(Ottawa) - Leading environmental organizations, Indigenous nations and prominent people in Canada are calling on Prime Minister Trudeau and the federal government to restore protection for 99% of all lakes and rivers in Canada. Five years ago today, the former government removed protections from all but 97 lakes, 62 rivers and three oceans under the Navigable Waters Protection Act, now named the Navigation Protection Act (NPA).

The committee hasn’t heard from people most directly affected by Canadian mining operations in the region.

The federal Liberals came into office promising to take action on human rights abuses associated with one of Canada’s largest and most controversial areas of foreign investment abroad: mining. But a rare study on the issue in the House of Commons Subcommittee on International Human Rights seems designed to justify the do-nothing status quo, since the process precludes any critical examination of Canada’s current policy.

Days after Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s state visit to Mexico, nine leading Mexican human rights experts are in Ottawa to seek strengthened Canadian support for their efforts to address an acute and worsening human rights crisis in Mexico.

While Canada has been vocal in its support for the victims of two severe earthquakes that hit Mexico in September, the visiting Mexican human rights experts want Canada to respond with even greater attention to the hundreds of thousands of victims of an acute human rights emergency that worsens with each day.

On October 11^th, representatives from the departments of Santa Rosa, Jalapa and Jutiapa who have been participating the protest camp against Tahoe Resources’ Escobal silver mine since June held a press conference to denounce attempts to discredit and criminalize their movement, specifically recent damage to a helicopter.

From October 16 to 18, a delegation of nine Mexican human rights experts will be in Ottawa to shine a light on the acute human rights crisis in Mexico. The visit is taking place just days after Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s state visit to Mexico.

On the eve of Prime Minister Trudeau’s first official visit to Mexico, the Mexican Network of Mining Affected People (REMA by its initials in Spanish) has issued a communiqué to call on Prime Minister Trudeau to live up to his commitments and stop the devastation of Indigenous and campesino communities that has enabled Canadian mining companies to make big profits. Canadian investment in Mexico - the principal destination abroad for Canadian mining investment after the U.S.

(Xalapa, Veracruz, México) Activists, academics, members of civil society organizations, and representatives from rural communities insist on the total and immediate cancelation of all open-pit mining projects in the municipalities of Alto Lucero and Actopan, on the central coast of Veracruz in eastern Mexico.

By Judith Lavoie

Originally published at: http://www.miningweekly.com/article/guatemala-court-clarifies-consultation-area-denies-action-on-export-permit-2017-09-27

On the heels of two months of lobbying in Washington D.C. and Ottawa seeking government intervention on its behalf, Tahoe Resources announced on September 10th that the Guatemalan Supreme Court of Justice had reinstated the operating licence for its Escobal project in southeastern Guatemala. Questions remain over this court decision, which is now under appeal, and a final ruling from the Constitutional Court could be months away. However, regardless of the court’s verdict, the Escobal project clearly lacks a social licence to operate.