The world’s largest mining convention is coming to Toronto again this year, to sell their vision of a future of war, environmental destruction and greed. Join us outside of their convention to show your support for the future we actually want and need. Bring your friends, family, neighbours and comrades for a family friendly rally! Land back. Defend land defenders. No more war.
📅 Sunday March 1st
⏰ 1 pm
📍 Simcoe Park (across from 255 Front St W, Toronto)
The mining industry and the governments that support and enable it are again using PDAC to advance their message that mining is the future. But we know that their vision only leads to more war, more climate change, more pollution, more violence against communities and land defenders, more corporate greed, more inequality and more of the violent colonial systems that define this industry.
Join us to imagine and call for a future outside of extractivist thinking. A future of Indigenous sovereignty. A future of real bold solutions to climate change. A future with no billionaires. A future of abolishing police, prisons and borders. A future imagined and built by and for the community.
Access info:
- Accessibility details to come!
- Reach out to us at [email protected] with any questions, or feedback on how we can make this rally accessible to you!
Want to learn more about Canadian mining and the military industrial complex? Want to make some art to bring to the rally on March 1st? Join our teach-in and art build on February 21st. Learn more and register here!
Canadian Mining and the Military Industrial Complex
The Canadian mining industry plays a crucial role in the Military Industrial Complex, fueling violence on Turtle Island and around the world. This violence takes many forms: from deploying militarized forces to push through mining projects in Indigenous territory in Norway, Guatemala, Ecuador, and across Turtle Island, to imprisoning environmental defenders in El Salvador and Wet’suwet’en, the Canadian mining industry is mired in conflict. Not to mention its involvement in conflict zones like Tigray and the Congo.
This cycle of violence continues when minerals become weapons of war and genocide. Modern weapons require significant quantities of metals and minerals, like the F35 fighter jets Israel uses 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 claims to mine as a solution to the climate crisis.
Why should you care about the PDAC convention?
Because Canada’s mining companies, with the full and unconditional support of the Canadian government, wreak havoc on communities around the world, blatantly violating human and Indigenous rights, inflicting severe environmental destruction, and creating vast economic inequalities.
Because even as land defenders across so-called Canada are criminalized for simply being on their territory and pushing back against extractive projects that are forced through without their consent, extractive companies are gathering to pat each other on the back for their ‘corporate social responsibility’ and ‘sustainability’ efforts.
Because “business as usual” is a direct path to a planet that is literally unlivable. A world with even greater levels of wealth inequality. A world in which the mining companies that inflict mass displacement are also the ones lobbying for harsher border and migration policies. A world defined by imperialism and neo-colonialism. A world where capital takes precedence over human rights. This is not the world we deserve. And it is not the world we are trying to build.
