Manitoba

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.

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.

Joint news release with Northwatch: A major new report highlights serious impacts on the Canadian boreal forest from all phases of mining activity, from exploration to closure. Two respected mining industry watchdogs – Northwatch and MiningWatch Canada – say they published The Boreal Below (an all-new and expanded version of a widely circulated 2001 report) in response to growing demand from communities across Canada for information and analysis to help understand the impacts of mining on their lives and livelihoods. It provides a carefully-documented analysis of the social, environmental, and cultural impacts of mining from prospecting to mine closure, as well as an overview of the current situation by province and territory.

When Sherritt Gordon Mines and Black Hawk Mining had taken all the copper, zinc, nickel and gold they could get out of the Lynn Lake, Manitoba, they closed their mines and took their profits, but they left millions of tonnes of toxic tailings and a devastated community behind.