Episode 204

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Published on:

21st Oct 2025

Canadian Mining Imperialism: Guatemala's 13 Brave Giants

The Canadian Mining Industry is notorious for its patterns of aiding in regime change, displacing Indigenous peoples from their lands, and the horrific human rights abuses that go with all of that.

Activist and author Grahame Russell of Rights Action shares his firsthand experience with a landmark legal case. One that exposed HudBay's use of sexual violence, destruction and death at the Felix mine in Guatemala, but through Canadian courts. Its a story of perseverance, grassroots resourcefulness and pure courage in the face of corporate giants working hand-in-hand with governments, including our own.

Its also a discussion on Imperialism, Canada's role in the continued theft of indigenous land and what we can do about it.

Hosted by: Jessa McLean and Santiago Helou Quintero

Call to Action: When we asked our guest for a call to action for this episode, Grahame's reply was "Free Palestine'. We'd also encourage folks to read the entire 13 Giants Report.

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Transcript
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Greetings, friends. My name is Jess McLean, and I'm here to provide you with some blueprints

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of disruption. This weekly podcast is dedicated to amplifying the work of activists, examining

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power structures, and sharing the success stories from the grassroots. Through these discussions,

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we hope to provide folks with the tools and the inspiration they need to start to dismantle

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capitalism, decolonize our spaces, and bring about the political revolution that we know

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we need. We often talk about how Canadian imperialism does not receive the criticism it deserves,

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and I can think of no better example than the Canadian mining industry. The large majority

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of the world's mining companies are based in Canada and the extent of their human rights

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abuses go shamefully under-reported. Worse yet is the failure of our legal system to hold

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them accountable and deliver justice for those who have been wronged. Our guest today, Graham

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Russell, is here to talk about one of the few times a Canadian mining company was actually

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held accountable and the work it took to get there. This conversation opened up so many

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questions for us and its implications get to the very root of the struggle against imperialism.

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Welcome to the studio, Graham. Can you introduce yourself, please? Well, firstly, thanks for

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having me in, Graham Russell. I'm here because I work with the a small organization called

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Rights Action. It's uh legally incorporated in Canada and the US. And it's just a small

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NGO and we do the main focus of our work is in Central America and particularly Honduras

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and Guatemala. And then as part of the work we do, and a lot of that will come out in

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this discussion, I presume, we focus all of our education and activism on how Canada and

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the US. uh both our governments and our private sectors are often part of the problems. And

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so we bring the stories home, like this mining story we'll talk about, but we sort of tell

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folks, we educate folks to say, we're not helping them with their problems over there, we're

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working on our problems that are taking place over there. And we need to understand what

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is our role in Canada and the US government policies or private sector. in sort of creating,

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causing, and or benefiting from all of these harms. So that's sort of the working model

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that we apply to all the land defense struggles, human rights defense struggles that we support

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in Honduras and Guatemala. This particular case came to a legal challenge. In 2013, you were

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given clearance to launch a civil suit here in Canada. but for human rights abuses that

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took place in Guatemala. So like those are the problems. I mean, just a smidgen of the problems

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that you're talking about. And you say part of the problem, like they are the problem,

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not just part of the problem, but so the legal challenge, do you want to kind of just give

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us a little bit of a summary on, because the report that we will link to this episode. gives

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a lot of details, right? We won't be able to provide folks with all of the details here

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today, but you're probably talking to folks that perhaps aren't even aware of just how

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prolific our mining industry is, let alone the level of violence that you say is almost

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predictable and logical pattern of Canadian mining. think, cause like reading... I get

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to the second paragraph of your report and it's like a gut punch on just the incidents that

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you're covering with this one legal challenge, right? So like be prepared to be shocked folks,

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but if you can give us just a kind of a cursory overview. It's like that question I could just

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tell the whole story. uh For folks that follow up on this, do recommend the report. I think

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it's easy reading and it moves along and it includes all or most of the pieces that I

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think are worth addressing. The two lawyers on the case and a few other trusted people

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who've been involved from the beginning have read it a number of times and agree. The

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report itself is a very easy reading, but summary report of all the different pieces. In many

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ways, not that everyone will know what this means, this is a very typical sort of mining

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resistance struggle. So at once it's sort of a human rights defense struggle, a land and

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territory defense struggle, and a environmental defense struggle. And it's taking place in

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a context of a global South country like Guatemala. What are endemic in a country like Guatemala

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are racism against the indigenous people. exploitation and impoverishment of the majority population,

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then repression, political violence, and then systemic corruption and impunity. And

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I know that that's a mouthful, but it sets the stage because one thing that I've learned

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over all these years of working with Central America is this is not a case of uh one bad

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apple that HUDBAE Minerals, the company in this case, was a bad corporate actor in an otherwise

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sort of healthy situation between a rich, powerful, global North country, Canada, and quite a dominated

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and uh exploited global South country like Guatemala. This stuff happens all the time in many

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different sectors of the global economy. Justin Wright's actions work in Honduras and Guatemala

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alone. We deal with similar types of abuses that I'll talk about. in the ag industry sector,

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so agricultural production for export, fruits and bananas, African palm, coffee, et cetera.

