Marcopper Mine

The Canadian mining map was produced by the Halifax Initiative during the National Roundtables on Corporate Social Responsibility and the Canadian Extractive Industry in Developing Countries. The Roundtables, which took place between June and November of 2006, fulfilled one of the recommendations made in the groundbreaking report, Mining in Developing Countries and Corporate Social Responsibility, tabled by the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs and International Trade (SCFAIT) in June 2005.

On October 20, 2005, MiningWatch Canada held a round table on "Regulating Canadian Mining Companies Operating Internationally" with industry, government, and civil society representatives, including invited guests from Latin America, Africa and Asia to examine options for regulatory and/or legislative change and debate the opportunities and difficulties of moving these options forward within the current Canadian political context.

Catherine Coumans, Ph.D.

Placer Dome in Marinduque

The Province of Marinduque is a small heart-shaped island near the middle of the Philippine archipelago. Most of its 200,000 citizens are fishers and farmers and many rely on what they can harvest from rivers, the sea and their land for their daily food.

(Ottawa) “Our report tells how Placer Dome Inc. of Vancouver, built a million dollar mining operation on the tiny Philippine island of Marinduque and then abandoned it, leaving behind a toxic legacy that threatens lives today. We want Placer to take responsibility, clean up its waste and pay up what it owes,” says Oxfam’s Mining Ombudsman, Ingrid Macdonald.