More people are banding together to block projects, which could have grave consequences for the economy
One minute John Perkins was seated near the back of a fire hall in rural Nova Scotia, listening to a discussion about drainage at gold mines, the next he was backing away from a Royal Canadian Mounted Police officer with his hands up.
It took just a few minutes for the officer to wrestle Perkins, a 68-year-old retiree with a passion for photography, through a doorway, into handcuffs and out the building, amid a flurry of exclamations and questions from people sitting nearby.
As a result of the clash, a public meeting about dam tailings management — organized by Vancouver-based Atlantic Gold Corp. as part of its outreach to a community where it wants to build a mine — further inflamed a maelstrom of controversy about the mine as people walked out en masse and videos of the incident racked up tens of thousands of views in a matter of days.
Perkins was eventually released uncharged, and Atlantic Gold maintained that it had “the right” to decide who could attend.
The incident also underscored how the mining industry faces growing opposition from communities across Canada, which, on the surface, seems nicely positioned to tap into its natural resources due to its vast undeveloped land and long history of mining.
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Read the full article on the Financial Post.