Canada

RIA Conference Vancouver 2024RIA Conference Vancouver 2024Finance

IRMA at Responsible Investment Association

11 June 2024By

In May IRMA  presented at the annual conference of the Responsible Investment Association in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. Launched more than 30 years ago, the RIA’s vision is to align capital with sustainable and inclusive development as codified in the Paris Agreement and the UN Sustainable Development Goals. Today, the RIA today serves the needs of investment institutions, financial planners and industry service-suppliers collectively managing more than C$44 trillion in assets. The RIA serves as a secretariat for Climate Engagement Canada, a finance-led initiative to drive dialogue between finance and industry to promote a just transition to a net zero economy.

IRMA participated as part of the Critical Minerals and Mining: Balancing Net-Zero Ambitions with Social Responsibilities panel. IRMA board and secretariat members also hosted a side session to introduce IRMA to Vancouver-based colleagues, and to talk about the issues of climate, energy transition, materials needed from mining, Indigenous rights and the role investors serve.

Given Canada’s large support for mining and mine finance, Canadian investors have the potential to play a major role in encouraging mining companies to pursue the IRMA Standard. IRMA’s strategy includes an effort to engage the RIA and its institutional members.

READ MORE
NGOs

BC Mining Law Reform Issues Recommendations for Legal Reform

7 August 2019By

BC Mining Law Reform was created in May 2019 to push for certain changes in the BC mining regulatory landscape. The new reports offer 69 recommendations that range from broad policy updates to small changes in current legislation. They include the adoption of free, prior, and informed consent for indigenous communities affected by mining projects and major changes to BC’s mineral tenure system.

Waste Disposal and Management: BC Mining Law Reform recommends reducing the number of existing tailings dams; moving away from wet tailing impoundments; adopting the Initiative for Responsible Mining Assurance (IRMA) Standard for Responsible Mining for waste management; and banning disposal of wastes into lakes, rivers, or oceans.

Water Protection: BC Mining Law Reform recommends the adoption of the IRMA Standard for Responsible Mining water management standards, including full consultation with communities and stakeholders on critical water-related issues, with third party independent reviews. The network also recommends the prohibition of mines likely to require perpetual water treatment unless able to meet exceptional criteria.

Read full article >

READ MORE
Mining

Canadian mining companies will now face human rights charges in Canadian courts

11 June 2019By

“Canada is the undisputed powerhouse of the mining industry, home to 75 per cent of its companies — but the industry is plagued by allegations of rape and slavery abroad. Now those who feel harmed or violated can seek justice back in Canada,” according to an article published in The Narwhal on June 7, 2019 (Read full article here). In the piece, IRMA Executive Director, Aimee Boulanger is quoted where author Andrew Findlay says that Canadian companies need to do more to be responsible and cites IRMA as the independent standard that activists and industry are watching for as it becomes fully operational after its 12 years of development.

“‘We don’t yet have any Canadian mines that have come in asking to be recognized by [the Initiative for Responsible Mining Assurance] system, but we hope some soon will,’ Boulanger says.”

The article also states: “Boulanger places mining in a similar phase as the garment and forestry industries more than a decade ago, when consumers and activists began placing their practices in a glaring spotlight, whether it was a sweatshop in Bangladesh or old-growth clear-cutting in B.C. Such pressure helped put corporate and social responsibility at the top of boardroom agendas in those industries; Boulanger believes mining’s day of reckoning is next.”

“‘My hope is that CEOs will realize that they won’t be able to avoid this level of corporate responsibility indefinitely,’ she says.”

Access the full article on The Narwhal.

 

READ MORE
Blog

30 law and advocacy groups in Canada recognize IRMA

30 May 2019By

 

This is one of more than 60 recommendations released in British Columbia, Canada in May as part of a package of legal reforms launched by more than 30 mining advocacy and law organizations. The recommendations are calling for an overhaul in the way BC regulates exploration, placer mining and metal/mineral mining.

B.C. Mining Law Reform: A Plan of Action for Change is the result of two years of research begun by the Environmental Law Centre, with support from Indigenous advocates and groups like MiningWatch Canada.

Read the full article on The Narwhal.

READ MORE
North America

B.C. needs to act quickly to prevent future mine-tailings disasters

14 March 2019By

Loretta Williams, chairwoman of First Nations Women Advocating Responsible Mining and Calvin Sandborn, QC, legal director of the Environmental Law Centre at the University of Victoria call on Premier John Horgan to act now to protect the workers and communities below tailings dams.

Photo Credit: Jonathan Hayward / The Canadian Press.

About five years ago, both B.C. and Brazil got dramatic warnings of the danger that tailings dams pose. In 2014, the Mount Polley mine dam collapsed, creating one of Canada’s most epic environmental disasters. Only 15 months later, a tailings dam in Mariana, Brazil, collapsed, wiping out a neighbourhood, killing 19 and poisoning a vast watershed. Fish literally leaped out of the river to flap on the banks, trying to escape lethal effluent.

Read full article >

READ MORE