Petition opposing Canada's support for Duterte regime shines light on dark history of Canadian mining companies
Photo Credit: (CTV News/Google Images)
Written by: Daniel Xie
In September 2020, the International Coalition for Human Rights in the Philippines (ICHRP) filed petition E-2820 with the House of Commons. According to the petition, since the election of autocratic Filippino president Rodrigo Duterte, extrajudicial killings in the Philippines have increased. This increase is in part tied to a War on Drugs campaign initiated by Duterte shortly after his ascension to power, it is also tied to counter-insurgency campaigns initiated after the government unilaterally ended peace talks with the leftist National Democratic Front.
Concerns over these killings, along with concerns about arbitrary arrests, and targeting of human rights, environmental and indigenous land defenders (many of whom are “red-tagged” and either arrested as political prisoners or killed for their activism) have been raised at the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights and Global Witness.
In response, the petition calls on Canada to cease all sales of military equipment to the Philippines and to end defence cooperation with the country. The petition notes that Canada already denies military and defence aid to four countries and asks that the Philippines be added to this list.
Apart from calling on Canada to take a stand against the Filipino government’s extrajudicial killings, the ICHR petition also expresses concern about violence tied to Canadian mining companies operating in the Philippines. The petition notes that on April 6, 2020, some 100 members of the Philippine National Police violently dispersed 29 primarily indigenous Ifugao residents forming a barricade to protest the continued operations at the Didipio mine by the Canadian-Australian company OceanaGold. The operations carried out by OceanaGold areopposed by the Ifugao because of mining-related human rights abuses, environmental degradation, and negative impacts on local livelihoods.
The petition expresses further concern about the lack of support by Canadian consular staff for the human rights of environment defenders, as well as lack of effective mechanisms in Canada to hold Canadian companies accountable when they have caused or contributed to human rights abuses overseas.
The petition closes by calling on the Canadian government to adopt the following measures:
Make the Canadian Ombudsperson for Responsible Enterprise (CORE) independent and empowered to compel evidence and witness testimony under oath. The government of Canada committed to grant the CORE these necessary investigatory powers, but subsequently reneged on this commitment
Enact a human rights due diligence law that compels businesses to respect international human rights. Such a law would have both preventative effect, as well as providing a cause of action for legal recourse in Canada for those who have been harmed by the actions of Canadian companies operating overseas
Hold hearings on the human rights situation in the Philippines in the Parliamentary Human Rights Sub-committee during the current session of Parliament
End Canadian support to the Government of the Philippines including socio-economic and financial programming, tactical, logistical and training support, military sales and defence cooperation
Mandate Canadian consular personnel to protect human rights defenders. Whereas Canadian embassy staff are currently mandated to promote and protect the interests of Canadian companies operating overseas, they are not mandated to protect human rights defenders whose lives are threatened because of their criticism of the impacts on rights and the environment caused by these companies.
Canadian Mining Companies: A History of Greed and Exploitation against the Global South
The petition of the ICHRP casts light on the history of greed and exploitation carried out against the Global South by Canadian mining companies. Canadian mining companies, along with other corporate forces, have been instrumental in influencing Canadian foreign policy to oppose any global south government not kowtowing to Canadian corporate interests. As reported by Yves Engler on February 8, 2019, Canadian mining companies played a key role in pivoting Canada’s foreign policy towards supporting the attempted Venezuelan coup by self-declared interim president Juan Guaido. The support of Canadian mining companies for the Venezuelan coup, according to Engler, was tied to efforts by the Canadian mining sector to gain greater control over Venezuela’s gold extraction. This often took the form of legal battles against the attempts of the Bolivarian government to resist the encroachment of mining companies in Venezuela.
Canadian mining companies, along with Canadian banks doing business with mining clients in Latin America, Engler notes, have played a key role in spreading anti-Chavista propaganda. In 2007, Barrick Gold founder Peter Munk wrote a to the Financial Times demonizing then Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez as a dictator simply because of Venezuela’s efforts to increase public stake in resource extraction (to the disadvantage of foreign investors).
When Chavez died in 2013, the Globe and Mail Report on Business, Engler notes, published a front page story about how Chavez inhibited the ability for Scotiabank to expand its operations into Venezuela; this front page story perhaps signifies the hope by Canadian corporations that Chavez’s death would open the way up for a neoliberal regime to take root in Venezuela, one that would be more friendly to mining and banking interests; these hopes were dashed with the ascension of president Nicholas Maduro as Chavez’s successor and his subsequent victory in the 2013 presidential elections.
Venezuela was not the only country in Latin America whereCanadian mining companies have sought regime change favorable to Canadian corporate interests. Canadian mining companies have also expressed opposition to the Socialist government of Bolivia as well. In the same letter where Peter Munk demonizes Chavez’s policies as dictatorial, he also attacked the administration of former Bolivian president Evo Morales, claiming that he would rather invest in the Taliban controlled parts of Pakistan than in either Venezuela or Bolivia.
The opposition expressed by Canadian mining companies towards the Bolivian government translated into support for the US-instigated coup against Morales on November 10, 2019. This coup was supported by the Canadian government, according to Ollie Vargas, who spoke in a Canadian Foreign Policy Institute workshop exposing Canada’s complicity in the coup, because of a desire to acquire a degree of control over Bolivia’s lithium mines by Canadian mining companies with concessions in the region that may have influenced Trudeau’s stance on the Bolivian coup.
The injustices perpetrated by Canadian mining companies does not just extend to supporting imperialist coups against leftist governments in the Global South.. It also involves violence and human rights abuses carried out by Canadian mining companies against indigenous populations, along with the perpetration of rampant ecological devastation. As reported by Engler on Counterpunch in 2010, Canadian mining companies operating in Peru have come into conflict with indigenous tribes in Peru opposing their encroachment, many of these confrontations having turned violent.
One of these incidents, Engler notes, included the 2001 killing of Godofredo Garcia Baca, a leader of the anti-mining activist leader who opposed Vancouver-based Manhattan Minerals’ $240 million project in Tambogrande, and died under suspicious circumstances. Another one of these incidents involves protests against Barrick Gold’s mining operations in Peru in 2005 which resulted in the deaths of two protestors.
In Tanzania and Papua New Guinea, as reported by Mining Watch, security forces under the employment of Barrick Gold have been exposed as being responsible for systemic security abuses at Barrick’s gold mines such as assaults committed against men, women and children from indigenous populations in the regions Barrick Gold is operating in. Efforts by victims to report these assaults are in turn suppressed by Barrick Gold, who establish grievance mechanisms rigged in their favor that either reject cases brought to them or provide woefully inadequateremedy, sometimes even forcing the victims to sign waivers preventing them from taking legal action against Barrick in the future.
Canadian mining companies, particularly Barrick Gold, are also responsible for ecological devastation as well as the repression of indigenous anti-mining activists. According to an article on Briar Patch magazine titled “Who will publish eulogies for the victims of Barrick Gold?” in response to the whitewashing of Peter Munk’s mining abuses by the Canadian press following his death on March 28, 2018, Barrick Gold has been responsible for rampantant ecological devastation in Porgera through the dumping of toxic waste into the river system; this has resulted in the hospital in Porega being closed off for a year and villagers suffering from chemical burns as a result of coming into contact with the waste. In the Dominican Republic, Briar Patch reports, residents living near the Pueblo Viejo mine have reported lesions on their bodies following direct contact with the cyanide contaminated water in the area.
Oppose the Imperialism of Canadian Mining Companies!
The support of the Canadian government for the autocratic government of Rodrigo Duterte in the Philippines, exposed by the ICHRP petition is a symptom of a greater problem within Canadian foreign policy and Canadian politics. Mining interests in Canada have played a key role in influencing the policies of the Canadian government in an imperialistic direction through pushing for the Canadian government to support regime change efforts instigated by the US against governments in the global south willing to oppose the stranglehold of Canadian mining companies. Canada supports autocratic figures around the world carrying out repression against indigenous activists seeking to challenge the inequalities and environmental devastations caused by Canadian mining companies.
Many of these mining companies, most infamously Barrick Gold, have perpetrated massive ecological devastation and violent human rights abuses in the areas where their mines have operated.
Growing backlash against Canada’s “America First” foreign policy, and the negative impact it may have had on Canadian efforts to seek a seat at the UN Security council, have led to calls for Canada to develop a truly independent foreign policy, free from Washington’s dictates. Efforts to push for an independent and progressive foreign policy, if they are to succeed, must not only oppose US influence on our foreign policy, but must also oppose the imperialistic and profit-driven ambitions of Canadian mining companies. Their actions have seen Canada be complicit in furthering both American imperialism and the political repression of authoritarian leaders worldwide in the name of profit for the mining executives.
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