Canadian miners abroad learn wider responsibility – Globe and Mail Editorial (June 6, 2011)

The Globe and Mail is Canada’s national newspaper with the second largest broadsheet circulation in the country. It has enormous impact and influence on Canada’s political and business elite as well as the rest of the country’s print, radio and television media.

The Canadian mining industry is no longer just about extraction. The 1,800 companies operating around the globe must also live up to public expectations that they protect human rights and the environment in their overseas operations. Failure to do so invites public-relations disaster, as Barrick Gold Corp.’s recent experiences in Tanzania and Papua New Guinea show.

Last week, Barrick announced it was investigating allegations that its own private security guards, as well as Tanzanian police, had sexually assaulted 10 women over the past several years at their North Mara mine. This comes just two weeks after seven people were killed at the site, following an incursion of locals scavenging for gold-laced rocks. \

At another Barrick property, in Papua New Guinea, a Human Rights Watch report released this year said the mine’s private security force was implicated in a “pattern of violent abuses, including horrifying acts of gang rape.”

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Peruvian election strikes fear into global miners – by Brenda Bouw (Globe and Mail – June 7, 2011)

The Globe and Mail is Canada’s national newspaper with the second largest broadsheet circulation in the country. It has enormous impact and influence on Canada’s political and business elite as well as the rest of the country’s print, radio and television media. Brenda Bouw is the Globe’s mining reporter.

The election of a left-wing nationalist as Peru’s next president has panicked investors, who fear the country will join a growing trend of governments squeezing more profits from the resource sector.

Ollanta Humala’s narrow victory Sunday over conservative Keiko Fujimori is expected to result in, at the very least, higher tax and royalty rates for mining companies operating in the mineral-rich nation.

Investors are also fretting that Mr. Humala’s past ties with Venezuela’s president Hugo Chavez will lead to suggestions about nationalizing operations based in Peru. The concerns caused Peru’s stock market to drop by a record 12.5 per cent on Monday, alongside steep selloffs of Canadian and international mining companies with operations in the country.

That’s despite Mr. Humala’s attempt to run a free-market friendly campaign this time around, a shift in stance from his unsuccessful 2006 run for the top job.

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Statement from Barrick Gold Corporation concerning the North Mara Mine, Tanzania (May 30, 2011)

Introduction

Barrick Gold Corporation, and its affiliates and subsidiaries, operate in some of the most challenging environments in the world. Among Barrick’s operations and affiliates, the Mara region of Tanzania, in which African Barrick Gold (ABG) owns and operates the North Mara mine, is especially challenging. The North Mara mine is located in a very remote, underdeveloped part of the country in close proximity to the Kenyan border. In-migration from other areas and countries is rampant and law enforcement capacity is limited, making the area a magnet for transients, criminals and organized crime. Civil unrest due to poverty is a particular problem in the area, a fact widely recognized by Tanzanian authorities.

The vast majority of people living near North Mara share the same desire for security and safety as ABG and its employees. To that end, ABG is working with Tanzanian authorities to address a variety of issues that impact the community, particularly related to law and order. The end goal is to make this area safer for residents of the community and for the men and women who work at the mine.

The Investigation

It is against this background that ABG recently notified Barrick that it had received highly disturbing allegations of sexual assaults by the police and ABG security against local women. Following recent events at the Porgera Joint Venture in Papua New Guinea, employees have a heightened sensitivity to these issues. ABG has also been pursuing enhancements to its human rights program generally, in parallel to Barrick commencing its new human rights compliance program. Employees raised these allegations to external investigators retained by ABG to inquire into an unrelated matter.

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[Toronto Star freelance] Journalist deported for investigating [Barrick] mine massacre – by Jocelyn Edwards (Toronto Star – May 29, 2011)

The Toronto Star, which has the largest circulation in Canada, has an enormous impact on Canada’s federal and provincial politics as well as shaping public opinion.

