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CEN Cross-Caucus Workshop
Merrickville
February 17-19, 2004
Speaking Notes for Joan Kuyek
MiningWatch Canada is a coalition of seventeen different environmental,
social justice, labour, Aboriginal and development organizations
that grew out of the Mining Caucus of the CEN, and the work of
other organizations who were members of CCIC. We were formed five
years ago precisely because of the urgent need for a co-ordinated
public interest to the powerful mining lobby, a lobby which undermines
the regulation of mining in Canada and by Canadian companies operating
internationally.
We support communities affected by mining through research,
technical assistance, capacity building, meetings and exchanges,
and campaigning. We carry out larger academically-credible research
projects on issues that our members and the communities bring
to us: abandoned mines and mine closure, the full costs of mining
to the public purse, health impacts of mining on communities,
issues of mining in remote areas, or in the boreal, submarine
tailings disposal. We advocate for changes to law and policy that
enable irresponsible mining in Canada and by Canadian companies
operating internationally. We do this in coalitions and with allies
and through participation in government-lead multi-stakeholder
consultations.
MiningWatch is an active participant in the EA Caucus, and the
Mining Caucus. Working cross-caucus is essential to us, but it
creates problems in terms of time and resources. We learn a great
deal from the network.
In the five years that our small staff has been working with
our members and other groups in Canada to represent the interests
of the environment and local communities as opposed to the profits
for mining companies, we have learned a great deal about affecting
public policy dealing with mining.
There are some key learnings from this work that I would like
to share with you:
The first learning is that mining enjoys power in this
country - and others - well in excess of its actual economic contribution.
There are myths about the contribution of mining to the public
good which are re-told, enhanced and spun to maintain this power.
These myths are re-told in other countries to justify the destruction
of local economies, the removal of tariff barriers, the granting
of tax holidays, the substitution of safe-use for the precautionary
principle, and the replacement of regulation with voluntary measures
in the interests of creating opportunities for Canadian mining
companies and suppliers.
The myth is that mining is a sustainable form of economic development
and that sophisticated engineering can handle any of its impacts.
In fact, there is a growing body of literature about the negative
effect that mineral extraction has on economies. This view has
now been affirmed in the report of the World Bank Extractive Industries
Review, which tabled its report in January of this year.
In a study undertaken by the Pembina Institute and MiningWatch
Canada in 2002, we discovered that even in Canada, the return
on investment from the mining industry to federal and provincial
governments is shrinking in cash revenues, in contribution to
GDP and in employment, while the environmental and social costs
are rising. At the same time, ore reserves are being depleted.
Investment in mining would be better spent on innovative community
economic development strategies for mining dependent communities
and support to recycling and conservation.
It is extremely difficult to sort out the tax and royalty benefits
of the mining and concentrating industry for a number of reasons.
Many figures are confidential. Mining data is frequently aggregated
with data from downstream industries like smelting, refining and
metals manufacturing - industries which would still exist if the
inputs were re-cycled materials. Mining data is also often aggregated
with tar sands, oil and gas. According to the federal Department
of Finance, the last year for which detailed tax data on mining
was available was 1997.
We have been able to determine that in 1997, mining only contributed
$251 million in direct federal taxes, and $147 million in provincial
income taxes (from all provinces) for a total of $398 million.
(from Statistics Canada cat num 61-219, 1998).
At the same time, the industry promotes data stating that there
are 386,000 people directly employed in mining. In fact, there
are presently less than 25,000 people employed in mining and milling
in Canada: the others work in smelting, refining, and manufacturing
- all work that could still be there if we re-cycled metals instead
of mining them.
Just getting the information we need in order to understand
and affect policy is a challenge! In December the Senate managed
to pass Bill C-48 giving enormous exploration subsidies to oil
and gas and mining before Parliament prorogued. During the debate,
one of the Senators insisted that the mining industry paid “billions”
in taxation and royalties. He was not contradicted.
The second learning is that the language of laws, regulation
and policy in Canada may appear to support the protection of environment
and the human communities that are part of it, but the mining
industry and others are well-aware that “the devil is in
the details”.
This is also true of the negotiation over International law
and Multinational Environmental Agreements in which Canada takes
part. It is hard to excite the public about working for change
when the disputes are about the language in a tiny paragraph or
a sub-sub- agreement. Just monitoring this is almost impossible.
