The Harper Government Has Refused to Fill a Position to Oversee the Mining Industry

The Harper government is dragging its feet on filling a nearly year-old vacancy for a job to oversee Canada’s controversial mining industry. The position has already been widely criticized as an astroturfing effort to boost the damaged image of Canadian mining interests worldwide, despite its supposed mission of addressing the issues of our mining companies that are marauding throughout the Global South. But even though the job was panned for being ineffective, not having an overseer at all is clearly much worse than having a neutered one.

And things may soon get even more out of hand.

If you aren’t already familiar, 75 percent of the world’s mining companies are headquartered in Canada. Domestically, mining is a $50 billion a year industry that employs hundreds of thousands of people. The vast majority of the world’s mining capital flows through Toronto Stock Exchange. Canadian mining companies are spending some $130 billion abroad.

So when reports spring up about mining companies behaving badly, which is a frequent occurrence, there’s a very good chance the company is Canadian… Read Full Article