Canada is known worldwide for its natural beauty and its reputation as a “green” country. This reputation has benefited the image of Canadian mining companies abroad. Ecuacorriente’s advertising, for example, offers “Canadian investment and experience and environmental standards equal to those of its country of origin.” What is not usually considered is that, even in Canada, there is a complex history of environmental conflicts linked to mining.
The allegations of abuses committed by Canadian companies in Africa, collected in the book Noir Canada (Black Canada: Plunder, Corruption and Criminality in Africa), are extremely serious: environmental destruction, poisoning of entire populations, corruption, economic mafias, brutal expropriation, financing of warlords, among other allegations that come from numerous sources, from UN reports, official documents from various governments, reports from internationally recognized NGOs, articles in the national and international press, books, documentaries, academic researchers and prestigious Africanists.
In an interview with one of the authors, William Sacher, conducted by Emma Gascó (Diagonal), we can recall some of the positions for which the group that Sacher has been sued for eleven million dollars.
DIAGONAL: What are the main accusations against Canadian mining companies?
- WILLIAM SACHER: They are accused of destroying ecosystems, poisoning populations, corruption, tax evasion, brutal and even deadly expropriations of villages in the mines, of artisanal miners. They are accused of intimidation or complicity in intimidation and murder of those who oppose mining activity. According to our research, at the beginning of the war in the Congo, several Canadian mining companies financed the initial armed groups.
Q: Why is Canada considered a legal haven for mining companies?
- WS: The Toronto Stock Exchange is the nerve centre of Canadian mining and of the 60% on a global scale. Canada is a kind of privileged platform for developing mining projects around the world. To begin with, the rules allow speculation, and companies hardly pay any taxes. In addition, the Canadian government allows mining companies to connect with tax havens, which facilitates tax evasion of profits.
Q: What is the environmental situation in Canada in relation to the mining model?
- WS: The consequences of intensive mining throughout the 20th century are catastrophic in terms of pollution. There are currently ten thousand abandoned mines that permanently threaten the ecosystem. Not a single one has been closed in an 'acceptable' manner according to environmental criteria. In addition, Canada remains one of the largest producers of uranium. Added to this is the dispossession to which indigenous peoples have been subjected. There are still more than 600 indigenous peoples, living in the most remote regions where the remaining deposits are potentially located.
Governments in the South are preaching that Canadian mining practices the highest standards and that they will be able to develop sustainable mining. But that is not possible. If this is the mining that is practiced with the highest standards, what will happen in the countries of the South where there is sometimes very little institutional control?
There is a lot of misinformation because in Canada there are three or four large media groups that control the country's press and are completely linked to mining companies.
Q: What hotbeds of resistance to mega-mining are most active at present?
- WS: Despite the different context, there are many similarities in the obstacles faced by anti-mining resistance in Canada and in Latin America, in the sense of the criminalization of protest, with accusations of terrorism, for example.
Currently, there is no Latin American country with large-scale mining projects that does not have social conflicts between mining companies and the government versus communities: Mexico, several Central American countries (Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, Costa Rica, Panama), Ecuador, Peru, Colombia, Brazil, Argentina and Chile. According to the Observatory of Mining Conflicts in Latin America (OCMAL), there are currently 120 active conflicts involving more than 150 affected communities throughout the region. This context of conflict contributes to the criminalization of socio-environmental struggles and the violation of rights, since there is a repetitive lack of consultation processes with communities, they are evicted from lands claimed by companies and the latter contaminate the communities' resources such as water and land, on which they depend for their lives.
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