Recent examples from the mining world:
- Under strong attack from mining activists around the world,
the mining industry put enormous effort into the WSSD forum
in Johannesburg. 23 large mining companies set up the $3 million
Mines Minerals and Sustainable Development project and prepared
a 600 page report to show that mining - with some improvements
- could be a “sustainable activity”. The report
was tabled in Toronto a few months before Johannesburg, and
promoted at the WSSD. NRCAN is now proposing “a global
sector-specific initiative be undertaken to promote the contribution
of minerals and metals to sustainable development. This will
lead to policy considerations that better reflect the reality
of the sector.”
- Mining is increasingly taking place on the lands of the world’s
most marginalized people. Most of these are indigenous lands,
and they are fighting back - hard- to limit and/or prevent this
destruction. Leaders in the indigenous community have been battling
for years for the UN Draft Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous
People to be passed. Amongst other rights it enshrines indigenous
title and asks for “prior informed consent” before
development can take place. In September 2003, after nine years
of negotiations, Canada and Australia tabled amendments to the
existing draft legislation that would make land rights dependent
on domestic policies. Armand Mackenzie of the Innu says this
“set us back 20 years”.
- In December 2003, the Canadian delegation to the Intergovernmental
Negotiating Committee for an Internationally Legally Binding
Instrument for the Application of the Prior Informed Consent
Procedure for Certain Hazardous Chemicals and Pesticides in
International Trade (PIC), resisted the inclusion of chrysotile
asbestos in the list of substances. They claimed they had not
had time to study it, and postponed it for a year. In the same
month, NRCAN granted $775,000 over three years to the Asbestos
Institute, the lobby for “safe use of asbestos”
in countries like India, Japan and Brazil. NRCAN is also behind
a federal directive promoting the use of “non-friable”
asbestos in federal construction projects.
The third learning is that everything is inter-connected.
Our work to monitor the mining industry takes us into policy areas
as seemingly diverse as trade, taxation, export credits, environment,
human rights, economic development, and indigenous rights. What
happens in Papua New Guinea or Tanzania affects what happens in
Canada. Lower environmental standards and generous tax regimes
in countries where Canadian companies are mining, are used by
those same companies to undermine the public interest in Canada,
on the basis of our not being “competitive”. Examples:
§ Often communities hope to protect themselves from mining
through designation as a World Heritage Site, a RAMSAR site or
some other protected area. However, these designations are scant
protection without penalties and enforcement, in Peru, in Indonesia,
in Kenya and in Trinidad. It is also scant protection at the Groundhog
River in northern Ontario and Nahanni Park Reserve in the NWT,
without lawsuits, awareness campaigns and lobbying.
§ The largest gold mine in East Africa - the Bulyanhulu
Mine owned by Barrick Gold in Tanzania - received political risk
insurance from EDC of $173 million US in 1999, on the basis of
an environmental impact statement that would never have passed
in Canada, and a social impact statement that was subsequently
repudiated by the company. The mining industry actively opposed
the inclusion of EDC under CEAA during the EDC review.
- When mining’s releases to land were added to the US
Toxic Release Inventory, mines became 51.2% of the total releases.
In Canada, these releases are still not in the NPRI, although
there is movement on this issue. Since the Toxics Caucus has
taken this issue up, MWC has only monitored the discussion.
We are concerned that the limitation on these releases that
fell out from the Barrick gold lawsuit in the US will affect
this discussion.
- Despite the Convention on the Prevention of Marine Pollution
by Dumping of Waste and Other Matter (which is accepted by Canada
but non-binding), and the Law of the Sea (which Canada has not
ratified), Canada refuses to oppose the proposals by Canadian
mining companies for Submarine Tailings Disposal in the Philippines,
Indonesia and Papua New Guinea. Meanwhile in Canada, we permit
the dumping of tailings in lakes in the North West Territories
and are entertaining a proposal by DeBeers to dump dredgate
from the Attawapiskat River in James Bay as part of the Victor
Mine project.
- Glamis Gold has filed a claim against the Government of the
United States under NAFTA Chapter 11, arguing that a new State
of California law requiring the back-filling and reconturing
of open pit gold mines on indigenous sacred lands expropriates
the value of their exploration investments. Chapter 11 has been
used in Mexico and Canada to enforce a race-to-the-bottom in
environmental legislation.