But local leaders accuse the company of complicity in the conduct of the police,
because it employs officers to provide mine security, and allege that African Barrick
is benefiting from it. (Jocelyn Edwards)  “A community that has been intimidated is a
community that can’t demand its rights from the company.” (Tanzanian MP Tundu Lissu)

Reporter for the Star questioned in Tanzania as string of arrests follows deaths at Barrick site

KAMPALA, UGANDA—Given that I had been followed around the tiny town for two days by men in ’80s-style wraparound sunglasses, it wasn’t really a surprise to me when I finally got arrested last Thursday in northern Tanzania.

I had gone to the East African nation to investigate the deaths of five villagers gunned down at a mine in North Mara belonging to African Barrick, a subsidiary of Toronto-based mining giant Barrick Gold Corp. Barrick said the men killed by security forces — initial reports had pegged the death toll at seven — were “intruders.” Family members of the victims said the gold-laced stones the men routinely collected at the mine were their only means of survival.

Trucks of police in full riot gear patrolled the streets of Tarime, the town nearest the mine. The situation was tense and relatives of the deceased were huddled together in a compound.

Tuesday morning, I woke up and found the room next to mine empty. The environmental and human rights lawyer who had been staying there had been arrested, along with seven other people who had been guarding the bodies of the victims at the town mortuary.

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A Golden Opportunity: How Tanzania is Failing to Benefit from Gold Mining – by Mark Curtis and Tundu Lissu (October 2008)

Published by the Christian Council of Tanzania (CCT), National Council of Muslims in Tanzania (BAKWATA), and Tanzania Espicopal Conference (TEC) – Financed by Norwegian Church Aid and Christian Aid

A Golden Opportunity: How Tanzania is Failing to Benefit from Gold Mining (October 2008)

Executive Summary

Gold mining is the fastest growing sector of Tanzania’s economy. Minerals now account for nearly half the country’s exports and Tanzania is Africa’s third largest gold producer. Yet ordinary Tanzanians are not benefiting from this boom both because the government has implemented tax laws that are overly favourable to multinational mining companies and because of the practices of these companies. Tanzania is being plundered of its natural resources and wealth.

Between 1997 and 2005, Tanzania exported gold worth more than US$2.54 billion (bn). The government has received around $28m a year in royalties and taxes on these exports, amounting to just 10 per cent over the nine year period. The 3 per cent royalty has brought the government only an average of US$17.4m a year in recent years. Raising the royalty rate to, say, 5 per cent would have increased government revenues by around US$58m over the past five years.

We calculate that Tanzania has lost at least $265.5m in recent years as a result of an excessively low royalty rate, government tax concessions that allow companies’ to avoid paying corporation tax and possibly even tax evasion by some companies if allegations are true. This is a very conservative estimate, in that it does not cover all the gold mining companies or all figures for recent years (which are not publicly available). Neither does it cover the financial costs of other tax incentives such as VAT exemption, which are extremely difficult to estimate.

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Black eye for Barrick taints Canada, critic says – by Lisa Wright (Toronto Star – May 19, 2011)

Lisa Wright is a business reporter with the Toronto Star, which has the largest circulation in Canada. The paper has an enormous impact on Canada’s federal and provincial politics as well as shaping public opinion. This article was originally published May 18, 2011.

Barrick Gold Corp. has tainted Canada’s international mining image, say industry observers, as police and company officials investigate why seven people were killed at the gold giant’s troubled Tanzanian mine.

“I think it’s a big hit on their reputation. That’s a lot of people to die at one time on a mine site,” said Toronto activist Sakura Saunders, co-founder of the ProtestBarrick.net website.

Police at the North Mara mine near the Kenyan border, a site run by its African Barrick Gold division, opened fire Monday when about 800 villagers stormed the site with machetes, hammers and rocks to reportedly steal valuable gold ore.

All’s quiet since then at the site says a spokesman, while an internal investigation by the company — majority-owned by Toronto-based Barrick — and a separate one by Tanzanian police begins into the deaths and the estimated dozen injured in the violent confrontation.

