nations who work to protect their rights to their land — Canada continues to allow the exploitation of Alaska’s Indigenous land today.

The Indigenous peoples of the Winneway, La Corne, and La Motte municipalities in Québec are also currently facing concerns about water and food quality, with a lithium mining project taking place on their land. In March 2022, the Council of the Long Point First Nation sent a letter to Québec Premier François Legault’s government, asking for an investigation into the environmental risks of the project. 

However, Long Point First Nation Chief Steeve Mathias told CBC in 2022 that the Long Point community distrusts the government to adequately inform them of these potential risks, and are looking to conduct their own investigation. 

The cases of Mexico and Guatemala

If Canada has no problem exercising this hypocrisy in their own country, there is nothing stopping them from committing abuses against Indigenous communities abroad. One such case resulted in the murder of Mexican activist Mariano Abarca. 

Between 2007 and 2009, the Canadian mining company Blackfire Exploration Ltd. was operating in the municipality of Chicomuselo, in Chiapas, Mexico, which is home to Mexico’s Indigenous peoples. In response to Blackfire’s unwanted presence on his land, Abarca led protests motivated by environmental concerns — specifically about the water shortage and contamination in the rivers that flow in the highlands of Chiapas. 

The Canadian Embassy responded by sending a high-level delegate to the office of Chiapas’ Governor Juan Sabines Guerrero to advocate for Blackfire. Seven weeks later, Abarca was murdered in broad daylight.

This case was swept under the rug, with Canada’s Public Sector Integrity Commissioner (PSIC) refusing to investigate the case. The PSIC is an oversight office responsible for investigating wrongdoings in the federal public sector, and protecting those who report wrongs from reprisal. 

Another significant case of abuse was in Guatemala. In 2006, the Canadian company Goldcorp Inc. bought the Marlin gold and silver mine in Chiquimula and the western highlands of Chimaltenango and San Marcos. Goldcorp began mining for gold on the land of five Mayan communities, comprising around 10,000 inhabitants. This project led to significant environmental harms, including polluting local communities’ major water sources, and failed to uphold the ethics Goldcorp’s Marlin Mine project reportedly sought out to follow, of “transparency, independence, and inclusion.” 

“My land is what you saw in the pit today, and now I have nothing,” said Maya resident, Emeterio Perez, about the land he was forced to sell to Goldcorp’s mining project. 

In a public letter, signed “Communities in Resistance,” the Mayan people of the Guatemalan municipality San Miguel Ixtahuacán explained, “When the company arrived in the communities, they said that they were going to do a field study and set up a project for the production of orchid plants in order to generate work for the communities. In this way, they tricked the communities into the sale of lands, even though the communities defended their rights and rejected the company’s plans.” 

In June 2010, this case was brought to the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, which is an organ of the Organization of American States: an inter-American organization that aims to act as a regional development agency in the United Nations (UN) and protect human rights across the Americas. The commission said that the Guatemalan government must suspend the activities of the Goldcorp mine until the issue of safe drinking water is sorted out. 

In response, Canada ignored the court’s independence and intervened in the case. The Canadian embassy and Goldcorp both spoke directly to the former Guatemalan president Álvaro Colom urging him to ignore the commission’s orders. When the Guatemalan government ignored Canada’s request and followed through with the Commission’s orders, Canada decided to raise the issue directly with the commission. 

A few months later, after pressure from the Canadian government, the commission withdrew its suspension of the gold mine in December of 2011, and Goldcorp’s project resumed. The project closed in May 2017, but Goldcorp was purchased by an American mining company — Newmont Mining Corporation — which has been attempting to reopen the project since April 2019. 

Canada deceived the Indigenous communities in Guatemala, stole their land, and then proceeded to destroy it through their mining projects.

In both Guatemala and Mexico, it seems like Canada’s true intentions are not to protect Indigenous peoples but to protect Canadian companies’ profits. Canada has enabled its companies’ abuses instead of protecting the rights of Indigenous peoples — a commitment it claims to value so strongly. 

Canada has been a hypocrite by establishing a national day to commemorate Indigenous groups while simultaneously destroying Indigenous homes both locally and abroad. It has also been deceptive in expressing unwavering support for institutions that aim to protect Indigenous rights while using those same institutions to get away with their Indigenous rights abuses. 

Panama and Ecuador 

On November 28, 2023, a Canadian mining company — First Quantum Minerals (FQM) — signed a 20-year contract with the Supreme Court of Panama to work in the Cobre mine. This project, which accounted for five per cent of Panama’s GDP, also posed the risk of contaminating drinking water and deforesting 32,000 acres of land. 

The group most affected by this issue? The Ngäbe-Buglé people: Panama’s largest Indigenous tribe.

The Ngäbe-Buglé people fought for self-determination to preserve their territory, and it was ultimately their protests that caused the Supreme Court of Panama to rule that the contract was unconstitutional. 

