CIDA doles out corporate welfare to mining giants

In Oct 2010, Bill C-300, An Act respecting Corporate Accountability for the Activities of Mining, Oil or Gas in Developing Countries, went down to defeat 140 to 134 because 13 Liberals, 4 Bloc, and 4 NDP skipped the vote. The bill sought only to limit Canadian tax dollars being spent to subsidize mining abuses committed by Canadian-registered companies abroad and only if they agreed to it.


A couple of months later in January 2011, Bev Oda, Minister of 'Not Kairos' and International Cooperation, acknowledged that Canadian tax dollars were subsidizing mining companies' CSR (corporate social responsibility) projects through CIDA - half a million to Barrick Gold, another half million to Rio Tinto, etc etc up to a total of $50-million for the year.

Today's G&M : CIDA funds seen to be subsidizing mining firms

This marks the first time that CIDA and mining firms are jointly funding aid projects abroad ...         The mining industry is welcoming the new trend in Canada’s foreign-aid policy. 

“There is a policy shift under way, and it’s one we’re encouraged by,” said Pierre Gratton, the president of the Canadian Mining Association.

while World Vision Canada, a CIDA partner with Barrick Gold in Peru, put it this way  (italics mine):

 “Anything we can do to encourage and advocate for better mining practices, and support the communities that they are displacing or affecting, we’re contributing to a better lifestyle and environment for them.” 

Yes, sadly, communities will be displaced but at least our taxes will be there to help polish the image of their new corporate landlords . 


It's particularly galling that multinational mining giant Rio Tinto ($US15 billion-plus earnings in 2011) is receiving Canadian corporate welfare after locking  800 Canadian workers out on New Years Day in Quebec for protesting having their union jobs replaced by contract workers. Additionally, a court injunction only permits 20 workers to demonstrate at any one time and only at a distance of 150 metres from the front gate.


Back to the G&M :

Federal officials said the policy shift at CIDA is co-ordinated with efforts by International Trade and Natural Resources to encourage the growth of Canadian firms abroad

Sure it is.
A couple of days ago, Rio Tinto took majority control of Canada's Ivanhoe Mines which owns 66% of Mongolia's Oyu Tolgoi copper and gold mine, the rest being owned by the state of Mongolia. 
As it happens, Bev Oda was in Mongolia last August :

"looking to assist Mongolia to strengthen its democratic governance and economic growth"

 presumably with the help of China :

"In 2010, Rio Tinto said that it had held talks with its biggest shareholder, Chinalco, about the possibility of bringing in the Chinese state-owned company as a partner in Oyu Tolgoi"

Why are Canadian tax dollars subsidizing these massive multinational mining corps with corporate welfare again?
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Harper's war on women

Last July in Embassy Mag, Foreign Affairs officials accused political staffers within the ministry of quietly adjusting Canadian policy by eliminating phrases like "gender equality" from foreign policy missives.

Today, just weeks before the G8 leaders gather in Ontario to adopt Harper's action plan on maternal health, Embassy Mag reports :

"At Foreign Affairs, the past year has seen the entire division focused on women's rights and gender equality eliminated.

In Pakistan and Kenya, two countries where women's rights violations and violence against women are profound and systemic, CIDA has cut funds that were explicitly dedicated to gender equality. In Canada, Match International, the only international development organization devoted specifically to women's equality, has lost its funding.

Within CIDA, there is a noticeable retreat from gender equality work. Staff have recommended to NGOs that they remove the words "gender equality" from their proposal if they want a chance at funding."

To be filed alongside the 11 womens programs eliminated in the past few weeks.

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KAIROS - The new anti-Semitism vs the churches of Canada

Former American Enterprise Institute alumnus and currently director of communications for Immigration Minister Jason Kenney Alykhan Velshi explained the government decision to cut off funding for the Christian aid group KAIROS by "citing several non-government sources of information on Middle East political issues going back to 2006 that were critical of KAIROS's activities":

Kenney’s office pointed to critical comments made by an Israel-based group. The NGO Monitor said KAIROS is a “main supporter of the anti-Israel divestment movement in Canada.”

