By Teilor Stone, The Saxon, with information from Camille Lacroix
The Government of Canada unveiled its strategy on Friday critical minerals which tends in particular to accelerate the development of projects in this sector of activity. At the first reading of this strategy, reactions are divergent on the North Shore.
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By Alex Ballingall, Toronto Star
OTTAWA—The federal government has unveiled an ambitious road map to make Canada a critical minerals powerhouse, describing a “generational opportunity” to spur economic growth, fight climate change and advance global security and Indigenous reconciliation — all at the same time.
By David Thurton, CBC News
Canada will need to speed up regulatory decisions on critical mineral projects if it wants to become a global leader in battery manufacturing, electric vehicles, wind turbines and solar panels, says a new national strategy released today.
"Simply put, there is no green energy transition without critical minerals," Natural Resources Minister Jonathan Wilkinson said as he unveiled the strategy in Vancouver on Friday.
By John Woodside, Canada's National Observer
Both of those challenges exist in places like Ontario’s “Ring of Fire,” a mineral-rich area of environmentally sensitive peatlands where some First Nations have concerns about potential mining development, Wilkinson said.
“Both of those issues have to be addressed in any agreement that mining in the Ring of Fire is going to proceed,” he said.
A comprehensive industrial strategy is badly needed to help confront the multiple crises Canada – and all humankind – is up against: climate, biodiversity, water, pollution, inequality, migration, and more. Unfortunately, the new federal "critical minerals" strategy is not it. It's basically is an adaptation of business as usual, and if anything, promises to accelerate the literal bulldozing of Indigenous rights.
Join us on December 9 for a panel discussion to raise awareness and expose the connections between escalating deforestation rates, violent conflict and threats to biodiversity loss associated with Canadian mining in the Amazon. Belo Sun Mining Corp.'s Volta Grande Gold project aims to open Brazil's largest open-pit gold mine in the heart of the Amazon rainforest. Brazilian Indigenous leaders, Canadian civil society representatives, and Amazon Watch will discuss the multiple threats that this industrial gold mining project presents to the Amazon Rainforest and its peoples.
Mining may soon begin in one of the most ecologically fragile and intact places on the planet: the deep seabed. Join us on December 13 during COP15 to hear from mining-affected communities in the Pacific and global and Canadian organizations on what we can do to stop it, and watch the 16-minute documentary “Blue Peril” — a visual investigation of the impacts of deep sea mining in the Pacific Ocean and how far-reaching these are likely to be.
MiningWatch's Canada Program Co-Lead Rodrigue Turgeon speaks to the National about the race to mine for lithium in La Corne, Quebec, and the opposition to Sayona Mining.
Communities in northwestern Argentina have been forced to drink bottled water since 2015 and it’s because of a Canadian gold mine. There have been at least five toxic spills in the last seven years of operations at the Veladero mine—located in the province of San Juan, near the community of San José de Jáchal. Independent water monitoring has confirmed mercury levels higher than what’s safe for human consumption and local residents of Jáchal fear that mining activities may have permanently contaminated their water supply with heavy metals.
The Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs has missed an opportunity to enact real change to help end modern slavery.Yesterday, Bill S-211, the Fighting Against Forced Labour and Child Labour in Supply Chains Act, came back from the Standing Committee unchanged. This means that Bill S-211 remains a flawed and meaningless piece of legislation. The Bill is nonetheless expected to pass into law as early as next week with multi-party support.