While this case ended in success for the Ngäbe-Buglé people, with Panamanians celebrating the mine’s closure, the Canadian company did not see it that way. FQM responded to the court’s decision by suing Panama at the International Court of Arbitration under the Canada-Panama Free Trade Agreement, which allows for a company to sue a state and focuses on labour cooperation and the environment. 

FQM sued Panama for breaching their free trade agreement, and demanded compensation for the economic damage caused by Panama’s closure of their mines at the end of 2023. Still, Panama held its ground against the Canadian mining company, and the case is ongoing with a hearing scheduled in September 2025. 

This behaviour of pressuring a foreign state to agree to unfair and inhumane contracts is not unusual for Canadian companies. In October, during a news conference in Ottawa, Amnesty International brought four Indigenous women delegates from Ecuador to discuss the issue of Canadian mining companies violating Indigenous peoples’ rights with federal leaders on Parliament Hill. 

Zenaida Yasacama — part of the Kichwa Ancestral People of Pakayaku and vice-president of the Confederation of Indigenous Nationalities of Ecuador, the country’s largest Indigenous rights organization — stated that Canadian mining companies “violate the rights of nature [and] violate our right to self govern.” 

Yasacama pointed out how the projects are polluting the water and land of the Kichwa Ancestral People of Pakayaku. Currently, 15 Canadian mining companies operate in Ecuador, some of which are facing allegations of “abuses and working in ecologically sensitive areas, according to Mining Watch Canada.” To address these abuses, the confederation “wants Canada to not sign anything unless Indigenous peoples in Ecuador give their free, prior, and informed consent.” 

Panama and Ecuador are just two recent examples of Indigenous groups who resisted extraction companies’ invasion of their land through protesting or attending conferences. There are many more cases in which Canadian mining companies make agreements with corrupt governments, silencing the voices of the Indigenous peoples that go unheard and unaddressed. 

Relationship between host states and Canada in Indigenous rights violations 

Host states, Canadian mining companies, and Canada all are at fault for this issue in different ways. The host state — which is the state where the extraction projects occur — is responsible for allowing companies to operate on Indigenous land within the host state’s territory. In doing so, the host state overlooks the Indigenous peoples’ right to self-determination and self-governance. 

It’s easy to argue that the host state plays a larger role than the companies since it is the one permitting the companies to operate on Indigenous land. After all, under capitalism, most companies are motivated by profit. Ideally, the host state’s government should keep companies in check so they do not choose profit at the price of the common good. However, many of the host states where Canadian mining companies operate face issues of conflict and instability. 

Both Panama and Ecuador already face internal issues of corruption. Freedom House is a US non-profit organization that assesses “the condition of political rights and civil liberties around the world” based on a country’s political rights and civil liberties. According to its 2024 report on Ecuador, the country has faced a rise in violent crime in recent years which has caused its global freedom status to move from ‘Free’ to ‘Partly Free.’ Its 2024 report on Panama also states that “corruption and impunity” are ongoing issues in Panama’s justice system and government. 

While the host states undoubtedly play an inexcusable role in the violation of Indigenous rights, their socio-political instability makes them vulnerable to the whims of companies based in more powerful countries like Canada, that can take advantage of their poor economic conditions and offer them revitalization through industrial projects. 

Canada, then, plays arguably the largest role in these abuses. 

Shin Imai is a professor of law at York University and a co-founder of the Justice and Corporate Accountability Project (JCAP) — a transnational initiative that works with volunteers to spread legal information to communities that are harmed by natural resource extraction. By spreading the legal information extraction companies fail to relay to the communities whose land they are exploiting, JCAP aims to prevent these companies from further getting away with their abuses.

In an interview with The Varsity, Imai spoke on Canada’s role in abusing countries to exploit their resources. Imai explained that Canada has the responsibility to provide oversight over public goods and individual and collective conduct, which means both setting up and enforcing standards for the conduct of transnational companies and projects.

In the case of transnational mining and extraction companies, then, it is the Canadian government’s responsibility to monitor these companies’ conduct and ensure that they are following national and international guidelines, such as those established by UNDRIP, when they operate on Indigenous land.

All of this said, Canadian mining companies should also be held responsible. While states have responsibilities and commitments, so do companies. In this case, Canadian mining companies have the responsibility of conducting their affairs within legal boundaries. This would include, for example, ensuring that Indigenous groups have Free, Prior, and Informed Consent (FPIC) before having their land operated on. 

The truth behind ‘reconciliation’ 

All these cases clearly show that there is a grave issue of Indigenous rights being violated by extractive companies and that the Canadian government is playing a role in this issue. Canada continues to fail to take accountability by continually ignoring their commitments to Indigenous rights. 