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These types of harms and violations take place in the uh tourism industry, particularly in

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Honduras, where we're working with an indigenous Carifina people whose lives and lands are

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being devastated by the global tourism industry. what is becoming increasingly well known

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in Canada, slowly there's a trickle up effect going on with this type of activism related

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to mining. Canada, it happens prominently and regularly in the mining industry in many countries

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around the world, particularly countries of the global South, many countries across Africa,

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many countries across Latin America, et cetera. And the patterns are almost always the same.

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And then the result is always the same. In this particular case, the reason why we start the

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report focusing on why this was predictable is that the very same violations, which are

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very serious, gang rapes of Indigenous women, targeted killing of an Indigenous leader, and

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then the gratuitous shooting and paralyzing of a young man. I'll come back to that. these

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are the... the 13 victims that became plaintiffs in the Hudbay lawsuits. And this is in a certain

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region of Guatemala, the Eastern region, and they are the Mayan Ketchee people. But this

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mining story didn't begin with Hudbay um in 2004, it began with Inco, a hugely well, a

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very well-known Canadian company um a few decades ago, international nickel company at the time

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in the 60s, it was like one of the biggest mining companies in the world. They started this very

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mine site. It's called the Phoenix Mine. And there's a very brutal backstory at this very

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same mine site in the 70s and 80s, the 70s and early 1980s. And many of the same types

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of violations took place. All covered and shrouded in sort of political repression, military

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backed government. corruption and impunity. So there was forced evictions of Indigenous

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K'e'k'i people from their lands. There was targeted killing of community leaders. There is direct

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links between Inco's mining company at the time and one of the most well-known and horrific

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massacres in recent Guatemala history, the Panzos Massacre. I address that in the book a bit.

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I didn't know this until I started working out there in 2004. This is the backstory we learned

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once we started going there in 2004. So everything that happens from 2004 forward is almost a

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repeat of what happened in the 60s and 70s because the political, legal, economic conditions of

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Guatemala haven't changed one iota since that time. And certainly Canadian corporate interests

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and the power and wealth of the Canadian government hasn't changed one iota since that time. And

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so there's just a new wave of mining that kicks off in the late 90s and early 2000s. And that's

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where a group like Rights Action comes in. That's where I come in, in 2004, in this particular

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region. And that's when I start to learn the backstory. And to connect a dot, which is kind

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of depressing, but very telling, is that 11 of the plaintiffs in the Hudbay lawsuits or

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indigenous K'e'k'i women who were gang raped during the whole scale destruction of their

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village called Lote Ocho. uh A hundred very humble homes were burnt to the ground, chopped

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to the ground, uh chainsawed to the ground by hundreds of police, soldiers, and private security

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guards on January 17th, 2007. And as part of this brutal destruction of their entire

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village and way of life, uh they carried out gang rapes at the same time. We can come

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back to that. I'm gonna throw this back to you guys shortly. But in that village called

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Lote Ocho, a majority of those villagers lost family members in the Panzos massacre 30 years

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before. So we would go on delegation visits, I'd bring in journalists, I'd bring in study

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groups. And somewhere in the meeting, I would say, so put up your hands, how many people

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in this community lost family members in the Panzos massacre? And a majority of the community

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members put up their hands. An uncle, an aunt, a grandparent, a cousin, a grandfather, something

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like that. And so everything is sort of a repetition of the past because none of the underlying

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conditions have changed one bit. And Hudbay, and the predecessor company, Sky Resources,

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they sort of amalgamated and become one company. They walked into this and they know the backstory.

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It's all been well published and documented. So they just pick up this same mine in 2004

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and start doing many of the same things all over again. I'll leave it with this final point.

