FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
MEDIA CONTACT: Mining Injustice Solidarity Network (MISN), [email protected]
Photos and videos of the protest available here (added live throughout the afternoon).
TORONTO/TKARONTO, March 1, 2026 – Representatives from communities impacted by mining projects from Anishnaabe territory in Northern Ontario, Wet’suwet’en, the Congo, and the Philippines came together alongside hundreds of Torontonians to protest the opening of the world’s largest mining convention this week in Toronto.
Rallying behind a banner that read “The Future is Decolonized, Relational and Life-Giving”, the crowd gathered across from the entrance of the Metro Toronto Convention Centre where the annual convention of the Prospectors and Developers Association of Canada (PDAC) was beginning. While the mining industry and government officials present at PDAC are selling a future of ever increasing mineral extraction, representatives from impacted communities made it clear that a future of more mining also means more human rights abuse, environmental destruction, violence and colonization.
Tens of thousands of mining industry players gather yearly at the PDAC Convention. Together, company executives and government representatives from over 100 countries work to advance the interests of the mining industry globally. Companies promote their mining projects under exploration and in development, while governments boast of regulatory reforms to make mining easier and attract capital investments. Meanwhile, the people facing the devastating environmental and social consequences of these investments are excluded from the convention, and the impacts of mining projects on their lives are scarcely mentioned.
Canada: Where “Bold” Action Means Bulldozing Indigenous Rights
This year, Invest in Canada’s slogan is “where bold feels at home,” positioning Canada as a resource-rich nation ripe for foreign investment. Yet in the past year, federal and provincial governments in Canada have dismantled environmental protections and bulldozed Indigenous rights by passing a slew of bills to fast-track mining development, such as Bill 5 in Ontario, Bill 15 in BC, and Bill C-5 at the federal level.
Speakers from across Turtle Island took the stage to denounce these recent rollbacks – pointing out that putting corporate interests over the protection of communities’ health and waterways is anything but bold – it’s selling the destruction of life-sustaining ecosystems for corporate profit.
“This is a strategic attempt by the Canadian government to flood us with so many bills because they think it will stop us from fighting back. It is a strategy straight out of the playbook of the US right wing. The onslaught of these bills is happening from East to West and it’s an attempt to give power to industries and banks. The government is not thinking about us – they are putting industry above our lives. They continue to oppress and repress us.” said Eve Saint, a Wet’suwet’en land defender and member of 8th Fire Rising.
Indigenous delegates from Neskantaga First Nation and Attawapiskat First Nation traveled to Toronto from Northern Ontario to confront the provincial and federal governments, and the mining companies invading their traditional territories, in the wake of a controversial decision by the federal government not to submit the controversial Eagle’s Nest mine, in the so-called Ring of Fire, to an impact assessment.
Lawrence Sakanee from Neskantaga First Nation said, “Neskantaga is strong. We love our land. My education was from the land and my elders. I was taught to protect the land, and I carry these teachings and pass them on to our children. Mining will destroy our trees, our animals, our fish, and our way of life in the north. On our land, we are the government. The colonial government never came to our land to consult us and ask for our consent for this project. And then they brought in Bill 5. They want us divided so they can push through their projects, but we are coming together united.”
“This is much bigger than just the mines and minerals in the ground. It is about who we are both as Indigenous and non-Indigenous people. It’s about the future of all our people no matter where you come from and who you are. Both on the land and even here. What is at stake for me and my community is home. Everything comes from the land – our language, our culture, our history, our stories and our ancestry,” said Jeronimo Kataquapit from Here We Stand, a grassroots group formed by youth from Attawapiskat First Nation. “The area of the so-called ‘Ring of Fire’ is also known as the Breathing Lands – one of the last remaining ecosystems like this on the planet. Northern Ontario has been overlooked for generations but this land sequesters five times more carbon than the Amazon rainforest. This is just as much an Indigenous issue as a climate one as a humanitarian one. This affects every one of us. What we do next is going to be a defining moment for all of our people.”
Canadian Mining Complicit in Violence Abroad
The protest also specifically pointed to the mining industry’s role in fueling violence abroad. Mining companies take advantage of violence and instability, fuel repression and criminalization of land defenders, and produce the metals that are used to create weapons used in many ongoing wars and genocides raging around the world right now.
As the Canadian government moves to further expand Canada’s already blood-stained war industry with the recently announced Defense Industrial Strategy, speakers pointed to the key role of mining in making modern weapons of war possible. Present at PDAC are some of the world’s largest producers of aluminum, platinum, and cobalt – all necessary to conduct modern warfare.
The US Department of War is involved in several proposed mines across Canada, including the proposed Sisson mine in New Brunswick, and the Department recently invested a 10% stake in Vancouver-based Trilogy Metals (present at PDAC this week).
The crowd gathered outside the convention made clear that they are aware of what the final products of the companies gathered at PDAC are – pointing to the devastation wrought by weapons in Palestine, the profit mining companies are making off the back of communities devastated by conflict in the DRC, Sudan and Tigray, and the criminalization and brutal repression of land defenders resisting mining projects in the Philippines and across Latin America.
Several mining companies active in the DRC are in attendance at PDAC this year, including Ivanhoe Mines and Barrick Mining Corporation.
Kuame, who spoke on behalf of the Congo Accountability Network Toronto Chapter, said “Billions of dollars in deals are made at PDAC. Supply chains are built here. Investments are greenlit here, that flow into the regions where our people are being slaughtered. There are more than 40,000 children working in the mines in Congo. We are here to demand a boycott of the companies complicit in Congolese suffering, divestment from blood soaked supply chains, and sanctions on every armed group terrorizing Eastern Congo. The Congo is not a sacrifice zone! The Congolese people are not collateral damage.”
There is a long and bloody history of criminalization and assassinations of land defenders opposing mining projects across Latin America, and this violent pattern continued this year. The crowd outside PDAC held a moment of silence to honour three land defenders killed in Guatemala in the past year, Víctor Manuel Colindres, Misael Mata Asencio and Arnulfo Mendoza Urcia. All were involved in opposition to Montreal based Central America Nickel.
“There is no mining without militarism, and there is no militarism without mining. At each stage of a mine’s existence, from beginning to end, mining relies on militarism to enforce wealth being taken from the land, from communities, and into the hands of mining executives, shareholders, and security and defense contractors.” said Romi Fischer-Schmidt from the Mining Injustice Solidarity Network. “While the people of the world respond with fear, anger, and resistance to escalating war and violence, inside the PDAC convention today the war investors, weapons manufacturers, and mining companies are teeming with glee at the prospect of huge profits.”
The government of the Philippines is also present at PDAC this year, despite the Philippines being one the most dangerous countries in the world for land defenders.
Kim Garcia from Anakbayan North York said “Canadian mining companies own 15% of mining projects in the Philippines. Last year, Canada signed the Status of Visiting Forces Agreement, allowing Canadian troops to use the Philippines as its playground for wargames. This agreement will also no doubt expand Canadian mining operations that will exploit the Philippines’ natural resources for its own benefit, while the Filipino masses suffer.”
MEDIA CONTACT:
For more information or to arrange interviews, contact:
Media spokesperson, Mining Injustice Solidarity Network (MISN), [email protected]