Halifax Initiative Publishes Canadian Mining Map

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.

The Canadian mining industry often portrays itself as a responsible corporate citizen and frequently characterizes those mining companies whose overseas operations are socially and environmentally destructive as “a few bad apples.” Industry often dismisses reports that reveal the adverse impacts of Canadian mines as “anecdotal.”

The mining map was developed with three objectives in mind:

• To refute the mining industry's argument that the problems associated with Canadian overseas mining operations are restricted to a small number of companies and a handful of isolated projects. The twenty-three projects that are featured on the map show wide temporal and geographic scope - demonstrating that the incidence of Canadian mining projects associated with significant adverse social and environmental problems is far more widespread than the mining industry would have you believe. As the map reveals, this is an industry-wide problem, present wherever Canadian mining companies invest, worldwide.
• To demonstrate that many mining projects, including those associated with environmental and social problems, benefit from public support. Canadian mining companies receive various forms of financial and political support from the Government of Canada to facilitate their overseas investments. The mining map includes information about the public support that was given to the featured projects. See the map legend for an explanation of how public funds are channeled to Canadian mining companies.
• To raise awareness about the impacts of Canadian mining operations in developing countries and the need for binding regulatory instruments to govern those operations. The Halifax Initiative, together with other members of the Canadian Network for Corporate Accountability, believes that the overseas operations of Canadian mining companies should be regulated by the Canadian government to ensure compliance with clearly-defined corporate social responsibility, human rights and environmental standards. Compliance with such standards should be made a precondition for the provision of financial and political assistance to Canadian mining companies by the Government of Canada.

The map is accurate as of October 1, 2006.