The Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade, Natural Resources Canada, and the World Bank sponsored a multistakeholder delegation from the Philippines to visit three Canadian mines at the end of October.

The mines were the Sullivan Mine (Teck-Cominco) in British Columbia, the closed Island Copper Mine in British Columbia, and the Ekati diamond mine (BHP-Billiton) in the Northwest Territories.

The tour was one of three sponsored by the World Bank to showcase mining practices in other countries. Other Philippine delegations visited Australia, and Peru, co-sponsored by Australian AID and USAID, respectively. These tours were part of a year-long series of meetings and exchanges organized by the Philippine Department of Environment and Natural Resources in order to create and promote a new National Minerals Policy (NMP).

The stated aim of the NMP is to "revitalize" the minerals industry so that it "shall remain as one of the country's major development options to free itself from economic deprivation and to attain a better quality of life for the Filipino people." In Ottawa, the delegation briefly met with Catherine Coumans of MiningWatch Canada, Clive Tesar of the Canadian Arctic Resources Committee, and Patrick Finlay of Environment Canada.

Catherine's presentation to the delegation "Mining in Canada: The Bigger Picture" is available here.