Canadian abuses

Despite Canada seeming like a forward rethinking country who is working on reconciliation on its own accord, the country is actually deeply linked to destruction and abuse in the Amazon. In 2023, Amazon Watch unveiled, Unmasking Canada: Rights Violations Across Latin America. which show corporate abuses linked to 37 Canadian projects across nine countries in Latin America and the Caribbean. This report shines a spotlight on the abuses and rights violations connected to mining and oil extractive projects specifically in Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador, and Peru. These projects are controlled by 16 Canadian companies and supported by Canadian banks. The consequences of their actions are devastating, causing severe damage to biodiversity, forests, and waterways, and 10 of the projects directly affect Indigenous peoples from at least 16 ethnic groups. We recommend you read or skim this report at your convenience.

Here at UBC, the Beaty Biodiversity Museum is named after Ross Beaty, the mining magnate who founded PanAmerican Silver in the 1990s. Despite PanAmerican Silver being one of these extractive mining corporations throughout South America that is stripping Indigenous peoples of their cultures and lands and stripping the earth of its natural wealth and biodiversity, Beaty donated $8 Million to the construction of a biodiversity museum on UBCʻs campus, which many of us have spent time in. This connection shows the blatant greenwashing and manipulation done by these companies to keep the West in compliance with the destruction that comes with their profits.

Activity

Please read the following articles. First up, an interview with Ross Beaty about his pro-environmental stance and donation to the construction of Beaty Biodiversity Museum

Silver miner, benefactor, green evangelist? At home with Ross Beaty

Next, an article exposing the harm and conflict created by PanAmerican Silver throughout Latin America. Be sure to explore the map linked in the article by EJ Atlas.

Conflict and harm at Pan American Silver

Reflection

• What do you think of this blatant contradiction? How does it change your perspective of UBC’s biodiversity museum?
• How does this case study represent the destructive relationships between the Global North and Global South? How does it produce greenwashing? How does it perpetuate the status quo?
• Where would you put Canadian corporations in this graphic? What about UBC? What systems of exploitation do they fuel and how?

• What can we, as students at UBC, do about this?

The rights violations discovered in the operations of Canadian companies in the Amazon rainforest of these four countries are deeply troubling, particularly considering Canada’s efforts to present itself as a human rights leader in the world. The report by Amazon Watch and this module are collective demands for accountability from Canada, an attempt to unmask the hidden predators and finally ****protect the precious ecosystems that sustain us all.

If you are interested in continuing to develop your understanding of the extractive relationships between the Global North and Global South, the following courses at UBC are recommended:

• GEOG 303- Climate Justice; Avi Lewis
  • An analysis of the systematic processes and injustices underlying climate change and climate injustice. A large portion of the class focuses on the extractive relationships that globalization and capitalism are founded on.
• GEOG 395- Culture, Nature, and Coloniality in Latin America; Juanita Sundberg
  • This class provides students with a critical analysis and history of Spanish colonialism, biological imperialism, contemporary coloniality, and social movements throughout Latin America.
• GEOG 495- Geographies of Social Movements in the Americas; Juanita Sundberg
  • The politics of North-South solidarity in theory and practice through community service learning models. The class works to ask and answer, “How do we acknowledge our entanglement in the global web of destructive socio-economic systems? How do we show up for the relationships and responsibilities we have because of this web in generative ways?”

False Reputations

We see that Canadian companies and universities are fueling the globalized networks of extraction and exploitation, but what about the government? Beyond the fact that they allow companies and universities to commit ecocide, femicide, resource grabs, and displacement of Indigenous communities around the world, they themselves are complicit in human rights abuses in Canada as well, specifically with Indigenous communities.

Take, for example, the case of Angela Davidson, aka Rainbow Eyez, and Fairy Creek. At Fairy Creek, over 1100 people were arrested for breaking an injunction and protecting an old growth forest and 15 of them were sued for $10 million by the logging company. One of Fairy Creek’s leaders, Rainbow Eyez was also given 60 days in jail for her act of protecting the forest and is currently appealing her sentence. In addition, multiple Elders who have been involved in self-determination efforts and healing movements for decades were arrested in May 2024 and given three months in jail for protesting the TMX pipeline in Burnaby, BC.

Although seemingly different through a superficial reputation of peace, Canada is no different than the rest of the West, except it hides its abuses better. The disguise done by nation-states to hide their abuses and exploitation show most governments and corporations are working to secure profit over the wellbeing of people and planet.

Reflection

• If Canadian companies and banks are just as involved in the extraction and destruction of the Amazon as Ecuadorian or Peruvian companies, what does this show about how nation-states are connected through capitalism and globalization?
• Do you think the solutions to these issues will be found in governments? Why or why not?

Conclusion

Now that we’re coming to understand how colonial systems of destruction and exploitation are tied to globalization, multinational corporations, capitalism, and nation-states, we’re going to start discussing what it would mean to dismantle some of these systems and build something that prioritizes people over planet.

Bibliography

Amazon Watch. Unmasking Canada: Rights Violations Across Latin America. Amazon Watch, 2023.

Canadian Press. Green deputy leader sentenced to jail for Fairy Creek old growth protests. Vancouver Sun, 2024.

Environmental Justice Atlas et al. Conflict and Harm at PanAmerican Silver. The Ecologist, 2020. https://theecologist.org/2020/mar/04/conflict-and-harm-pan-american-silver

Loik, Louise. Silver miner, benefactor, green evangelist? At home with Ross Beaty. Canada’s National Observer, 2018. https://www.nationalobserver.com/2018/03/12/news/silver-miner-benefactor-green-evangelist-home-ross-beaty

Marya, Rupa. Colonialism graphic. Instagram, 2023.

Mountain Protectors et al. This is Indigenous Peoples’ Day: Canada Chooses to Celebrate it by Jailing Indigenous Land Defenders. Instagram, 2024.

The Narwhal. Fairy Creek Blockades. The Narwhal, 2024.