Newsletter 22: Spring 2006

Submitted by Alternatives North.

What is BHP-Billiton so afraid of? That’s the question Mining Watch’s Joan Kuyek asked recently in Yellowknife, NWT, while speaking about the strike at the Australian mining giant’s Ekati diamond mine, 300 kilometres north of the city.

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.

On June 8th, 2006, magistrate Jean-Paul Briseul of the Administrative Court of Nouméa in New Caledonia called on his fellow magistrates to declare Goro-Nickel SA’s licence to operate the Goro mine illegal. On June 15th, the Administrative Court revoked Inco’s 2004 mining licence.

In March 2005, MiningWatch Canada facilitated the presentation by two of our partners from Zamboanga del Norte in the Philippines before the parliamentary Subcommittee on Human Rights and International Development. As a result of the presentation these community leaders gave on the impacts they are suffering from the operations of TVI Pacific in their municipality of Siocon, the subcommittee conducted further hearings to investigate the mechanisms that the government currently has at its disposal to hold Canadian mining companies to account in Canada for their actions overseas.