(Letter presented to Kamloops City Concil's Public Presentation Session on 15 March 2016)

Mr. Mayor, Councilors,

First, I would like to thank you for allowing me to speak here today, in the beautiful city of Kamloops. I would also like to thank MiningWatch Canada for this opportunity, and the people of Kamloops for their warm welcome and generosity since my arrival on Sunday.

(Kamloops) MiningWatch Canada and residents of Malartic in Quebec are urging the City of Kamloops to learn from the experience and insights of other communities where open pit mining has encroached upon city limits.

The Canadian company’s Angostura mining project in the high-altitude wetlands, or páramo, of Santurbán, has announced that it could file an international arbitration suit against Colombia over measures to protect the páramo, which are important sources of water in the country.

(Ottawa, Canada/Oxford, UK) In April 2016 the Government of Canada takes over as chair of the Voluntary Principles on Security and Human Rights. NGOs are calling on the Canadian government to seize the opportunity to correct practices that undermine the prospects of impoverished communities overseas to seek remedy for corporate abuse.

“Even though it's very hard and very painful, we have learned to fight with joy.”
- Berta Cáceres, cited this week by Canadian journalist Sandra Cuffe

Embassy of Honduras in Mexico
Mexican Consulate in Honduras
Inter American Commission on Human Rights

SIGN THE ONLINE URGENT ACTION HERE.

Ottawa – MiningWatch Canada and the Coalition Québec Meilleure Mine urge the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission to stop intervening in ways that more closely resemble lobbying in favour of the nuclear industry than acting as the neutral and objective regulatory watchdog that it is supposed to be.

Shocking and terribly sad news from the National Council of Popular and Indigenous Organizations of Honduras:

March 3, 2016

This evening at approximately midnight, the General Coordinator of COPINH, Berta Cáceres was assassinated in her hometown of La Esperanza, Intibucá. At least two individuals broke down the door of the house where Berta was staying for the evening in the Residencial La Líbano, shot and killed her. COPINH is urgently responding to this tragic situation.

Earlier this week, local residents affected by the giant Canadian Malartic’s open pit gold mine voted unanimously in favour to move ahead with a class action lawsuit over the impacts the mine has on their property, health, well-being, and overall quality of life.

Aura Minerals' gold mine in La Unión, Copan, Honduras can not expand without exhuming and relocating hundreds of family members buried in the community cemetery. Aura Mineral's subsidiary MINOSA has not compiled with even the basic standards for cemetery relocation, including receiving legal permission from the next of kin, presenting a relocation strategy that is fair and acceptable to the local communities, adequate monetary compensation, and community consultation.