Ontario

Tuesday, April 28, 2009

Ontario has the largest metal mining sector of all the provinces in Canada, and accounts for one-third of Canada's mineral production. Ontario's mining industry generates $5-7 billion each year, primarily through exports. Nickel, gold and copper generate the greatest monetary value.

Since 1907, Ontario has mined (as of 2004):

Ontario
Wednesday, January 4, 2012

(Toronto) The Ontario Superior Court of Justice has ordered that Solid Gold Resources Corp. cannot carry on any further exploration activity on its claims block for 120 days, and that during this time the company and the Ontario Crown must engage with Wahgoshig in a process of meaningful consultation and accommodation about any such further exploration.

Thursday, December 22, 2011

After weeks of delay and two adjournments, Wahgoshig First Nation finally had its day in court on December 20, 2011. The hearing of Wahgoshig's injunction motion lasted the full day and went in to the early evening. A decision is expected in mid-late January.

Thursday, December 15, 2011

In the last two weeks there has been an intense media storm around the current housing crisis in Attawapiskat, a remote Cree community on the coast of James Bay. One element of the story that’s getting some attention and is of particular interest to MiningWatch is the fact that the community is ‘host’ to DeBeers’ Victor diamond mine, located 90 km west of the community, upstream on the Attawapiskat River, within the traditional territory of the Omushkego Cree. The juxtaposition is stark: a diamond mine producing millions of dollars of a sparkling luxury item, next to the poverty and infrastructure deficits in Attawapiskat. It has led people to ask us: if there are millions of dollars of diamonds being taken from their traditional territory, why aren’t the conditions in the community improving?

Friday, December 2, 2011

Wilkes, James. Decolonizing Environmental Management: A Case Study of Kitchenuhmaykoosib InninuwugBy James Wilkes. This study was done as a Masters thesis at Trent University and is posted here at the request of the author. Canadian environmental management involving Indigenous communities is at a crossroads. First Nation communities in regions holding mineral and other natural resources are coping with legal, economic and political pressures to comply with government and industry demands for resource extraction and exploitation.

Tuesday, November 29, 2011

One of MiningWatch’s core areas of work is the promotion of Indigenous rights and recognition of title and the stewardship role that Indigenous people maintain across Canada and internationally. This article offers an overview of recent developments, including hopeful signs but also the considerable challenges in reconciling Indigenous rights and title with the mining industry and Canadian governments.

Tuesday, November 29, 2011

Lawyer Murray Klippenstein says consultation for aboriginal peoples facing mining projects is roughly equivalent to city officials showing up at your door to notify you your home is no longer yours. 

Tuesday, November 29, 2011

Canada’s largest labour federation is demanding that Ontario respect Kitchenuhmaykoosib Inninuwug (KI) Nation’s moratorium to protect their burials and sacred lands from desecration by mining exploration. Ontario has allowed exploration company God’s Lake Resources to stake claims directly on top of sacred KI burials. The company has dismissed KI’s concerns as rhetoric, indicating that they intend to continue exploration at the site in December.

Wednesday, November 23, 2011

News release: Wahgoshig First Nation is going to court on December 1, 2011 to seek an urgent injunction to immediately stop drilling operations in a sacred area of Wahgoshig’s traditional territory. The area is immediately adjacent to the Wahgoshig reserve and is known to contain burial grounds as well as other archaeological sites. It is also an area frequented by Wahgoshig community members for hunting, trapping, fishing, medicine gathering, and ceremonial activities.

Tuesday, November 1, 2011

Former Chief of the Ardoch Algonquin, Robert Lovelace, gave this address to an Amnesty International gathering in Toronto in October 2011. He provides a brief update of the situation of the Ardoch's confrontation with Frontenac Ventures, and comments on current industry and government approach to Corporate Social Responsibility, reforms to the Ontario Mining Act, his solidarity work with Palestine and indigenous resistence in Canada. He ends with a call to action to join the struggle "to restore the indigenous balance with the earth and its replenishing cycles that really sustain life."