cover image: Canada’s Mining Dominance and Failure to Protect Environmental and Human Rights Abroad:

Canada’s Mining Dominance and Failure to Protect Environmental and Human Rights Abroad:

16 Feb 2023

The largest portion of the overseas value is situated in the regions of Latin America and the Caribbean which hold 45.4% of Canadian mining assets abroad with a value of $85.4 billion in 2020.3 Harm caused and contributed to by Canadian mining abroad Harm caused or contributed to by Canadian mining companies, their subsidiaries and contractors overseas is widespread globally and persistent. [...] The following provides brief details of just a small sample of cases of alleged human rights and environmental abuses that Canadian companies have been implicated in abroad: Killings and injuries caused by mine security and police guarding mines • Tanzania - Barrick Gold is currently7 facing the third law suit filed since 2013 on behalf of victims and the families of deceased victims, most of whom. [...] Two years later, the company has done little to acknowledge, let alone address, the harm done.41 33 The impact of Canadian Mining in Latin America and Canada’s Responsibility: Executive Summary of the Report submitted to the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights. [...] In 2012, the Interamerican Academy of Sciences’ "Diagnosis of Water in the Americas'' connected Barrick's operations with the contamination of the Hatillo dam, a source of drinking water in the region.47 There have been multiple reports of livestock deaths after drinking water from rivers below the tailings dam.48 The communities near the dam now have to boil their water and drink bottled water. [...] In 2022, 56 women from villages in the mine lease site won a court case in which they argued that the company’s Environmental Permit had been provided wrongly.54 Although the permit was revoked, the company continued to bring heavy equipment to the site causing a local confrontation and putting local people at risk.55 MiningWatch Canada wrote to the company56 and copied the Canadian Embassy in Jak.

Authors

Catherine Coumans

Related Organizations

Pages
10
Published in
Canada

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