Activists in Toronto Crash the Mining Industry’s Biggest Awards Gala

by | Mar 5, 2024 | MISN Update

MEDIA CONTACT: Miriam Shaftoe, Mining Injustice Solidarity Network (MISN), [email protected]
Additional photos from the protest available here.

 

(Toronto, March 5, 2024) Hundreds of activists disrupted the awards gala of the world’s largest mining convention in Toronto this evening to call attention to the industry’s record of violence, human rights abuse, and environmental harm. 

Tens of thousands of mining industry players are in downtown Toronto this week for the Prospectors and Developers Association of Canada’s (PDAC) annual conference, which brings together representatives from hundreds of companies and dozens of countries to talk trends and advance the interests of Canadian mining, globally. 

The annual PDAC awards gala purports to “celebrate excellence in the global mineral exploration and mining industry.” But the track record of those being awarded – and the industry as a whole – leaves little to celebrate. 

Award winners this year include Victoria Gold for financing its Eagle Gold Mine in the Yukon, which was the site of a 2021 spill of 17,000 litres of cyanide solution. Lundin Group is being awarded for excellence in exploration, while executives for Lundin Group member Lundin Oil (since renamed) are on trial in Sweden for war crimes committed in Southern Sudan. O3 Mining is receiving an award in sustainability, even as the company plans to destroy the Keriens River in Quebec through its Marban Alliance Project. 

Organizers with the Mining Injustice Solidarity Network (MISN) and allies gathered outside the awards gala at the Royal York Hotel in Toronto to call out the mining industry’s role in ongoing colonial dispossession, militarism, and the climate crisis. 

 

MINING ADVANCING WAR

The protest specifically pointed to the industry’s role making war possible, including Israel’s ongoing genocide against Palestinians being carried out in Gaza. Modern weapons require significant quantities of metals and minerals, like the F35 fighter jets Israel is using to bomb Gaza, each of which contain over 900lbs of rare earth elements. Several rare earth element companies are in attendance at PDAC this year, as are some of the world’s largest producers of aluminum, platinum and cobalt – all of which are required to build modern weapons for war. In its own Critical Minerals Strategy, the Canadian government is quick to point out the many defense applications for the “critical minerals” it promotes to mine as a solution to the climate crisis.

“We are here today to protest the Canadian mining convention that extracts materials needed for the creation and development of arms, that are sold to Israel and being used in the ongoing genocide against our people in Palestine,” said Rawan Nabil, a representative of the Palestinian Youth Movement. “We are here today to call for an immediate arms embargo that includes these mining companies that are complicit in this genocide by providing raw materials to not only kill our people, but have blood on their hands in Sudan, the Congo and all over the colonized world.” 

Nisrin Elamin, a member of the Sudan Solidarity Collective, spoke about one of the companies being honoured inside PDAC’s awards gala.“The Lundin Group has been charged with aiding and abetting war crimes in Sudan between 1999 and 2003, one of the bloodiest phases of the second phase of the civil war in the South and the beginning of the genocide in Darfur,” said Nisrin. “This company not only has blood on its hands but it co-created the conditions that sparked a genocide in Western Sudan and escalated the civil war in South Sudan. And the Lundin Group is not alone, they are part of a consortium of mining, oil and weapons manufacturing companies that are seeing their stocks rise as civilians in Gaza, Sudan and Congo are being murdered.” 

“International organizations have repeatedly asserted that what is going on in Tigray in Ethiopia amounts to war crimes and bears the hallmarks of genocide,” said Joanne Hodges, a member of Tigray Advocacy Canada. “Canadian-based mining companies have seen an opportunity. Throughout the genocide, they have worked alongside the Ethiopian government – the perpetrator – to seek mining licenses to operate in Tigray. And the reason these companies can operate the way they do is because they have the full support of the Canadian government. You cannot have Tigrayan gold while supporting the elimination of the Tigrayan people.”

 

MINING AS COLONIAL DISPOSSESSION

Speakers at the event also underscored the impacts of Canadian mining here on Turtle Island. At the rally, Chief Turtle of Grassy Narrows First Nation highlighted the impacts of the mining industry on Indigenous communities in Ontario, saying “We don’t support any kind of mining activity on our land because we have suffered too much already from the impacts of mercury and industry. We are very concerned about the long term damage mining does to the environment. We want to protect our Territory as long as possible so that generations of our children can enjoy our land for hundreds of years to come.”

The Chiefs of Ontario, representing all 133 First Nations in the province, recently issued a year-long moratorium on claims staking, after being overwhelmed by an influx of new claims.