"Kenney’s office also pointed to a 2006 press release from B’nai Brith and Canadian Christian College president Charles McVety calling on CIDA to stop funding KAIROS."

Speaking at a forum in Israel, Kenney cited the decision to cut funding to KAIROS as an example of one of the steps the Conservative government has taken to fight anti-Semitism.

Members of the KAIROS aid group - the United Church of Canada, the Anglican Church of Canada, the Presbyterian Church in Canada, the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Canada, the Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops and the Mennonite Central Committee - are understandably pissed :

"It's a horrible charge to make, and to do it with so little thought cheapens the reality of anti-Semitism in the world and diminishes the very careful attention that it deserves," said United Church spokesperson Bruce Gregersen.

"The policies of KAIROS have all been approved by the collective board of KAIROS, so in a sense what Mr. Kenney is doing is accusing Canadian churches of being anti-Semitic and I think that's really unfortunate," Gregersen said in an interview.

"Minister Kenney's charge against KAIROS is false."

You guys haven't being paying attention, have you?
Sending aid to Palestine is criticism of Israel. Criticism of Israel is the new anti-Semitism.
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Kenney made his ridiculous fawning speech announcing the reason for the funding cut to KAIROS from the Global Forum for Combating Anti-Semitism in Jerusalem, where he was accompanied by Canadian Parliamentary Coalition to Combat Antisemitism co-chairs Lib MP Mario Silva and Con MP ScottReid, along with IACCA founding member, Lib MP Irwin Cotler.

The chair of the conference, Israel's Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs Avigdor Lieberman, laid it out in his opening remarks : "Being anti-Israel is the new anti-Semitism".
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From KAIROS : Seven ways to support KAIROS, including a petition.
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Canada's "shock doctrine" in Honduras

On June 28th, 200 soldiers of the Honduran military kidnapped the president, Manuel “Mel” Zelaya, and flew him to Costa Rica. His attempted return 4 days ago was unsuccessful.
The coup d'eat was roundly condemned by the UN, the EU, the Organization of American States, and rather more tepidly by the USA; the EU pulled its diplomats; the World Bank suspended aid; and all called for the return and reinstatement of Zelaya.

Amidst this near-universal condemnation, on Saturday Canada's Minister for the Americas, Peter Kent, recommended that ousted President Manuel Zelaya delay his planned return to the country, saying the "time is not right". When 2 of 100,000 Zelaya supporters waiting for his plane to land at the airport were shot by the military, Kent went on national tv to blame Zelaya for their deaths.

What is he on about?
Corporate interests and the fear of united social reform in Latin America.
After a devastating hurricane destroyed most of Honduras' crops and infrastructure in 1998, Canada offered millions in aid in return for opening up the country to Canadian mining interests.
Canada and the US also took advantage of this disaster/opportunity, as they did in Colombia, to rewrite Honduras mining laws, granting Canadian corporations tax breaks and land rights to mineral extraction over the rights of local communities. Canada is now the second largest "foreign investor" in the country.

Ashley Holly at The Tyee : Shame on Canada :

"Currently, Canadian companies own 33 per cent of mineral investments in Latin America, accumulating to the ownership of over 100 properties. Export Development Canada contributes 50 per cent of Canadian Pension Plan money to mining companies, which offered upwards of $50 billion in 2003. Goldcorp alone has received nearly one billion dollars from CPP subsidies.

Although EDC is responsible for regulating Canadian industry abroad, it has been accused of failing to apply regulatory standards to 24 of 26 mining projects that it has funded.

