Mining Conflict and Opposition – Page 55

NDP to introduce federal bill on conflict minerals – by Iain Marlow (Globe and Mail – March 25, 2013)

March 26, 2013

The Globe and Mail is Canada’s national newspaper with the second largest broadsheet circulation in the country. It has enormous influence on Canada’s political and business elite.

The NDP is about to reintroduce legislation designed to ensure Canadian companies are not using conflict minerals in their supply chain – and that consumers can be certain their smartphones and other electronics are free of minerals fuelling violence in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

On Tuesday, NDP foreign affairs critic Paul Dewar will again table legislation that aims to have corporations and subsidiaries operating in Canada report annually to the government about their supply chains. This would inject transparency and due diligence into an industry where complicated global supply chains (that stretch into lawless conflict zones) and myriad smelters (often operating with little regulatory oversight) have allowed some multinationals to claim ignorance of ties to one of the world’s worst conflicts, in which an estimated five million have lost their lives.

If Mr. Dewar succeeds in gaining momentum for the bill – after having a previous conflict minerals bill die on the order paper ahead of the 2011 federal election – the use of minerals such as “gold, cassiterite, wolframite and coltan and their derivatives, such as tin, tungsten and tantalum” from countries in the Great Lakes region of Africa could earn corporations the type of consumer scorn previously heaped on purveyors of “blood diamonds” and users of sweatshops.

Environmental approvals for Ring of Fire mine running into difficulty – by Heather Scoffield (The Canadian Press/Winnipeg Free Press – March 25, 2013)

March 25, 2013

http://www.winnipegfreepress.com/

OTTAWA – Just as the federal government strives to speed up environmental reviews of major mining and energy projects, approvals for the giant Ring of Fire proposal in northern Ontario are getting increasingly tangled.

On Monday, a key environmental group asked for provincial government mediation on how Cliffs Natural Resources plans to develop a giant chromite deposit in the fragile muskeg of the James Bay lowlands.

The Canadian Parks and Wilderness Society says Cleveland-based Cliffs is dramatically changing its plans for a mine without properly consulting with the public.

“Several major alterations have been incorporated at the last minute and without the benefit of public scrutiny,” the Wildlands League chapter of CPAWS says in a letter to Ontario Environment Minister Jim Bradley.

The letter says Cliffs is backing away from a long-term plan to do a combination of open-pit mining and underground mining, opting to stick with only open pit.

It also notes Cliffs is considering only a single route — a north-south road that would be heavily subsidized — to transport chromite ore out of the area, instead of considering other ways such, as an east-west corridor that could link First Nations to much-needed infrastructure.

Canadian ‘invasion’ of Guatemala’s mines causing conflicts – by Catherine Solyom (Montreal Gazette – March 22, 2013)

March 25, 2013

http://www.montrealgazette.com/index.html

MONTREAL — With her broad, patient smile, her work-worn hands folded over a traditional, woven skirt, Lolita Chavez is hardly a menacing figure. Yet in Guatemala, Chavez has been branded a threat to national security and a terrorist for speaking out against the development of Canadian-owned mines against the people’s will.

In Montreal Friday as part of a cross-country tour to draw attention to ongoing conflicts around mines — called “Plan Nord, Plans Sud” in Quebec — Chavez spoke to a crowded auditorium at UQÀM about her experience and Canadians’ responsibility in the “new invasion” of her country.

First came the Spanish conquest, then the civil war in Guatemala that claimed some 200,000 lives, now come the Canadians, Chavez told the crowd of students, academics and activists.

“Canadian companies are the main protagonists in this invasion that brings only death and destruction,” said Chavez, the spokesperson for 87 indigenous K’iche’ (Mayan) communities in Santa Cruz del Quiché, about 145 kilometres north west of Guatemala City. “And when we say we don’t want it, they say we are ignorant, or brutes, or we don’t understand the benefits. But we have a right to say no.”

Finding the Truth: Facts Behind Cyanide Beach Film – by Levi Rowe (March 22, 2013)

April 5, 2015March 22, 2013

Levi Rowe is a Santa Barbara college student majoring in Entrepreneurship with a minor in Philosophy. levil.rowe@gmail.com

The recent film produced by John Dougherty, called Cyanide Beach, attempts to link Augusta Resource – and thereby Rosemont Copper – to a closed mine – the Furtei mine, in Sardinia, Italy. The producer aims to incite public fear and raise alarm over the proposed Rosemont Copper mine outside of Tucson, Arizona, with the goal of delaying and ultimately stopping the project.

The trouble with Cyanide Beach is that, like many “investigative” pieces, Mr. Dougherty started with a conclusion and worked backwards. When one starts research with a clear goal, or hypothesis, one must be extremely careful to adjust the hypothesis as their research disproves the original hypothesis. The investigator, or researcher, must resist the urge to become personally invested in their hypothesis lest they begin to distort facts and findings to fit the intended (hoped) result.