“We are reviewing the security situation at North Mara but it will take some time to unravel,” said Charles Chichester, a spokesman for the London-based company.

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Bad Neighbors: Canadian Mining Companies in Latin America – by Liisa L. North (Canadian Dimension – Jan/Feb 2011)

Canadian Dimension is a Canadian leftist magazine founded in 1963 by Cy Gonick and published out of Winnipeg, Manitoba six times a year.

Last Year Alone, at least five opponents of Canadian mining projects were assassinated in Latin America: three in El Salvador, one in Guatemala, and one in Mexico. Critics of mining operations there and elsewhere were wounded and maimed in attacks while many, along with their family members, were threatened. Canadian mining corporations were not necessarily directly responsible for the deaths and acts of intimidation and violence, but some of them were carried out by company security personnel and current or former employees.

So it may be the case that the implicated companies are not legally liable, but alongside the local elites and states that license and promote extractive activities, they at the least bear a moral responsibility for creating the situations of conflict in which assassinations and other acts of violence take place.

Most Canadians are not used to thinking of their investors as human rights violators or of Canada as a “bad neighbor.” Sadly, since the early 1990s and especially over the past decade, the activities of our miners are earning us that reputation. The corporations themselves, of course, argue that they are bringing much needed employment and even “sustainable development” to the poor regions where they operate. If they are doing this, it appears to be a form of development that many do not wish to see in their communities.

Canadian mining corporations abroad

A spectacular expansion of Canadian mining investment in Latin America has taken place over the last two decades, part of the general growth of our mining investment abroad. Today, almost 60 percent of all mining companies are listed on the Toronto Stock Exchange. Our miners are prominently visible all over the southern hemisphere, and their operations have provoked demonstrations in front of Canadian embassy buildings in various Latin American capitals.

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Snake oil and the Myth of Corporate Social Responsibility [Canadian Mining Companies] – by JP LaPlante and Catherine Nolin (Canadian Dimension – Jan/Feb 2011)

Canadian Dimension is a Canadian leftist magazine founded in 1963 by Cy Gonick and published out of Winnipeg, Manitoba six times a year.

In March 2009, Canada released its long-awaited response to calls for regulatory oversight of the overseas operations of extractive industries such as mining and oil. The Conservative government’s Building the Canadian Advantage: A Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) Strategy for the Canadian International Extractive Sector was drafted in response to years of public, civil society, and parliamentary pressure to remove the impunity with which Canadian extractive companies operate overseas. A 2005 parliamentary report calling on legal reform, and subsequent government-industry-civil society National Roundtables – resulting in recommendations for an independent ombudsman’s office – did little to counter mining industry lobbying and a receptive Conservative government.

The resulting corporate social responsibility (CSR) strategy is a tepid response that has no teeth, but we find it a useful starting point to understand just what is CSR and how the world of corporate public relations is appropriating the term for their own benefit.

Nearly every major extractive industry player has adopted voluntary CSR policies or social sustainability statements and a growing body of consultants, socially responsible investors, and NGOs are debating how to promote it. However, ongoing violations of human rights beg the question: is talking in terms of CSR useful to those trying to seek justice for harms committed by Canadian multinationals?

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NEWS RELEASE: African Barrick Gold plc: Security incident at North Mara

17 May 2011

On 16 May 20011, a number of the Tanzanian Police (FFU) came under sustained attack by approximately 800 criminal intruders who illegally entered the North Mara mine site and attempted to remove ore from the run of mine (ROM) pad.

The FFU had been called to the area to respond and were set upon by the criminal intruders armed with machetes, rocks and hammers.

According to information received, a number of intruders sustained gunshot wounds, resulting in seven intruder fatalities and twelve injuries.

The police have begun an investigation into the incident. Additional police have been deployed to the area. African Barrick Gold has also initiated an internal company investigation. There have been no material impacts to the operation or production.

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Barrick Gold’s security kill 7 at Tanzania mine – by Lisa Wright/Jocelyn Edwards (Toronto Star – May 18, 2011)

Lisa Wright is a business reporter with the Toronto Star, which has the largest circulation in Canada. The paper has an enormous impact on Canada’s federal and provincial politics as well as shaping public opinion. This article was originally published May 18, 2011.

Lisa Wright in Toronto and Jocelyn Edwards in Tanzania 

Security forces at African Barrick Gold’s North Mara mine in Tanzania killed seven “criminal intruders” and injured a dozen more after 800 people stormed the project armed with machetes, rocks and hammers in a bid to steal gold ore.

Police were called to the area on Monday and “came under sustained attack” by hundreds of people who illegally entered the mine site to try to remove ore from one of the crushers, said a statement released by the London-based company, which is a majority-owned subsidiary of Toronto’s Barrick Gold Corp.

“A number of intruders sustained gunshot wounds, resulting in seven intruder fatalities and 12 injuries,” said the release. The deadly clash is the latest in an ongoing battle between the giant Canadian miner and locals who scavenge for gold-laced rocks on the lucrative property, which Barrick acquired in 2006.

The price of gold has tripled in value since then, reaching a record high of $1,540.25 (U.S.) an ounce earlier this month and making it all the more attractive to villagers involved in illegal small-scale mining.

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B.C.’s mining industry becoming more sustainable – by Pierre Gratton (Vancouver Sun – May 10, 2011)

The Vancouver Sun is the largest daily newspaper in British Columbia.

Pierre Gratton is the president and CEO of the Mining Association of British Columbia.

The mining industry is growing in British Columbia. B.C. mines and smelters that have been operating for many years are making major investments in modernization, four new mines are in construction, several more are in advanced permitting and mineral exploration spending is rising. Billions of new investment dollars are flowing into B.C., all creating wealth for the province and thousands of jobs and business opportunities for British Columbians and their families; clearly, we can say with confidence the mining renaissance is upon us.

As the mining sector embarks on a period of growth not seen in a generation, it is more important than ever to find new and better ways to extract the minerals that are critical to a clean and green economy. Over the last couple of decades, the mining industry in B.C. has undergone dramatic changes in the way it approaches sustainability, environmental obligations and relationships with its communitiesof-interest.

Today, the sector is the safest heavy industry in the province, a major investor in research and development, a leading employer and contractor of first nations and, through B.C.’s internationally recognized Health, Safety and Reclamation Code for Mining, is continuously improving environmental management and reclamation practices.

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The Public Image of Mining – PDAC President Scott Jobin-Bevans Speech at the Calgary Mineral Forum (April 12, 2011)

The Prospectors and Developers Association of Canada (PDAC) advocates to protect the interests of the Canadian mineral exploration industry and to ensure a robust mining sector in the most environmentally sustainable and socially responsible manner possible. 

“If the mining industry is unwilling to talk about its achievements, how can we expect Canadians to understand and value it?” (PDAC President Scott Jobin-Bevans – April 12, 2011)

Good evening everybody.

I’d like to thank Darren Anderson for inviting me to the Calgary Mining Forum’s 20thanniversary. The first years of any organization’s life are the most challenging so M-E-G [Mineral Exploration Group] has reached a milestone.

I understand there’ll be some oil and gas folks here tonight so I’m please that MEG is helping two streams of geology maintain their connections.

Over the last 20 years, a number of the PDAC’s board members have come from MEG. Michael Marchand, president of Leeward Capital, was just elected for his third term at our convention last month. And MEG’s past president, Sherri Hodder, who shares my interest in student recruitment, is one of our newer directors, elected in 2009.

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Corporate Social Responsibility and Bill C-300 – A Post-Mortem – by Paul Stothart

Paul Stothart is vice-president, economic affairs of the Mining Association of Canada. He is responsible for advancing the industry’s interests regarding federal tax, trade, investment, transport and energy issues. This article was published in January, 2011.

Bill C-300, the proposed Corporate Accountability of Mining, Oil and Gas Corporations in Developing Countries Act, was defeated in a House of Commons vote on October 27th 2010 by 140 votes to 134.  While this ends the life of Bill C-300, which was originally tabled by Liberal MP John McKay in February 2009, almost two years earlier, this will not spell the end of private members bills (PMBs) on the general issue of corporate accountability.  There are several factors that support a likelihood of future bills on related themes over the coming years. 

First, the notion of advancing social and environmental responsibility in Canada and abroad carries the same controversy as supporting apple pie.  Politicians, companies, the general public, and NGOs are on the same page in this respect and there is no apparent political downside for private members to propose or support legislation toward this end. This was a core reality with respect to Bill C-300, as numerous parliamentarians stated to MAC that they were not willing to be seen as “voting against social progress”, especially on legislation that in their view would not make it through the Senate side of the legislative process in any event.  They could therefore please their political constituents, while remaining confident that the flawed legislation would not actually become law. 

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Sustainability In Nickel Projects: 50 Years of Experience at Vale Inco – by S.W. Marcuson, J. Hooper, R.C. Osborne, K. Chow and J. Burchell (December 1, 2009)

The principal author, Dr. Sam Marcuson ( Sam.Marcuson@valeinco.com ) is vice-president, business improvement for Vale Inco Limited, Mississauga, ON, Canada. This article was adapted from a plenary speech made at the CIM Conference of Metallurgists held August 2009 in Sudbury, Ontario. The full paper is available from the author or the conference proceedings.

Looking at the industry’s past and present with a view to projecting into the future can be a valuable exercise for executing and maintaining sustainable development

The first eight years of this century saw rapid growth in the consumption and production of nickel and related commodities. In response to growth in the BRIC countries, but especially China, new projects, many in under-developed countries, were initiated. Nickel pig iron, produced in aging Chinese blast furnaces, unexpectedly emerged. Simultaneously, scientists concluded that global warming is “unequivocal” and human activity is the main driver, “very likely” (>90%) causing most of the rise in temperatures since 1950[1]. These factors point to a future in which sustainable development becomes of paramount interest to the mining and metallurgy industry.

To the practicing metallurgist and operator, “sustainability” may appear as keeping employees safe, meeting prevailing environmental regulations and contributing to social programs contractually agreed to, while maintaining a low-cost operation that meets production and financial targets. But this is a highly simplified view that ignores many of the sustainability concepts.

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2011 PDAC Speech: by the Honourable Christian Paradis, P.C., M.P. Minister of Natural Resources – Toronto, March 7, 2011

This speech was given by the Honourable Christian Paradis, P.C., M.P., Canadian Minister of Natural Resources, on March 7, 2011 at the Prospector and Developers of Canada convention in Toronto, Canada.

Introduction

Good morning. Bon matin à tous.

Whether you’ve come here from across the country or around the world, I’m delighted to welcome you on behalf of Prime Minister Stephen Harper and the Government of Canada.

I want to thank Shawn Atleo, National Chief of the Assembly of First Nations, for being here.  His presence demonstrates that Aboriginal people have a shared interest in mining and development of our resource sector. It also, in turn, reflects the importance of exploration and mining to Canada’s Aboriginal communities.

Let me also welcome Peter Van Loan, Canada’s Minister of International Trade. And I would like to bring special greetings to the Honourable Laurence Golborne, Minister of Mines for Chile.

Minister Golborne, like everyone in this room, I was elated by the rescue of those 33 trapped miners last fall. I was born and raised in a mining town, and I know the close bonds that form not just between miners themselves but among their families.

So you can bet I was cheering along with the rest of the world when those miners were reunited with their loved ones. The rescue was an inspiration to all of us. And I hope that spirit and inspiration finds its way into all our talks at this conference.

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