The crowd gathered outside PDAC’s gala heard from Chief Chris Moonias of Neskantaga First Nation. “We are still fighting for our land, our rights and our way of life, to protect our people,” said Chief Chris Moonias. “We haven’t given our free, prior and informed consent to mining activities in our homeland. We know that it will have a big and lasting impact on our land and way of life for many generations to come. We are still taking our youth home in coffins when they pursue education in the city. We are still taking our Elders home in coffins when they seek services. We are still living in third world conditions but all Premier Ford wants is to push dangerous mines on us.”

Speaking by video, Indigenous Iawá leader Lorena Curuaia spoke about her community’s resistance to Canadian company Belo Sun’s proposed Volta Grande project in the Brazilian Amazon. “There hasn’t been free, prior and informed consultation with the people of the Xingu and we’ve been here forever. This territory is ours,” she stated. “The Iawá community rejects all of this and we are very concerned because one project on top of another will end our fauna, our flora. It is going to wipe out the river.”

 

MINING AS A FALSE SOLUTION TO THE CLIMATE CRISIS

At the PDAC convention, the mining industry’s efforts to paint itself as a climate change hero are on full display, with a heavy focus on the “critical minerals” needed for electric vehicle batteries and other so-called “green technologies.” There is no mention from the industry – or the provincial and federal governments that enthusiastically support it – that extracting and processing of metals and minerals accounts for 26 per cent of global carbon emissions and that securing those minerals often comes with significant violence.

“Electric vehicle batteries require an immense amount of coltan,” said Chuka Ejeckam, a supporter of the Black Alliance for Peace. “Getting at the primary source of coltan is forcing West Africans into horrific working conditions. Why should some people prosper, while others are sacrificed? The companies inside this gala are celebrating their ability to generate profit at the expense of all life on this planet. By acting as a global home for these companies, Canada is helping facilitate the crimes these companies commit. This is indefensible.”

“We know PDAC’s rhetoric about ‘community engagement and sustainability’ is an attempt at covering up what they are really up to, and the companies winning awards this year are not the exception, but the rule: spreading environmental destruction and inflicting violence on communities wherever they go,” said Merle Davis, an organizer with the Mining Injustice Solidarity Network. “We stand in solidarity with communities across Turtle Island and around the world resisting the violence enacted by the mining industry, and building real climate justice and a livable future. More and more people are seeing the ways that the mining industry is part of some of the most destructive forces on the planet. We know that communities out here in the streets today, and the communities around the world resisting Canadian mining, are the ones going to make a future possible for all of us – not the companies inside.”

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BACKGROUND:

A snapshot of some of this year’s PDAC award winners:

O3 Mining awarded for exception ESG performance

  • O3 Mining is being given a sustainability award for its ESG (environmental, social and governance) performance – at the same time as the company is proposing to destroy the Keriens River to build its Marban Alliance Project in Quebec. 
  • Gold mining causes significant environmental destruction to acquire a metal with little functional purpose. Of the 10% of gold that is mined for industrial uses, that demand could easily be met by recycling. 
  • Celebrating a gold mining company for its ESG performance is deeply disingenuous, prioritizing profits for shareholders at the expense of impacted communities and ecosystems.

The Lundin Group’s Vicuňa Exploration Team is being awarded for a copper discovery in Chile and Argentina.

  • Canadian mining companies operating in Argentina have a recent history of violent repression against communities and huge environmental and health impacts. In Chile, communities have had to fight against Canadian companies failing to undertake proper consultations, and an inadequate government environmental assessment process.
  • Lundin already has a history in Chile, where the company Minera Candelaria (owned by Lundin Mining) has faced sanctions for environmental non-compliance, as well as being criminally charged with bribery and corruption. Part of the allegations include that the company paid bribes in order to prevent municipal governments delaying the environmental approval process.
  • Executives from the former Lundin Oil have been indicted on charges of war crimes  for the company’s activities in South Sudan. Lundin Oil (since renamed several times, currently called Orron Energy) is part of the Lundin Group of companies, and one of the individuals on trial is the son of the founder of this Group. It is alleged that Lundin collaborated with the Sudanese government to develop their oil fields, which involved the military killing over 12,000 people and displacing over 160,000 people in the area in what has been described as a “scorched earth campaign.” There are recorded accounts of attacks on at least 60 villages in Lundin’s oil field area between 1997 and 2002.
  • In Guatemala, BlueStone Resources (another part of the Lundin Group) continues to operate the Cerro Blanco project in the face of sustained community opposition and serious environmental concerns. The company recently announced it will change its operations from underground to an even-more-destructive open pit model.

Victoria Gold is being awarded for the financing of their Eagle Gold Mine in the Yukon.