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The only thing, on a certain level, the only thing that fundamentally changed in this situation

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is there's more critical awareness going on in a country like Canada about the impact of

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our mining companies around the world. There's more activist groups on the ground, groups

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like Rights Action on the ground who are there present to get involved in supporting the um

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community defenders in their mining resistance struggles. And that starts to change the power

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dynamic just ever so slightly on the ground and it starts to make a difference. That's

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some power dynamic, though. You know, reading through the report, you're up against giants,

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like not to glorify them. know, Hudson's Bay is a Canadian uh icon amongst, you know, other

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things. Inco and its rich history and oh massive law firms in Toronto, Fasken-Martino. um It's

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incredible the amount of resources that were likely lodged against you just from the Canadian

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perspective. But knowing this is like a global pattern over and over again makes it even

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more incredible to think of the impunity that they've operated with for so long that you're

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starting to push up against. um What did you name your report? 13 brave giants. I for some

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reason, that's not my note. It's the best title in the world and I'll tell you why. But the

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subtitle is how we won the Hudbay Minerals lawsuits and the minor Pettier criminal trial in Guatemala

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and at what cost because it even choosing to proceed with the justice struggles in Canada.

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And then there was a parallel criminal trial in Guatemala. made matters worse in certain

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ways because of uh the threats and violence that came with it, particularly for the plaintiffs

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on the ground in Guatemala. So it was an amazing struggle. It was a courageous struggle, particularly

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by the 13 plaintiffs and their families. And we did win in the end. It's sort of uh a qualified

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win because it's civil lawsuits and it's financial reparations for the victims and their families.

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And honestly, don't think Hudbay really cares about this that much. When it comes right

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down to it, it's just chump change is a bit uh bit flippant, but it's just a small amount

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of money for a company like Hudbay. But uh we did win, but it did come at a cost. And

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then during the struggle during the years, and this is part of the story that I said out

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in the report, we received huge amounts of grassroots support, not just the plaintiffs in Guatemala.

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with uh groups like Rights Action and then other groups like Breaking the Silence, an activist

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NGO out of Nova Scotia and other groups, uh Mining and Justice Solidarity Network in Toronto,

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Misson, did a lot of activism, educational activism in Toronto around the time of the

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hearings. So we got a lot of uh collective grassroots support, North and South. And in the middle

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of the lawsuits in Toronto, when plaintiffs had to come North at a certain point, to participate

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in uh examinations for discovery as part of the legal process, which are actually more

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widely known as depositions, on-the-record depositions. A local Honduran Canadian activist, Pati

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Flores, who's also an artist, just came up with that beautiful painting that's on the cover.

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It's the most beautiful, it's my favorite painting in life because I was involved in the struggle.

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So they are the 13 brave giants in this case. And we were able to put together sort of a

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pretty solid core team, receiving tons of support from many different places. And we were able

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to stay together for the 15 years as I think, I'm very much of the opinion that Hudbay not

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just was fighting this legally, but they were trying to grind us down financially and wear

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out. the already impoverished plaintiffs. And let me just harp on that point a bit.

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These are subsistence living victims before the harms have begun. And by subsistence economy,

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they're people who live on the edge of very serious poverty all the time. So when a bad

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year of drought comes, ah drought, hunger will increase in the region. There's no other.

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social services to support the poor in a country like Guatemala, but let alone many countries

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around the world. So they're called subsistence farmers. They live off their land. And what

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they produce is what they get to eat and try and make it last for the whole length of the

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year, especially through the dry seasons. And if the men of the family go out and look for

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work, they're going to be getting low paid exploitative labor somewhere for three months to bring home

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a little bit of cash. So the notion of subsistence farming is widely known in the global south.

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That's who they were before the mining harms began. So then their situation of poverty was

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thrown off a cliff when the 11 women and their entire village was destroyed and burnt to

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the ground and they never got it back. So they're now scratching out a living, living with family

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members and cousins and whoever they can scratch out a living with. Angelica Chalk is one of

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the plaintiffs, her husband, who was a teacher and got a very low income, but had a steady

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income. He's killed. So her situation goes down the tubes. Herman Chook, the man in the wheelchair

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was a subsistence campesino himself, and he was the one source of sort of income for his

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family. He's incapacitated. He's in a wheelchair in the middle of nowhere in rural Guatemala

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and scratching out a living. So there's situation of poverty. was worsened considerably just

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by the harms in 2007, eight and nine. And then I think there was sort of probably not in

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writing somewhere and I could never prove this, but I suspect uh Hudbay took certain decisions

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and their lawyers and their brain trust in Guatemala to say, you know, let's just try and drag this

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on a bit and see if the plaintiffs and their lawyers and their support groups like Rights

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Action can stay with us because they had endless financial resources to. to fight the Hudbay

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lawsuits and then the minor pediatrial in Guatemala. Graham, I just want to ask, because I know

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a lot of people aren't going to be familiar with this, what is the scale of mining companies

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that are based off in Canada? Because I know it's a very large number. And what are some

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of the particular challenges then with holding them accountable legally given that they're

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operating around the world? I think the scale I'll beg off answering in a bit like clearly

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anyone who wants to follow up on the mining industry writ large in a country like Canada

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should follow the work of mining watch Canada out of Ottawa. They are go to group and they've

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been at this and they have massive sort of resources on their website. They've been doing

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this for 30 years and they weren't directly involved in these particular struggles, but

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I got to know their work through our work with mining resistance struggles in Guatemala and

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Honduras, which are just two countries, two small countries in the whole big picture.

