But abuses are not restricted to the mining industry. The Canadian International Development Agency supported massive dam projects in West Africa to the benefit of Canadian firms, even though these projects produce large-scale environmental damage without significantly improving the quality of life of people living in the region.8 Canac, a transportation firm, privatized strategic railway lines in West Africa with the support of Canadian public funds, then closed most train stations to the public.9 A pharmaceutical company, Millenia Hope, sold drugs in Africa that did not meet the standards of Health Canada or the World Health Organization.10
The worst example is surely the presence of Canadian mining firms in the Great Lakes region of Africa in the 1990s, surrounded by belligerents looking for arms and shady business deals. Fought on many fronts, their wars led to millions of deaths, mostly from disease and starvation.11 Canadian corporations often obtained concessions in the region by negotiating with politicians or warlords who were either preparing for or already engaged in conflict.12 The United Nations considers it likely that most of the clashes took place for the control of mining deposits.13
Mining corporations such as Barrick Gold do not hesitate to use the services of major political and business figures to support their interests at home and abroad. In the 1990s, the firm set up an international advisory board, made up of influential people such as former U.S. president George H. W. Bush, former Canadian prime minister Brian Mulroney, and Canadian businessmen Paul Desmarais Sr. and Peter Munk, to lobby for its interests around the globe.14 Barrick Gold executives found the advisory board’s work highly satisfactory, as shown by the praise lavished on it by CEO Randall Oliphant in a speech to shareholders.15 That may be because Brian Mulroney has admitted he spent “a fair amount of time in Latin America and China and Africa working with senior management and governments around the world” to represent the corporation’s interests.16 Other former Canadian prime ministers have tackled similar jobs: Joe Clark represented the interests of First Quantum Mining in Africa,17 while Jean Chrétien represented mining and oil companies in relations with controversial political regimes in Nigeria and the Congo.
A number of international sources raise further troubling questions about the consequences of the presence of Canadian mining companies abroad and the ways in which their presence may have intensified conflicts. In Congo-Kinshasa, for example, a country ravaged by years of warfare, a project known as the Moanda Leasehold involves a ninety-nine-year lease that will formally deprive the Congolese of political and economic sovereignty over resources in the western part of their country.18 Unless the project is halted, a consortium of investors will gain political authority over the area, where three massive industrial developments are planned. According to the advocates of this neo-colonial project, Canada will participate in the project along with European Union countries, the United States, the World Bank, and the International Monetary Fund (IMF).19
Africa is not the only continent having to cope with Canadian neo-colonialism. In Eastern Europe, the pollution caused by mining projects continues to worry local populations. In Latin America, where Canadian mining assets are concentrated,20 accusations of abuse are as numerous as those on the African continent, and citizens protesting against them are severely repressed by local police forces. One example among far too many, related by the Toronto Star, concerns a junior mining firm (Copper Mesa) accused of hiring paramilitaries in 2006 to repress demonstrators opposed to mines in Ecuador that “threaten rainforests and their way of life.”21 In the Montreal Gazette, Janet Bagnall reported the assassination in December 2009 of two Salvadorians opposed to Pacific Rim Mining Corp.’s El Dorado project.22 In El Salvador, the Episcopal Conference in May 2007 denounced the environmental destruction and public-health problems caused by the use of cyanide by gold-mining corporations, many of them Canadian.23 In Guatemala, Canadian gold giant Goldcorp faces a complaint filed with the Canadian Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade by communities living near the Marlin gold mine. Their complaint cites depletion of fresh drinking water and pollution, in violation of guidelines set out by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development.24 In Honduras, the same company’s activities are alleged to have led to a massive degradation of the Siria River valley: two studies carried out by academics from Newcastle University describe heavy-metal pollution and acidic-mine drainage, said to be responsible for poisoning people and cattle.25 In Mexico, Mariano Abarca Roblero, an opponent of an exploration project carried out in Chiapas by a Canadian mining corporation, Blackfire, was killed in November 2009; the suspects are alleged to be actual or former Blackfire employees.26 Moreover, there are persistent allegations of corruption of local authorities by Blackfire in order to silence the project’s many opponents.27 In Bolivar province, Colombia, small-scale artisanal miners have accused Canadian junior companies of hiring paramilitary forces during the 1990s in order to expropriate the territories where they were mining gold. During this period of nation-wide political violence, more than eight thousand people were displaced after the intervention of “death squads” in the region.28
In our previous book, Noir Canada: Pillage, corruption, et criminalité en Afrique,29 we set out to achieve two goals: first, to bridge the public information gap in this country about the practices attributed to Canadian mining companies under our jurisdiction in many countries; and second, to suggest ways of ending the practices that need to be stopped. We called on Canadian authorities to institute an independent commission of inquiry into the practices of the extractive industries based in Canada. Four years later, it is becoming more and more urgent that we shed light on the many cases of abuse and crime allegedly committed by these companies and reported at an international level. The discrepancy between accusations and defence in these cases could hardly be larger. On the one hand, we have a substantial number of alleged misdeeds and dubious, if not criminal, practices attributed to Canadian mining companies by a host of different and reliable sources. On the other, we have the offended denials of the accused firms; denials that they regularly back up with legal actions for libel. An independent commission of inquiry could recommend criminal charges against these corporations if and where appropriate, offer public apologies to the peoples wronged by them, and make strong recommendations as to how to stop such practices and undertake the necessary reparation programs in cooperation with local populations. Because every Canadian government to date has supported the mining industry, this commission cannot take the form of a parliamentary commission consisting only of members of Parliament. This is the reason that, as the authors of Noir Canada, we called for an independent commission, at arm’s length from governments, which would gather input from parties representing all the interests involved.
While government agencies, private foundations, corporations listed on Canadian stock exchanges, and media groups owned by the country’s most powerful financial