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For many years Papua New Guineans, with the support of MiningWatch Canada and other international organizations, have demanded that Barrick Gold acknowledge a long-standing pattern of vicious beatings, rapes and gang rapes of local indigenous women by security guards at the Porgera Joint Venture (PJV) mine, operated and 95% owned by Barrick.

For the past two years MiningWatch Canada has been collaborating with Wolf Lake and Eagle Village Algonquin First Nations as they grapple with a proposed rare earths mine. Matamec Explorations Inc. is proposing the construction of a 4,200 tonne per day open pit rare earth mine in the traditional territory of the First Nations who are insisting the project undergo a joint Canada-Algonquin review panel.

Of Canada’s main mining jurisdictions, Ontario has the poorest record for retaining royalties or mining-tax revenues. This is thanks to a mining tax based on profit with generous tax credits to reduce profits for tax purposes, low tax rates and tax holidays. In response to calls from MiningWatch and others like the United Steel Workers, the Liberal government’s 2012 budget committed to reviewing the tax rates. Last fall MiningWatch met with staff working on the review, but they could not say what timeline they were on to complete it.

A delegation from northern Greece will be visiting Canada from May 26th to 31st, 2013, to alert Canadians to the current situation with Vancouver-based Eldorado Gold’s proposed Skouries and Perama Hill mining projects. The Greek delegation includes the Mayor of Alexandroupoli, Vaggelis Lampakis; Tolis Papageorgiou of Halkidiki; and Maria Kadoglou of Hellenic Mining Watch.