Last May an international congress on environmental education was held in Montreal with the participation of almost two thousand delegates. The Quebec Coalition on the Socio-Environmental Impact of Transnationals in Latin America coordinated a series of workshops at the congress and also an activity on Mount Royal, the emblematic symbol of Montreal: we invited several international delegates to register and open an open-put mine on the mountain! The residents were not amused and managed to get the government to withdraw the mountain from any possible candidacy for mining operations. (It was theoretically still an open possibility.) Nevertheless we went ahead with a symbolic opening of the mine. The action was an attempt to help the people of Montreal understand what is happening in many communities around the world. I personally have visited the site of the hill in Tambogrande (Peru) where the Canadian-based Manhattan company had attempted to convince the citizens to allow them to do precisely that. In Cerro de San Pedro, the Canadian subsidiary San Xavier Mine has destroyed the historic hill that is the symbol of the State in Mexico.
On the occasion of these events, several groups published the following declaration:
The Montreal Declaration
Within the framework of the Firth World Congress on Environmental Education in Montreal, Quebec, the signatories indicated below are participating in this encounter in which we have shared the wide variety of experiences that are taking place in defense of the land and against the advance throughout the world of the Canadian extractive industry. Counting on representatives from various countries (Chile, Argentina, Mexico, Papua New Guinea, Honduras and Canada), we have come to the conclusion that Canadian international mining companies are taking advantage of all the economic and political power that governments such as Canada and also local governments provide, even bypassing national laws and decrees that have declared certain territories to be protected zones. In so doing, they are also violating the human rights of indigenous, rural and urban communities.
In a number of cases, local populations have the weight of legal reason recognised by the appropriate juridical instances on their side. Nevertheless, rights have been trampled and the excesses demonstrate the plundering carried out by Canadian mining companies throughout the world who then hide behind the fact that in Canda there is no law regulating their activity outside Canadian borders. They pull out arguments about free trade treaties that irresponsible governments have signed with Canada while bypassing the federal constitution.
The activities that environmental groups have carried out to stop this enormous ecocide on the American continent, as well as in Africa and Oceania, are repressed by local governments in league with transnational companies. In this way, the companies become super-powers that condemn millions of people to the loss of their right to make choices about their immediate future, about their land and their right to a healthy environment.
For this reason those of us gathered here declare:
