Some resources to learn about recent Canadian corporate push to expand mining in Peru and Ecuador
(Originally posted elsewhere on 14 August 2023.)
In 2023, "the world's largest mining convention" took great interest in Latin America. Obviously. (Lithium; Andean sites; legacy of Canadian investment.) With the active help of the Canadian federal government, Canadian mining companies now move to expand their power in Peru and Ecaudor.
Four excerpts of recent news to contextualize what's happening.
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Excerpt 1:
On January 18, 2023, as thousands of Peruvians were taking to the streets in Lima to denounce the spiralling political crisis in the country, Canadian Ambassador Louis Marcotte was meeting with the Peruvian Minister of Energy and Mines. [...]. Demonstrators have been met with widespread arrests and brutal violence. [...] [S]ince [protests began] [...] the Canadian mission has met with numerous top-level Peruvian officials in unprecedented fashion. [...] Ambassador Marcotte tweeted several photos from the meeting, using the occasion to promote mining as a benefit for communities and to express Canadian support for the upcoming Peruvian delegation who will attend the Prospectors and Developers Association of Canada’s (PDAC) annual conference in Toronto from March 5 to 8 [2023]. Each year, the world’s largest mining convention draws tens of thousands of [...] company officials, and government representatives to [...] promote an expansion of mining -- with little concern for the consent of those most affected, including in Peru. [...] For years, MiningWatch Canada and the Justice and Corporate Accountability Project (JCAP), alongside organizations including Red Muqui, Cooperacción, Derechos Humanos Sin Fronteras-Cusco and Derechos Humanos y Medio Ambiente DHUMA, have documented the many harms caused by industrial large-scale Canadian mining to rural communities [...]. Ambassador Marcotte chose to promote more Canadian mining investment in the country and plug PDAC 2023 -- where a session dubbed “Peru Day” promises to discuss “opportunities [...].” Canada’s priorities in Peru could not be more clear. [...]
Text by: Kirsten Francescone. “State-sanctioned violence in Peru and the role of Canadian mining.” Canadian Dimension. 6 March 2023. [Emphasis mine.]
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Canadian companies invested over $8 billion in 10 projects [in Peru in 2021] [...]. Toronto-based Hudbay Minerals operates the Constancia mine; Vancouver’s Pan American Silver operates the Shahuindo and La Arena mines; and Teck Resources’, also headquartered in Vancouver, operates the Antamina mine, with a 22.5 percent ownership stake in the project. Antamina is Peru’s largest mine, ranking among the top 10 producing mines in the world in terms of volume, and is the single most important producer of copper, silver, and zinc in the country. In 2021, the mine generated over $6 billion in revenue and nearly $3.7 billion in gross profits. [...] Companies can sign service contracts directly with the National Peruvian Police, and off-duty police officers are permitted to work for private security companies while using state property, such as weapons, uniforms and ammunition. [...] These harms are not minimal: contamination of agricultural lands and waterways around Pan American Silver’s Quiruvilca mine and the criminalization of community leaders and land dispossession due to environmental contamination at Shahuindo; violation of Indigenous self-determination and the right to a clean environment around Plateau Energy’s proposed lithium and uranium mine, sitting atop the region’s most important tropical glacier; undercutting of economic benefits for communities most affected by mining operations, and more.
Text by: Kirsten Francescone. “State-sanctioned violence in Peru and the role of Canadian mining.” Canadian Dimension. 6 March 2023. [Emphasis mine.]
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Excerpt 3:
Two Canadian mining companies are drawing the ire of activists and Indigenous groups in Ecuador, where the government [...] is using Toronto-based Adventus Mining’s Curipamba copper-gold project in Las Naves and Vancouver-headquartered Atico Mining’s La Plata project in Sigchos as test sites to impose a new and controversial process for environmental consultation under Decree 754 -- an executive edict issued on May 31 [2023] that has been roundly denounced as unconstitutional and illegal. Decree 754 [...] affords communities no rights to veto development projects on their lands. [...] The pro-mining [...] government, which swept to power in 2021, passed the decree a few weeks after dissolving the elected national assembly and proceeding to govern by executive fiat. National protests subsequently erupted [...]. [P]residential elections [are] scheduled for August 20 [2023]. [...] Residents of Las Naves and Sigchos have faced heavily armed military and police forces, which have come in to break up protests [...]. Stephen Potter, Canada’s ambassador to Ecuador, who was in Las Naves to visit Adventus’s Curipamba project at the beginning of June [2023], said in an interview that the mine is a “responsible investment that has the support of the community.” [...] There has also been ongoing conflict and opposition tied to other Canadian mining projects, including in the Ecuadorian Amazon where the Shuar Arutam people have denounced the militarization of their territory to advance Vancouver-based Solaris Resources’ Warintza copper project. [...]
Text by: Viviana Herrera and Ivonne Ramos. "Violence surrounds Canadian mining projects in Ecuador." Canadian Dimension. 4 August 2023. [Emphasis mine.]
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Excerpt 4:
[T]he [...] government is on the cusp of signing a free trade agreement with Canada and becoming the “next destination for mining.” Only two mines are currently in operation in Ecuador [...]. In September 2022, [...] Ecuador’s Minister of Mines and Energy [...] announced six new ‘strategic’ mining projects. Five of these will be led by Canadian firms [...]. According to the minister, these projects may [against existing laws] obtain an environmental license without the requirement for prior consultation [with local communities,]. This announcement happened after one of the largest national strikes in the country called by CONAIE, demanding the [...] government issue a moratorium on mining and nullify another decree -- Executive Decree 151 -- that would allow for mining in the Amazon [...]. Earlier this year, [the Minister of Mines and Energy] spoke in Toronto at the annual conference of the Prospectors and Developers Association of Canada (PDAC), the world’s largest mining convention, about Ecuador’s plans to become Latin America’s next premier mining destination by speeding up project approvals and signing a new trade pact with Ottawa. “A free trade agreement with Canada would make Ecuador the best mining destination,” he reassured investors. [...] With $3.7 billion invested, Canada is the leading foreign investor in Ecuador, and the majority is already invested in the country’s mining sector. [...]
Text by: Viviana Herrera and Ivonne Ramos. "Violence surrounds Canadian mining projects in Ecuador." Canadian Dimension. 4 August 2023. [Emphasis mine.]