In February 2003, nearly five hundred gallons of cyanide spilled into the Rio Lara, killing 18,000 fish. The mine in San Andres uses more water in one hour than an average Honduran family uses in one year. In that same year, mining companies earned $44.4 million, while the average income per capita in Honduras in 2004 was just $1,126USD."

Zelaya has been moving steadily left ever since his election : doubling minimum wage from $132 per month to $290 ; proposing nationalization of energy production and reforms to make government more transparent and accessible; joining Bolivia, Cuba, Dominica, Nicaragua and Venezuela in the left-leaning ALBA, formed to counter imperialism in the region; and - oh yeah - banning new mining concessions.

Canada's training of Honduran military personnel through its Military Training Assistance Programme is really paying off for Canadian mining corporations here. According to the MTAP Directorate, officials from DFAIT, DND, and CIDA combine to "promote Canadian foreign and defence policy interests," using "the mechanism of military training assistance to develop and enhance bilateral and defence relationships with countries of strategic interest to Canada."

As this Guatemalan newspaper asks : Will President Colom of Guatemala, Daniel Ortega of Nicaragua, or President Funes in El Salvador be next?

Zelaya discusses the coup with Amy Goodman on Democracy Now today.
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The dark side of Canadian foreign policy

The Black Book of Canadian Foreign Policy

by Yves Engler , Fernwood Publishing

A 2007 poll that Engler cites found "84% of Canadians believed Canada played a positive role on the world stage while 10 percent felt it was negative."
Being peacekeepers is a big part of the Canadian national identity.

We are at pains to differentiate ourselves from US corporate colonialism and we are pissed with Steve for his Cold War era mongering and his nonsense about "putting Canada back on the world stage." We never left, we say.

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In his new book to be launched May 3, Engler asks us to take another look at that mythology of Canadian foreign policy in dozens of countries in South America, the Middle East, Caribbean, Africa, and Palestine.

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Via The Dominion, a book review at Canuck Media Monitor.

The entry on Colombia [as the Cons shepherd the Canada-Colombia Free Trade bill through the House] :

"Colombia Canada's closest ally in Latin America is the country that has consistently had the worst human right record in the Western Hemisphere.

In 1997, Ottawa initiated a re-write of Colombia's mining code.
CIDA worked on it with a Colombian law firm and the Canadian Energy Research Institute (CERI). The proposals became law in 2001 and offered a familiar list of goodies to mining corporations: the weakening of environmental and labor laws, reduced royalties paid to the government, tax exemptions, and added years to mining concessions.

In the resource sector, the link between profiteering and massive human rights abuses, especially forced displacement, is very obvious. Colombia's population of internally displaced persons (3 million as of 2008) is second only to that of Sudan. Engler described how two Canadian companies, BFC Construction and Agra-Monenco, contributed to human rights violations in northeastern Colombia:

"With $18.2 million from EDC [Export Development Canada] the companies' Urra dam submerged over 7,400 hectares, including old-growth forest as well as the
lands and homes of 411 families, all of whom were without individual legal land titles, only having collective indigenous land rights. About 2,800 people were forcibly resettled to make way for the Canadian companies' project and a further 70,000 people were directly impacted. Predictably the community resisted the dam. According to Amnesty International, six indigenous people protesting the project were killed and ten additional members of the community were disappeared by paramilitary and guerrilla forces."

When Canada opposed a 2007 UN General Assembly declaration on the rights of
Indigenous people, it was not only facilitating the ongoing dispossession of indigenous peoples in Canada. It was protecting Canadian companies that have trampled on the rights of indigenous peoples around the world."

Chile? We sided with the US to cut off IMF funds to Salvador Allende but after the 1973 coup, endorsed sending Pinochet $95 million of IMF funds. By 1978 direct investments by Canadian companies in Chile totaled $1 billion.

Iran? We tried to sell them nuclear power.

Iraq? Them too.

Colombia we can still do something about. Go.

