Brief

Submission to CEAA Regarding the Five-Year Review of the Canadian Environmental Assessment Act

This paper make a series of recommendations regarding improvements to the Canadian Environmental Assessment Act (CEAA) and its implementation, based on MiningWatch Canada's analysis. The recommendations are aimed at strengthening the application of environmental assessment (EA) in Canada, increasing public accountability, and improving the consistency of EA practice. Reference is made to the Discussion Paper distributed by the Canadian Environmental Assessment Agency ("the Agency"), though in some cases our proposals go beyond the options laid out in that document.

Guest Publication

Undermining the Forests. The need to control transnational mining companies: a Canadian case study

This study by Forest Peoples Programme, Philippine Indigenous Peoples Links and the World Rainforest Movement, published in January 2000, is the second report in a series which focuses on the social, environmental, economic and political impacts of transnational corporations (TNCs) on forests and forest peoples. Even if often ignored in forestry debates, industrial mining is the second biggest threat (after commercial logging) to the world’s remaining primary forests. Canadian companies have greatly expanded overseas in the past decades, driven by the potential of the unexploited subsoil and the liberalization policy in the exploitation of natural resources applied in many southern countries, where foreign investments are generally perceived as positive, regardless of their social and environmental impacts.

Guest Publication

Towards a Spiral of Violence? The Dangers of Privatisation of Risk Management of Investments in Africa: Mining Activities and the Use of Private Security Companies

English translation of a presentation to the Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade by Entraide Missionaire (endorsed by MiningWatch Canada) "Towards a Spiral of Violence? The Dangers of Privatisation of Risk Management of Investments in Africa: Mining Activities and the Use of Private Security Companies", with Appendix A "Principales Zones de Gisements" (map of mineral resources in southern Africa, from Le Monde Diplomatique) and Appendix B "Mining investment in areas of conflict: the case of the Democratic Republic of Congo".

Guest Publication

Reckless Lending: How Canada's Export Development Corporation Puts People and the Environment at Risk

A report published by the NGO Working Group on the EDC, part of the Halifax Initiative Coalition. Includes case studies on Placer Dome's Marcopper Mine in the Philippines and the Ok Tedi Copper Mine in Papua New Guinea, partly owned by Inmet.

Publication

Abandoned Mines in Canada

A study done by W. O. Mackasey of Sudbury, Ontario. WOM Geological Associates Inc. was retained by MiningWatch Canada to undertake a survey of abandoned mine inventories in Canada. Questionnaires were sent to provincial and federal agencies, requesting information on inventories, number of abandoned mines, testing and remediation completed, and current management policy.