Blog Entries

MiningWatch Canada is a founding member and supporter of the Coalition Québec meilleure mine (translated as the Better Mining Coalition with a clever pun – “mine’ also means face or apperance in French).  For over five years now the Coalition has been pushing an agenda of mining reforms in Quebec. Thanks to their hard work raising issues, building grassroots political support and putting forward coherent policy proposals  things are shifting dramatically in Quebec putting industry on the defensive. Unfortunately, as with many things, there has been little news of these developments in the media outside of Quebec.

The Canadian government’s big announcement for this year’s Prospectors and Developers Association conference (PDAC) wasn’t the renewal of tax credits for “flow-through” shares – a $100 million dollar a year subsidy for exploration companies – or even a creative new way of diverting international development aid money to support Canadian mining projects in the developing world. No, it was a pair of investment agreements, one with Cameroon and one with Zambia.

Last week I had the opportunity to visit Secwepemc territory in south-central BC. I was invited by the Neskonlith Band to speak with them about the Ruddock Creek project, a proposed lead and zinc mine in the headwaters of the Adams River. Inspired by their own traditions and teachings, and by a similar effort by the Oji-Cree community of KI, members of Neskonlith have drafted a water declaration stating the importance and sanctity of their watersheds and their opposition to mining in the territory.

MiningWatch recently had an opportunity to comment on an important document that will guide Cliffs Natural Resources in drafting  the environmental assessment of their Chromite project in the Mc Fauld's Lake or Ring of FIre area of northern Ontario.