MiningWatch Canada adds our name as a signatory to a statement signed by over 220 organizations, urging the Colombian government to withdraw from treaties that enable transnational corporations to sue the country in tribunals designed to favour corporate interests. Read the full declaration here.

In the lead-up to the world’s biggest mining convention, Ontario premier Doug Ford and Mines Minister George Pirie announced a package of amendments to the province’s Mining Act intended to “reduce administrative burden” of developing new mines and “demonstrate responsiveness to feedback received from industry.” Yet Ontario’s regulatory burden on mining is already minimal, and provides poor protection for Indigenous peoples’ rights, the environment, or taxpayers saddled with inadequately insured clean-up costs. If anything, certainty for investors would be better served by building constructive relationships with Indigenous peoples, a strong baseline of science and planning, and a more reliable and robust regulatory environment.

MiningWatch Canada advocate wonders ‘what’s left to cut?’

Warren Schlote · CBC News · Posted: Mar 03, 2023 8:00 AM EST 

Wendy Stueck, The Globe and Mail

A landmark marine treaty is good news for the world’s oceans, but many details remain to be ironed out, including how potential wealth derived from ocean sources can be more equitably shared and how protected areas can be monitored to ensure they are more than mere lines on a map, ocean researchers and advocacy groups say.

On January 18, 2023, as thousands of Peruvians were taking to the streets in Lima to denounce the spiralling political crisis in the country, Canadian Ambassador Louis Marcotte was meeting with the Peruvian Minister of Energy and Mines. Protests have been ongoing since December when populist President Pedro Castillo was deposed from office by congressional vote, a move which was almost immediately condemned by Castillo’s base. Demonstrators have been met with widespread arrests and brutal violence. According to Yves Engler, since former Vice President Dina Boluarte assumed power (a move which the Canadian government endorsed) the Canadian mission has met with numerous top-level Peruvian officials in unprecedented fashion.

Rights groups warn changes risk hurting environment, Indigenous communities

Naimul Karim, Financial Post

Ontario’s minister of mines defended legislative proposals that would shorten the time required to build a mine in the province, dismissing charges from some rights groups that Premier Doug Ford risks hurting the environment and Indigenous communities.

(Toronto) Using long pieces of blue fabric, activists disrupted the world’s largest mining convention in Toronto yesterday to call attention to the industry’s record of harming important watersheds and to denounce efforts to further expand mining into ecologically sensitive areas. 

Dan Bertrand, CTV News

Ontario’s minister of mines wants to mine the region’s critical minerals more quickly by making it easier to approve new projects.

“We need the critical minerals out of the ground in northern Ontario,” said Provincial Mines Minister George Pirie.

At least half of the 27,000 claims in 2022 were seeking the metal used in batteries

Catherine Morasse, CBC News

For as long as she has lived in New Ross, Nova Scotia, Ruth Veinotte has seen different prospectors come and go.

Amid talk of a green technology mining boom, Manitoba Premier Heather Stefanson reports ‘record’ mining investment in the province

Julia-Simone Rutgers, The Narwhal

Over the past four years, the Manitoba government has been seeking a resurgence in its century-old mining industry. 

While progress has been slow — owing in part to financial downturns in the pandemic — there are signs mining in Manitoba is on the cusp of something of a boom.