Teck

News release: A recently announced lawsuit against HudBay Minerals Inc. points to the industry's failure to take responsibility for corporate abuses beyond Canadian borders. Paradoxically, the company recently won an award for Corporate Social Responsibility from the Mining Association of Canada. Toronto-based HudBay and two of its subsidiaries are being sued for the death of Adolfo Ich Chamán, who was hacked and shot to death by private security forces employed at the company's nickel mining project in eastern Guatemala on September 27th 2009.

Ottawa – NDP Fisheries and Oceans Critic Peter Stoffer (Sackville-Eastern Shore) today called on Fisheries Minister Loyola Hearn to disallow mining companies the use of lakes as dump sites for toxic mining waste.

The amended Metal Mining Effluent Regulations (MMERs) have been published in the Canada Gazette Part One, and the public comment period has closed. They will become final when published in the Canada Gazette Part Two.

One of the amendments to the MMERs adds two lakes in Newfoundland to Schedule 2, which redefines them as mine waste dumps (for environmentally toxic tailings). Both lakes currently provide habitat for trout and Atlantic salmon as well as otter and other species.

Comments prepared by Catherine Coumans as representative for the Canadian Environmental Network (CEN) on the Metal Mining Effluent Regulations Multistakeholder Advisory Group, together with Maggie Paquet (Citizens’ Stewardship Coalition, Port Alberni, BC), Judy Parkman (Recycling Organization Against Rubbish, Richmond, BC) and Randy Fleming (Inter-Church Uranium Committee, Saskatoon, SK). “The current regulations and the proposed regulatory amendments do not adequately protect the environment and the health of Canadians.