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Rory Stewart on Afghanistan

Photo : Women university students in Kabul, 1995

Then : Prior to the CIA-backed civil war in Afghanistan and the Taliban rule beginning in 1996, 50% of the students and 60% of the teachers at Kabul University were women, and 70% of school teachers, 50% of civilian government workers, and 40% of doctors in Kabul were women.

Now : "While the Bush administration boasts that millions of Afghan girls are now going to schools, what US media outlets won't tell you is that schools are still scarce in rural areas, and most schools that do function teach a curriculum limited to Islamic studies, similar to boys' schools during the Taliban era." ~Afghan Women's Mission

A couple of nights ago I watched Afghanistan expert Rory Stewart, the British diplomat to Iraq who walked across Afghanistan immediately following its invasion by the US, on tv on CPAC. He painted a pretty bleak picture.

No link but I took notes. Here is the stat that blew me away :

85% of aid money to Afghanistan goes straight to overhead and profits for private foreign contractors.

Holy shit. 85%. Cue Major General Smedley D. Butler.

Now that the fantasy of turning Afghanistan into a "shining, white city on the hill" has been shattered, he said, the international community would be better off focusing on the few things it does well and then getting the hell out. More troops just reinforces the Afghan sense of being occupied which only adds to Taliban numbers.

Stewart also stressed alarm at what he called Obama's "unrealistic picture of what can be achieved" : " 'We're going to win in Afghanistan.' I don't even know what he means. I don't know what he imagines victory would look like. You can no more win in Afghanistan than you can in the Congo, Chad, Nepal."

"What about women's rights", asked someone from the floor.

"This is what I meant by unrealistic expectations" he answered, warning that Afghanistan is not going to conform to western standards or return to pre-Taliban conditions any time soon - not women's rights, not democratic rights. Such unrealistic targets only lead to disillusionment and more troops, a longer stay.

Nonetheless he does support long term economic aid to projects with practical economic results - roads, electricity, hospitals, schools - and singled out CIDA as providing some of the better examples of reconstruction projects that work.
Stewart's own NGO to hire local Afghans to produce and market traditional handmade goods, Turquoise Mountain, is a CIDA beneficiary.
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US to take over Afghan mission, Taliban threatens Canadian aid workers

Times Online : "The United States is planning to take control of all military operations in Afghanistan next year with an Iraq-style troop surge after becoming frustrated at Nato’s failure to defeat the Taliban.

Plans are being drawn up to send as many as 15,000 extra troops to Afghanistan with a single US general always in command, as in Iraq, defence sources said. The Pentagon is also pushing for a permanent “unified command” in the south of the country that would sideline the Dutch and the Canadians.

The surge will also see US and other coalition special forces, which operate separately from the Nato command, absorbed into a single US command for the whole of Afghanistan."

Bush to Harper and Nato : I'm in charge here.

So can we go back to calling it Operation Enduring Freedom again now?

CBC : Canadians face more attacks, Taliban warns

"Just days after insurgents shot and killed two Canadian aid workers in eastern Afghanistan, the Taliban is warning similar attacks will occur.
The extremist group issued the warning in a letter posted on the internet, and the CBC confirmed its authenticity on Sunday after talking to Taliban spokesman Zabiullah Mujahid in Kandahar province:

"The Afghans did not go to Canada to kill Canadians. Rather it is the Canadians who came to Afghanistan to kill and torture the Afghans to please the fascist regime of America," the letter said."

Meanwhile, the Canadian International Development Agency CIDA has quietly revised its grant agreements to further shield the government from responsibility when aid workers are killed even as they told some organizations that they are more likely to receive funding for projects based in Kandahar, one of the most dangerous provinces in the country :

"Canada "shall not be liable for any losses, claims, damages, or expenses relating to any injury, disease, illness, disability or death of the employees or subcontractors of the organization alleged to be caused as a result of performing the agreement."

Nice. Stay tuned for Steve to nonetheless proclaim that Canada supports the troops, will not cut and run...