When these flawed, distorted findings are shared with the public as a means to inform, what we end up with is a grossly misinformed public. And that’s the case with Cyanide Beach.

Tempers flare at hearing on Central Arizona copper mine – by Michelle Peirano (Arizona Daily Star – March 22, 2013)

March 22, 2013

http://azstarnet.com/

RESOLUTION COPPER SEEKING LAND SWAP FOR C. ARIZ. PROJECT

WASHINGTON – Cronkite News Service – A four-hour congressional hearing grew testy Thursday as House members considered a bill to swap thousands of acres of private and federal land to make way for a massive copper mine in Central Arizona.

The bill to trade land near Superior with Resolution Copper Mining passed the House last year but stalled in the Senate, and is back now for its eighth year.

Supporters said the deal, which would give Resolution access to a copper-rich piece of government land, would bring thousands of jobs and more than $6 billion in new taxes to the state over 40 years of operation. “The economic benefits are staggering,” said Republican Rep. Paul Gosar, who co-sponsored the bill with Democrat Ann Kirkpatrick, both of Arizona.

The company says the mine would be the largest copper producer in the country and would account for 25 percent of the world’s copper, turning out 1 billion pounds or more a year.

Ontario MPP attacks Mining Act reforms, warns of red-tape delays – by HazMat Staff (March 21, 2013)

March 22, 2013

http://www.hazmatmag.com/

Norm Miller, MPP for Parry Sound — Muskoka, is challenging amendments to Ontario’s Mining Act with just two weeks left before they are fully implemented by the province.

Miller is warning provincial officials that the new detailed plans required by the Ministry of Northern Development and Mines will create significant delays for Ontario mining companies, costing them millions of dollars, while drowning the province in red tape.

Historically, Canadian mining companies have been able to drill their mining claims without provincial permission. As of April 1, 2013, companies will need to submit details of almost every stage of their exploration plans and consult with affected First Nations.

“By forcing prospectors to now file detailed plans for activities as simple as flipping stones and driving stakes, the regulatory burden is increasing on this critical first step in the mining process,” said Miller, speaking at Queen’s Park on March 7, 2013. “When these amendments were passed, the current government announced they would modernize the system and promised to bring the Mining Act into the 21st century. Judging by the response so far, it sounds more like a step back.”

The amendments detail how the broader principles in the revised Act will work in practice. In 2009, the present amendments to the Mining Act were passed by the Ontario Legislature through Bill 173 – An Act to Amend the Mining Act.

Arsenic release fears: federal government seeks emergency cleanup of toxic [Yellowknife] mine – by Bob Weber (Canadian Press/The Tyee – March 17, 2013)

March 22, 2013

http://thetyee.ca/

YELLOWKNIFE – Federal officials are scrambling to clean up a crumbling, abandoned northern gold mine that is in imminent danger of releasing massive amounts of arsenic, asbestos and other toxins.

“It’s pretty scary stuff,” said Mark Palmer, senior adviser on Aboriginal Affairs and Northern Development’s Giant Mine Project, which describes a proposed cleanup of collapsing, poison-filled buildings and caverns on the shore of Great Slave Lake as an emergency response.

“We are worried they are going to fall down and if that happens there will be a release.” The Giant Mine just outside Yellowknife was an economic mainstay for 50 years. But its gold was locked within crystals of arsenopyrite, and after the mine finally closed in 2004, about 237,000 tonnes of highly toxic, water-soluble arsenic trioxide remained on the site.

Most of the arsenic was blown back underground, where huge dustpiles of it sit in 15 subterranean chambers, some big enough to swallow an 11-storey building. About 3,600 cubic metres of arsenic and arsenic-contaminated material remain in surface structures — uncontained and, in many cases, exposed to the elements.

HudBay granted injunction, judge tells RCMP to enforce it – by Bruce Owen (Winnipeg Free Press – March 21, 2013)

March 21, 2013

http://www.winnipegfreepress.com/

One of the top mining companies in Manitoba won a court injunction Wednesday to stop aboriginal protesters from blocking access to two of its remote mines.

But Justice Glenn Joyal’s court order could end up having no more clout than similar injunctions issued by courts in Manitoba and other provinces to restrict Idle No More protestors, who’ve called for a national day of action today to mark International Day for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination.

In approving the temporary injunction on behalf of Hudson Bay Mining & Smelting, Joyal said he expects protesters from Mathias Colomb Cree Nation (MCCN) to follow it and perhaps more importantly, RCMP to enforce it.

“The intention has to be to enforce the order,” Joyal said to lawyers representing the Mounties. “I’m confident the injunction will be respected and that the parties will in good faith carry on about their business.” An RCMP spokesman said late in the day the Mounties were reviewing the injunction.

