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(Ottawa/Washington) Throughout 2020, Indigenous Ifugao maintained their blockade of OceanaGold’s copper-gold project in Didipio, Nueva Vizcaya, Philippines, in spite of repeated violent attempts by the company to run the blockade.

In response to Ontario’s mad dash to develop the controversial Ring of Fire (ROF) mineral cache in Ontario’s Far North, First Nation communities across Ontario’s Far North have reminded the province of constitutionally protected Indigenous and treaty rights and the Crown’s duty to consult. While 2020 may have begun with a record-setting start for the global mining sector, the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic stalled the demand for raw materials. Subsequently, there has also been a shift in industry and investor priorities and a readjustment of government policy on mining. In this article, we question Ontario’s response to mining developments in light of the COVID-19 pandemic, which has included new policies favouring extractive industry interests over at-risk communities. What we find is a continued failure by the province to respect calls by legal experts, First Nation communities and Indigenous and environmental organizations to halt permitting and development planning within the Ring of Fire in light of the surmounting difficulties in participation and the exacerbated, pre-existing crises precipitated by the COVID-19 pandemic.

The company’s star expansion project will potentially provoke serious impacts for the environment, Indigenous peoples and the workforce.

Report Highlights

• The Quebrada Blanca Phase II (QBP2) Expansion Project will require more than 4.7 billion dollars in capital investment and is financed by Japanese and Canadian  banks and finance corporations.

(Manawan, Quebec) While the Chairman and CEO of Nouveau Monde Graphite (NMG), Mr. Eric Desaulniers, is speaking at the international online Benchmark Minerals Week 2020 event today, the Atikamekw Council of Manawan reaffirms that its community members have still not given their free, prior, and informed consent to the proposed Matawinie open pit graphite mine located in Quebec, Canada.  

We, the undersigned organizations, write to you with great concern about the current threat, provoked by the mining lobby of some Canadian mining companies, of the possible zoning of the historic Law XVII-Nº 68 through Bill N 128/2020. If approved, this bill would allow for a a "mining zone" on the plateau of the province. We believe that this is an attack against the overwhelming will of the people of Chubut to protect their water sources. We also want to echo the position of the indigenous communities in resistance in the Meseta, who are directly affected by the mining projects and this bill.

Information received by MiningWatch Canada indicates that Barrick Gold (Barrick) continues to play hardball with the government of Papua New Guinea, while ignoring responsibility for a long history of un-remedied human rights abuses at its former Porgera Joint Venture mine in the highlands of Papua New Guinea (PNG).

In November, 2020, organizations from Southern Ecuador requested that Canadian company INV Metals give them access to the Environmental Impact Assessment for its Loma Larga project, as well as other technical studies. The company has failed to respond, denying these organizations basic access to critical environmental and social information, despite saying time and again that the project will not negatively affect the highly sensitive Kimsakocha páramo ecosystem.

[take action to support these organizations by sending your own letter] 

Dec. 4, 2020

Ms. Candace MacGibbon,
President,
INV Metals
Toronto, Canada

Re: Respond to Ecuadorian organizations’ request for access to critical technical information: make Loma Larga´s EIA public

Ms. MacGibbon,

On November 24th, 2020, the Provincial Legislature of Chubut, Argentina initiated debate on two important laws for the future of mining in the province. In an online session, both the Popular Initiative to protect the region’s water supplies from mining and the pro-mining “Zoning” bill were sent to commission on the same day, to be analyzed and brought back, with recommendations, to the legislature.