Ontario Government's Self-Serving Changes to Mining Laws
In its scramble to serve the mining monopolies and tech companies involved in electric battery production, the Ford government in Ontario, like the Trudeau federal government, has been making all kinds of legislative and regulatory changes without any discussion permitted by the people of Ontario, not even the communities and Indigenous Peoples directly affected. The federal law, which is supposed to enshrine the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP), does not recognize the right to Free Prior Informed Consent which is integral to UNDRIP. Its only duty is to consult Indigenous Peoples and ignore their need for Free Prior Informed Consent. By ignoring hereditary rights, they then partner with business interests and band councils which claim to represent the interests of Indigenous Peoples. The government makes deals with one band or business while conniving to dispossess them all.
On March 2, 2023, Minister of Mines George Pirie -- also Timmins MPP and a mining executive -- introduced Bill 71, the Building More Mines Act, 2023 in the Ontario Legislature. In putting it forward he stated, "[T]he Mining Act will create the conditions for companies to build more mines while maintaining Ontario's environmental standards and duty to consult. These updates will also ensure we have the critical minerals in Ontario necessary to build the supply chain for electric vehicles." (TML emphasis.)
Nowhere in the introductory remarks did Minister Pirie address the workers or Indigenous Peoples who are on the front lines affirming their rights in the face of unscrupulous mining cartels and governments in their service who treat them as inconsequential things in their pursuit of making a killing from public subsidies for mineral investment and development. The Minister stuck to repeatedly salivating over the richness of the deposits and need for mining monopolies to access them. He said:
"Ontario has some of the world's most mineral-rich deposits, including the Ring of Fire, that house critical minerals used in manufacturing electric vehicles, smart phones, pharmaceuticals and other technologies." He added, "These changes would make Ontario more competitive, attract new investment to the province, and pave the way for Ontario to become the number one jurisdiction in the world for mineral investment and development."
In this way, the government speaks about "more" mines when the experience of the workers and Indigenous Peoples with existing mining monopolies is that they do as they please. In many cases, these monopolies have taken over government decision-making to get laws passed which serve them, while getting paid through tax incentives and handouts. It is all presented under the veneer of green energy by saying that the aim is to make electric vehicles, making it appear to be about being "green." This hides the actual aims and prevents any discussion about how to have mining developed in a manner that favours the working class and people, and the environment.
An example of how the people of Ontario are sidelined and deliberately eliminated from the discussion, comes from the Ontario legislature. Speaking to Bill 71 at Third Reading on May 8, 2023, Anthony Leardi, Essex MPP and Parliamentary Assistant to the Minister of Mines, said: "I'm from southern Ontario. I'm from the county of Essex. We have a nice mixed economy in Essex county. We have farming, we have industry, we have tourism, so that when one area of the economy is flagging, other areas of the economy have made up for that. We've always had opportunity in the riding of Essex, and we want to share that. We want to share that with all of Ontario. We want people in northern Ontario to have that too. People in northern Ontario, to a great extent, are dependent on mining. We want to share our kind of economic thriving with northern Ontario, and we can do that through this legislation."
In speaking about the area's "nice mixed economy," Leardi failed to mention that his riding has a very important salt mine. Why did the Parliamentary Assistant to the Minister of Mines fail to mention this? At that time, workers at this mine -- many of whom are Leardi's constituents -- had been on strike for 14 weeks. They were facing unacceptable demands from a U.S. holding company that would destroy their union through contracting out. The U.S. company had established a monopoly on salt production in North America, in part financed by the Ontario Teachers' Pension Plan.
Leardi, a former Ontario teacher turned lawyer, was hiding what is taking place in his riding in order to maintain a fiction about a prosperity in which private interests are emboldened by governments to do as they please against the workers, Indigenous Peoples, northern communities and the natural environment. This is not what the people of Ontario are demanding and government clearly speaks for interests other than theirs.
This article was published in
Volume 54 Number 20 - March 2024
Article Link:
https://cpcml.ca/Tmlm2024/Articles/MS542011.HTM
Website: www.cpcml.ca Email: editor@cpcml.ca