Effective ENGO interventions on mining issues require an understanding
of the international, national, provincial and local context of
the issues being pursued. The recent interest of large mining
companies in Canada in promoting environmental causes is a result
of tough advocacy about the industry’s impacts on the environment
and human rights. As the privileges they have enjoyed for so long
are challenged - subsidies, tax breaks, free entry, leaving their
waste behind - they will seek to prop up the myths that maintain
their power by making friends where they can. This may help many
of our causes, but unless we are able to limit the footprint of
extractive mining, the environment will still be the loser.
Appendix 1. A few words about Participation in Multi-stakeholder
Consultations
On behalf of CEN at present, we participate in three multi-stakeholder
consultations driven by Natural Resources Canada: the National
Orphaned and Abandoned Mine Initiative; the Mine Effluent Neutral
Drainage Steering Committee, the Advisory Committee of the Sustainable
Development Indicators project. We also attend mining-related
short-term consultations and meetings, such as the Diamonds workshop
in June of last year, the Arsenic Workshop, the Acid Rock Drainage
consultation, planning events of the World Summit on Sustainable
Development in Johannesburg, and consultations with Foreign Affairs
and International Trade on conflict and on human rights.
As for all of you, this is a small but important part of our
work. The effectiveness of these meetings is determined by a number
of factors:
- The context of the meeting/ group: how aware is the general
public of the issues? Are there current hot spots? How conflictual
are the different positions? Why is each group there? A “hot
issue” will get more attention.
- § The history of the consultation. From where did this
consultation originate - from NGOs, government, industry? What
has happened prior to the consultation? How is the problem being
defined and by whom? Most problem definitions exclude what really
matters.
- The convening government department. Do they see themselves
as representing the industry to government? How much stature
do they have at the cabinet table? What level of public servants
are at the table? To whom do they report? What is the intended
outcome? What other government departments are at the table?
- The resources available to us. We are all stretched: are
expenses and per diems paid? What is our access to technical
experts and research? How are we accountable to each other given
time constraints?
- What do we get out of it. Aside from the obvious opportunity
to affect the regulatory framework, the process affords us the
opportunity to know industry and government actors as people
and to understand the issues from their points of view; it broadens
our knowledge of the issues; it often provides useful information
about other government and/or industry activities that are going
on at the same time; and - when we are effective- it legitimizes
our organization.
Appendix 2. International Law Affecting Mining
- Stockholm Declaration of the United Nations Conference on
the Human Environment http://www.unep.org/Documents/Default.asp?DocumentID=97
- sustainable development (The Rio Declaration on Environment
and Development http://www.unep.org/documents/default.asp?documentid=78),
- biodiversity (Convention on Biological Diversity http://www.biodiv.org/convention/articles.asp,
- transfrontier pollution (Convention on Long-Range Transboundary
Pollution http://www.unece.org/env/lrtap/,
- marine pollution (Convention on the Prevention of Marine
Pollution by Dumping of Wastes and Other Matter searchable at
http://sedac.ciesin.org/pidb/,
- endangered species (Convention on International Trade in
Endangered Species(CITES) http://www.cites.org/eng/disc/text.shtml
- hazardous materials and activities (Basel Convention on the
Control of Transboundary Movements of Hazardous Wastes and Their
Disposal http://www.basel.int/text/text.html
- cultural preservation (Convention Concerning the Protection
of the World Cultural & Natural Heritage, http://whc.unesco.org/world_he.htm),
- desertification (United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification,
http://www.unccd.int/),
- uses of the seas (United Nations Convention on Law of the
Sea (UNCLOS) linked from http://www.unclos.com/), and
- climate change (United Nations Framework Convention on Climate
Change and the Kyoto Protocol on Global Warming (http://www.unfccc.de/resource/convkp.html).
- human rights (Convention on Civil and Political Rights, International
Declaration of Human Rights, Convention on Economic, Social
and Cultural rights
Appendix 3. Other International Statements affecting mining:
- World Bank Extractive Industries Review
- UNEP Cyanide Code
- The Kimberley Process
- International Commission on Large Dams
- The Global Compact
- OECD Guidelines for Multinational Enterprises
- Trade Agreements such as NAFTA, FTAA, WTO and their sub-agreements
- Bi-lateral trade agreements
- North American Agreement on Environmental Co-operation
- Convention Concerning Safety in the Use of Asbestos
- Various International Labour Organization agreements
- UN Declaration on the rights of Indigenous People (draft)
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