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Canada Faces Pressure to Promote Sustainable Mining |
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By Stephen Leahy*
Activists
have demanded that the Stephen Harper administration impose mandatory
social and environmental standards on Canadian mining companies
operating in Latin America.
TORONTO, Sep 25 - Civil society activists want
the Canadian government to impose mandatory human rights and environmental
standards on Canadian mining and oil companies operating in Latin
America and other developing regions.
In the past decade Canada has been the world's biggest investor
in the hunt for valuable metals and minerals in Latin America, Jamie
Kneen of Mining Watch told Tierramérica. Canadian miners are responsible
for environmental contamination and human rights violations all
over Latin America, he says.
Canada has nearly 60 percent of the mining and exploration companies
in the world; they generate more than 40 billion dollars annually,
representing about four percent of Canada's GDP.
"Canada must set some limits on its companies," activist Lucio Cuenca
Berger told a Canadian government panel, which held an open forum
on corporate social responsibility in the mining, oil and gas sectors
in Toronto Sep. 12-14.
Cuenca Berger is a representative from the Latin America Observatory
for Environmental Conflicts, a non-governmental organization working
with Chilean communities affected by mining, including the controversial
Pascua-Lama gold mine project owned by Canada's Barrick Gold Corporation,
on the border between Chile and Argentina.
There are environmental concerns that mining operations and waste
rock from the Pascua Lama will contaminate the rivers supplying
the nearby Huasco Valley where there are some 70,000 small farmers,
Berger said through a translator. The 1.5-billion-dollar project's
original design would have had a major impact on the glaciers, but
was discarded.
Barrick, the world's largest gold producer, recently received environmental
approval from Chilean authorities to go ahead with Pascua Lama,
despite ongoing local opposition.
"In Chile, environmental approval is more political than technical,"
said Berger.
The inability or unwillingness of local governments to enforce international
human rights and environmental standards should not give Canadian
companies license to ignore these standards, activists say.
One such company, Manhattan Minerals, spent years trying to force
people in the northern town of Tambogrande, Peru to accept an open
pit gold mine in the middle of their village before conceding defeat
in 2005.
Communities in the Imbabura province in northwestern Ecuador have
been forced to file an injunction to stop Ascendant Copper Corporation
of Toronto from building an open-pit copper mine on their land,
Keen said.
In Mexico, Toronto-based Metallica Resources' subsidiary, Minera
San Xavier (MSX) has begun building a gold mine in San Luis Potosi
despite bitter local opposition and court rulings against the mine.
Pierre Gratton of the Canadian Mining Association (CNA), which represents
Canada's largest 25 mining companies, says some Canadian were ill-prepared
for conditions in developing countries with weaker governance, unresolved
local conflicts and weak environmental laws.
"Clearly there are issues and problems and that's why we are having
these CSR (corporate social responsibility) roundtables," Gratton
told Tierramérica
The current series of public forums, such as the one in Toronto,
is a response to both the rising criticism of Canadian mining companies
operating abroad and the commitment of the Harper administration
to promote corporate social responsibility internationally.
Two more forums will be held, one in October in Calgary and another
in November in Montreal. Based on that input, recommendations will
go before the Canadian Parliament sometime in 2007.
There are a number of international standards, such as the Organization
for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) Guidelines for Multinational
Enterprises, the United Nations Global Compact, and the International
Council on Metals and Mining Sustainable Development Charter, among
others.
The CNA has its own standards and most Canadian mining, oil and
gas companies have internal standards.
However, a September 2006 research survey by the Canadian Center
for the Study of Resource Conflict shows that only five percent
of 584 Canadian extractive-sector companies with international holdings
adhere to recognized national or international standards.
"It is abundantly clear existing voluntary standards are not working,"
said Omega Bula of the United Church of Canada, which partnered
with Catholic organizations and others in the "Life before profit"
campaign to improve practices of Canada's huge international mining
industry.
Bula, like most activists at the Toronto meeting, insists that it
is Canada's responsibility to set mandatory codes of conduct for
Canadian companies operating in developing countries. Independent
audits and a monitoring body would ensure compliance. Companies
and company directors should be held accountable for non-compliance
under stronger Canadian laws, Bula said.
Transparency is another requirement, activists say. Currently local
people do not know how much money their government receives from
foreign mining companies.
"The OECD guidelines are fine, as long as there is an independent
third party to monitor," said one member of civil society.
However, an industry official said Canada ought not to presume to
regulate how a company operates in another country.
"If it becomes too onerous for Canadian companies to operate in
developing countries, they'll leave," said Erin Airton of Vancouver's
Platinum Group Metals, which has mines in South Africa and Mexico.
"Then someone else will take the minerals."
Instead of setting mandatory rules, the Canadian government should
help countries build their capacity to enforce their own laws and
regulations, she said.
Kerry Knoll, President and Chief Executive Officer of Glencairn
Gold Corporation, spoke during the forum on the social contributions
of his company, which employs 1,200 workers in mines in Costa Rica
and Nicaragua. Glencairn provides breakfast for 500 children each
morning and training program for adults not employed in the mines,
Knoll said.
"We operate a gold mill for local artisan miners so they won't use
mercury and pollute the rivers."
Knoll estimates his company has spent several million dollars on
such social programs, but has been accused by NGOs of trying to
bribe local people.
However, he is in favor of a government report card or audit system.
"Financial investors are increasingly interested in the environmental
and social record of companies," he said. "Making that record public
would be a good thing."
* Stephen Leahy is an IPS correspondent. |