To orchestrate its efforts for retribution, the Canadian government has established a National Day of Truth and Reconciliation. They have accepted Indigenous rights practices such as FPIC and Corporate Social Responsibility — a business model that encourages businesses to consider their social, ethical, and environmental impacts and responsibilities. But these principles and systems only feign accountability. They are weakly enforced.

The principles and systems set up by Canada have proven to be miserable failures in upholding Indigenous rights abroad. Canada has failed to provide governmental oversight and enforce environmental and human rights standards. The cases of Mexico and Guatemala show that in addition to Canada’s failure to respect and protect the rights of Indigenous peoples, its actions have also been outright deceptive. 

Even after the Liberal Party’s commitments to uphold and respect Indigenous rights since 2015, Canada has failed to stop new projects from operating, creating more consequences for the livelihoods of Indigenous peoples. 

In 2014, the Canadian mining company Lundin Gold bought the Frutal del Norte gold mine in Ecuador, and has been operating on the land since 2019. The local Indigenous communities have expressed concerns about their livelihoods, as the project “has long been accused of negatively affecting local flora and fauna, contaminating water, and causing significant psychosocial harm through police repression,” according to a 2024 report by MiningWatch Canada. 

Despite these concerns and the lack of Indigenous peoples’ consent to operate on their land, Lundin Gold claims to “engage with the Shuar and Saraguaro Indigenous peoples who live in Fruta del Norte’s area of influence” and to “promote the preservation of [their] identity, cultural knowledge, customs and traditions.” 

The Canadian Liberal government has actively claimed to support Indigenous self-governance rights, yet they continually exploit Indigenous territories and turn a blind eye to Canada’s mining companies’ abuses. 

A large part of why this issue of Indigenous rights abuses by Canadian extraction and mining has gone on for so long is the lack of accountability. 

On April 8, 2019, lawyer Sheri Meyerhoffer was appointed the first Canadian Ombudsperson for Responsible Enterprise (CORE) after pressure from human rights activists to enforce standards of ethical business conduct. Her role was to investigate “human rights abuses arising from the operations of Canadian companies abroad.” CORE was made in an effort to ensure that Canadian companies in the oil and gas, mining, and garment industries were respecting human rights norms, such as those set up by the UN. 

Eight months later, “after… heavy lobbying from the mining industry, all the powers were taken away,” according to Imai. The ombudsperson was stripped of their independence from the Canadian government, and only given enough power to undergo reviews of what the corporation willingly provides about their intentions, rather than conduct independent investigations about whether these proclaimed intentions are sincere. 

As a 2020 report by the Canadian Network on Corporate Accountability put it, CORE “appears to have been designed with more concern for industry perceptions than with supporting the human rights of impacted communities.” 

Imai explained that with these new amendments, the ombudsperson simply lost all powers, leaving very little room for effective investigations. Without legal investigations and recognition, there is no government accountability for their violations of Indigenous rights. 

When asked about the future of this issue, Imai emphasized the importance of proper investigative powers. The first step to solving this issue is exposing the truth. But I don’t believe truth comes with false promises by corrupt systems claiming commitment to “truth and reconciliation.” It comes from establishing transparent, honest systems.

In pursuit of justice and honesty

In addition to establishing open investigations and advocating for Indigenous rights, legal action can lead the government to take accountability for its actions. 

The JCAP has gathered legal experts and collaborated with organizations, universities, law firms, and Indigenous communities to work toward community self-determination, corporate accountability, and transnational legal activism: practiced by members of the law to bring justice to victims and hold perpetrators responsible in transnational issues. 

In March 2021, the Federal Court of Canada dealt with the access-to-information lawsuit brought forth by Imai, who had received redacted records concerning Canada’s intervention in the human rights case against Goldcorp in Guatemala. For the case, entitled “Imai v. Canada,” the JCAP collaborated with several Canadian non-governmental organizations (NGOs) such as Amnesty International, and the Canadian Network for Corporate Accountability to disclose why the Canadian government was pressuring the Guatemalan government. 

But action doesn’t always have to be through NGOs and legal experts. It can also be through individual activism — something which all Canadian citizens can and should partake in. This can be done by using your area of expertise — whether it is academic, legal, or media — to spread awareness about human rights violations against Indigenous peoples all over the world. From joining diverse groups like JCAP to using your voice on public platforms, we as Canadians have the opportunity to be part of this discussion. 

This issue is not just about protecting Indigenous rights and land but also about taking individual responsibility for the role we play as citizens. It is our responsibility to use our voices and hold our governments accountable for their misconduct and shortcomings. This issue is as much a product of our silence as it is of the government’s enabling of its companies.

When corporations and governments present illusions of protecting and advocating for Indigenous rights, it is our responsibility to take action; to advocate and to partake in initiatives and projects that focus on responsibility and justice; and to reveal the truth and work toward effective accountability.