First-ever Annual General Meeting set for Toronto, March 3-5, 2000

Jamie Kneen

National Program Co-Lead

The first annual general meeting for MiningWatch Canada will be held in Toronto on Saturday, March 4 at 9am, at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education on Bloor Street. The business portion of the meeting takes place from 9 am to 10 am. Two exciting workshops will follow:

Workshop 1: Getting the law obeyed: A panel on monitoring and enforcement in Canada

We will examine current problems with monitoring and enforcement of environmental mining standards in Canada, and explore a range of strategies and legal tools to improve monitoring and enforcement of environmental mining standards.

  • Colin Chambers (CIELAP) — Overview of environmental mining policy and law in Canada: key issues and concerns for protecting public interest
  • Ramani Nadarajah (CELA) — Compliance and regulation in Ontario: the impacts of the Harris approach to 'streamlining' regulations
  • Brennain Lloyd (NorthWatch) — Compliance problems: community impacts and priorities for monitoring and enforcement
  • Alan Young (EMCBC) — Streamlining and deregulation — public interest and public service implications and opportunities
  • Doug Chapman (SLDF/EBR) — Private prosecution strategies and the Environmental Bureau of Investigation model

Workshop 2: Using investor strategies to change corporate practices

Canadian stock-markets are recognized as providing a favourable environment for raising capital to finance mining. The workshop is in three parts.

The first part, with panelists Moira Hutchinson and Eugene Ellman, is designed to help us better understand the exact mechanisms and features of these markets that make them beneficial for raising money for Canadian based mining companies, and to identify aspects of the current investment arena that may be fruitfully targeted for reform.

The second part will look at the role shareholders may be able to play in particular campaigns. Peter Chapman will analyse some of the strengths and weaknesses of shareholder activism in the Talisman campaign.

The third part of the workshop will be an examination, based on these perspectives, of the strategic effectiveness of investor-focused actions.