A judge criticized the RCMP in January for not enforcing an injunction on behalf of Canadian National to remove protesters from a rail line west of Portage la Prairie.

Klondike in Lapland: Mining Companies Swarm to Finland’s Far North – by Renate Nimtz-Köster (Spiegel Online – November 2, 2012)

March 21, 2013

http://www.spiegel.de/international/

Mining companies are flocking to northern Finland as new deposits of gold, nickel and other minerals promise vast profits. But the area’s fragile wetland ecosystem is paying the price. Conservationists are so far fighting a losing battle.

Riikka Karppinen used to catch pike as long as her arm here. She and her brother would spend days exploring the marshy wilderness. It was eight years ago, when Riikka was just 10 years old, that she saw the first red sticks stuck into the ground. To begin with, there were only a few but before long there were hundreds. “No one cared much back then,” Riikka Karppinen recalls.

In the mean time, though, the red markers have given way to the machines. “You can hear the noise of the drills day and night,” says Karppinen. Anglo American (AA), one of the world’s biggest mining companies, went treasure hunting in Finnish Lapland, 120 kilometers north of the Polar Circle. And deep below the marshlands of Viiankiaapa are nickel deposits that AA has hailed as the find of the century.

Karppinen’s childhood paradise has now become a symbol of the rush for precious metals and minerals that has overcome the entire country. Foreign mining companies are flocking to Finland to mine its treasures. Here, in some of the oldest rock formations in Europe, lie reserves of valuable raw materials, with geologists describing the ore deposits as among the richest in the world.

Quebec Innu file $900-million lawsuit against Iron Ore Co. of Canada – The Canadian Press (Globe and Mail – March 21, 2013)

March 21, 2013

The Globe and Mail is Canada’s national newspaper with the second largest broadsheet circulation in the country. It has enormous influence on Canada’s political and business elite.

MONTREAL – Two Quebec Innu communities have filed a $900-million lawsuit against the Iron Ore Co. of Canada, claiming the miner has violated its rights for nearly 60 years.

The Innu First Nations of Uashat Mak Mani-Utenam (Uashaunnuat) and Matimekush-Lac John (MLJ) said the IOC, which is majority-owned by Rio Tinto, caused harm by operating a large mining complex and railway on traditional territory (Nitassinan) in northeastern Quebec and Labrador since the 1950s without their prior consent.

The mining complex and activities are located in the communities of Schefferville, Labrador City and Sept-Îles.

“IOC and now Rio Tinto are the companies that have inflicted the most harm on the Uashaunnuat and MLJ and caused the most damage to our Nitassinan,” vice-chief Mike McKenzie of Uashat Mak Mani-Utenam said in a statement on Wednesday.

The lawsuit and a motion seeking an injunction to stop all mining activity were filed Monday in Quebec Superior Court. They claim that IOC’s mines and other facilities have ruined the environment, displaced members from their territory and prevented them from practising their traditional way of life.

NEWS RELEASE: $900 million lawsuit filed against Rio Tinto’s IOC

March 20, 2013

Innu communities of Uashat Mak Mani-Utenam and Matimekush-Lac John defend their aboriginal rights

MONTREAL, March 20, 2013 /CNW Telbec/ – On March 18 at the Quebec Superior Court in Montreal, the Innu First Nations of Uashat Mak Mani-Utenam (Uashaunnuat) and Matimekush-Lac John (MLJ), whose traditional territory (Nitassinan) covers much of northeastern Quebec and Labrador, filed a motion to obtain an injunction against Iron Ore Company of Canada’s (IOC) mining operations in Quebec and Labrador as well as damages for the harm caused to them by IOC estimated at $900 million. IOC’s majority shareholder is Rio Tinto.

“While Rio Tinto is anxious to uphold its image as a model corporate citizen, boasting of its commitment to aboriginal peoples around the world, the Uashaunnuat and MLJ can attest that, in their own experience, these are nothing but empty words. IOC has undertaken all of its projects without the consent of the Uashaunnuat and MLJ, in violation of our rights.

IOC and now Rio Tinto are the companies that have inflicted the most harm on the Uashaunnuat and MLJ and caused the most damage to our Nitassinan” said Vice-Chief Mike McKenzie of Uashat Mak Mani-Utenam.

Since the 1950s, IOC has built and operated a mining mega-project within the Nitassinan in and around what are now Schefferville, Labrador City and Sept-Îles without the prior consent of the Uashaunnuat and MLJ. IOC’s mines and other facilities have ruined the environment of the Uashaunnuat and MLJ, have displaced them from their territory and have prevented them from practicing their traditional activities as well as their traditional way of life.

Mining firm [HudBay Mining] seeks to end roadblocks – by Bruce Owen and Geoff Kirbyson (Winnipeg Free Press – March 19, 2013)

March 20, 2013

http://www.winnipegfreepress.com/

Heading to court to obtain injunction

One of the biggest employers in northern Manitoba wants a judge to do what the RCMP won’t — stop a Manitoba First Nation from putting up Idle No More roadblocks at its mining sites.

Lawyers for Hudson Bay Mining and Smelting will be in court Wednesday to get an injunction to stop the Mathias Colomb Cree Nation and Chief Arlen Dumas from engaging in any acts that interfere with the mining company and its employees, court documents filed last week in Court of Queen’s Bench say.

HBM&S also wants an order for RCMP to arrest anyone who contravenes that injunction. “I am concerned that if further blockages occur, the RCMP will require a court order to take steps to enforce compliance with HBM&S’s right to access to and from its projects and mining operations in Manitoba,” HBM&S vice-president Brad Lantz said in an affidavit.

Members of the Mathias Colomb Cree Nation have blocked access to the HBM&S Lalor project near Snow Lake twice this year and have threatened to blockade access to the company’s Reed Lake copper mine, 120 kilometres east of Flin Flon.

Lantz said at the two Lalor project blockades RCMP attended, but took no action to restrain protesters from interfering with access to company property.

B.C. green-lights mine despite Nisga’a Nation’s objections – Canadian Press (Globe and Mail – March 19, 2013)

March 20, 2013

The Globe and Mail is Canada’s national newspaper with the second largest broadsheet circulation in the country. It has enormous influence on Canada’s political and business elite.

VICTORIA — The Canadian Press – The British Columbia government has given the environmental green light to a billion-dollar mine in the province’s northwest over the objections of the Nisga’a Nation, whose traditional territory is home to the mine site.

Provincial environment and mines ministers issued on Tuesday the Environmental Assessment Certificate to Avanti Mining Inc. to revive a mothballed molybdenum mine about 140 kilometres north of Prince Rupert. Government officials agreed the Kitsault Mine could proceed after a review concluded the project isn’t expected to result in any significant adverse effects, based on the company following 34 conditions.

“The environmental assessment process involved a rigorous, thorough review that provided for significant opportunities for the Nisga’a Nation, First Nations, government agencies and the public to provide input,” the government said in a news release. Provincial ministers Terry Lake and Rich Coleman received the referral report on March 1 and had 45 days to render a decision.

But the Nisga’a Nation has been concerned for some time the process has been rushed because of the upcoming May election. As a result, its government filed a notice of disagreement under its historic treaty.

Industry decries PQ’s mining royalties plan – by Robert Gibbens (Montreal Gazette – March 15, 2013)

March 20, 2013

http://www.montrealgazette.com/index.html

MONTREAL – Miners often say there only two kinds of mines — the ones that you can finance and the ones you dream about.

Natural Resources Minister Martine Ouellet had a difficult task in trying to convince about 500 people at the Quebec government’s forum on mining royalties Friday that the planned changes to mining taxes won’t hit the industry’s competitive power.

Ouellet said the Parti Québécois government wants to increase royalties “particularly where returns are truly exceptional” to ensure there is “always compensation to be paid to extract a resource that belongs to all Quebecers.”

The forum, held at the Hautes Études Commerciales, was the last step in the Marois government’s resource industry consultation process before tabling a new mining law in the National Assembly, possibly next week. Legislation to set a 5 per cent tax on minerals extracted from the ground plus a 30-per-cent royalty on profits will follow. These moves come after the Liberal government already raised the tax on profits to 16 per cent from 12 per cent in 2010.

Industry speaker after speaker told the forum the immediate effect of the tax increases would be to hamper project financing and hit new exploration even further, reduce the lifespan of existing mines and jobs, and spell lower income for the province.

HudBay sues First Nation over Idle No More blockade – by CBC News (March 18, 2013)

March 20, 2013

http://www.cbc.ca/news/business/

A Manitoba First Nation is being sued by Hudson Bay Mining and Smelting for a series of Idle No More protests and blockades.

The company claims protestors from Mathias Colomb Cree Nation (MCCN) caused a safety risk to employees when they blocked the entrance to where the company’s gold, zinc and copper mine is being developed near Snow Lake in January and March.

Protestors claim it was the company that closed the gate. They also disagree it was a blockade. “Actually we didn’t organize blockades. We organized demonstrations where you go and exercise some of our treaty rights on our ancestral lands,” said MCCN Chief Arlen Dumas.

Dumas said HudBay and the Manitoba government should have obtained consent from area aboriginals before going ahead with development. The band never surrendered its rights to the land and resources, he said. Work is well underway on development of the 916-hectare property.

A court hearing on the lawsuit is scheduled for Wednesday. Hudson Bay Mining and Smelting also wants an injuction against any further protests.