The Montreal Declaration

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:



1. Our energetic protest against the governments of Canada, Argentina, Honduras, Chile, Mexico, Ecuador, Papua New Guinea and all those who have underhandedly assisted the illegal entry of these multinational corporations in the name of a “progress,” which conceals a new phase of looting, contamination and death in the Third World and among the Indigenous communities of Canada.

2. We demand equitable regulation in Canada that will help stop the abuses that transnational mining companies commit, whether on Canadian soil or in Latin America, Africa and Pacific Asia.

3. We express our solidarity with social movements in all these affected countries that are working to resist repression, political persecution, prison and – in the most serious cases – death. To a great extent these movements have succeeded in singling out transnational mining companies as highly contaminating industries that consistently act illegally. They have also brought to light the network of organized crime through which these companies act with impunity.

In particular, we salute the populations of those communities affected by the Pascua Lama Project on the border between Argentina and Chile. The mine, led by the transnational Barrick Gold, has recently received approval from the governments of Chile and Argentina to begin devastating a protected zone that is a water reserve of global importance.

4. We call on the international community to become informed about this new form of conquest taking place through transnational mining, as the impacts it generates on health and the environment are devastating. We are all affected.

5. We especially want to call Canadian and Quebec civil society to recognize that the Canadian parliament and the federal government are the primary entities responsible for making it possible for Canadian companies to carry out their illegal work inside and outside of Canada. They are all using public funds to finance these projects, including Canadian retirement funds. They are also providing the juridical tools so that these mining companies can work with impunity.

6. We commit ourselves to work together in a coordinated way, joining with other movements that are not with us today, but are clearly working hard and are suffering the consequences of international extractive industries

Because water and life are worth more than gold:

Montreal, Quebec, Canada, May 9, 2009