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So Mining Watch is the go-to group and they, and as mining resistance activism has increased

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over the last 20 and 30 years in Canada, other groups have cropped up and started writing

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their own reports. And so by begging off the answer, what I mean to say is they have all

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the statistics on the number of Canadian mining companies, juniors and senior large mining

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companies operating in how many countries around the world at any given time, such that Canada

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calls itself and prides itself on being the mining capital of the world. And so through

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my work with Rights Action and Guatemala Honduras, we've worked on six different mining resistance

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struggles. And as I said at the outset, they're no better or no worse than so many others around

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the world. In terms of bringing the lawsuits, the biggest, besides getting into the resource

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differential that we've already alluded to, the biggest challenge is that the Canadian

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system writ large, however you want to call it, the Canadian establishment, but that coming

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together of our political, economic, corporate and legal interests have never permitted such

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lawsuits in the past. So we get to the year 2010 and there's never been a lawsuit even

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in civil law, leaving aside criminal law and there's still no, there's no real way to hold

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our companies, whatever the industry they're in, tourism, mining, oil and gas, let alone

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military interventions around the world, there's no way to hold ourselves criminally accountable

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in Canada if and when our government and or private sector commit crimes in other countries.

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And we may come to one of these examples in Guatemala related to both HADBE but also

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another company, Gold Corp. So there's still almost complete impunity, i.e. immunity from

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liability in Canada for crimes that our companies directly commit. or indirectly commit. It

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had never been done on the civil law side, and you'd have to speak with our lawyers, Corey

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Wanlis and Murray Klippenstein, who can tell you the back story there of previous attempts

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in Canadian law by other activist lawyers, other good lawyers, and in other countries who tried,

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and then they failed because invariably this court or that court or the other court said,

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no, Canada's not the right jurisdiction. In our lawsuits, was sort of, there was sort

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of um a zeitgeist, like a coming together of a lot of good folks, increasing energy in Canada,

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uh increasing awareness in Canada, that we have a mining problem, increasing awareness trickling

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up through the activists and all the grassroots activism that went on for decades, mining watch,

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the little bit, the two bit groups like Rights Action, Misson. the breaking the silence, et

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cetera, many others, trickle up activism and getting nowhere fast because nothing is being

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done in Canada. There's virtually no political oversight in parliament except for one or

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two one-off politicians would do something and try and bring some political oversight

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through parliamentary committees. And then there was just no legal oversight and the media plays

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a role of typical role of really not covering addressing and reporting on these issues

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in the depth and breadth that they merit. So that's the context. And then Corey and Murray,

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Corey Wanus and Murray Clevenstein come along and I've met them actually before and I've

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met them in conferences and they're like, we're looking for a case where we could try one more

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time to break through the wall of impunity. And they reached out after the assassination,

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targeted killing of Adolfo Ish. that we'd been working on for five years and reporting on.

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And I had a trusted relationship in that part of Guatemala for the previous five years. And

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they said, Graham, we're interested in that. Do you think we could start a process with

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the widow, Angelica Choc, to see if she would be interested in filing a negligence civil

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lawsuit in Canada against Hudbay for the killing of her husband? So that kicked off this process.

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And it's summarized in the report, but the first three years, the first year was all pre-lawstutes

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discussions with Angelica's family. And then like anywhere around the world, there's just

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so much other violence that has been committed. when I would be telling them or Corey would

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come on a trip with me and we'd say, well, what about Herman? He's in a wheelchair just over

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there. He got shot that same day. Mm-hmm, could look into it. Well, what about the rape of

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the women who got brutalized two years before? And Rights Action's been working on both these

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issues, providing grassroots funding for the victims, doing the activism, documenting this

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stuff. So we had good trusting relationships, and we knew how to deal with these communities,

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and they knew us. At the end of the first year, That's when it wasn't just Angelica Chalk signing

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on, but Herman Chubb, the young man who was shot and then left paralyzed. And then very

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amazingly, the 11 women took the decision to say, yes, we'd like to try these lawsuits as

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well. And then Corey Murray had to take their own decision and say, how much can we take

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on? This has never been done in Canada before. How much can we take on? The long and the short

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of it is that Three different lawsuits were filed dealing with these 13 plaintiffs. Then

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there was two years of what are called pretrial motions to dismiss. This was ultimately the

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key novel battle because this battle had been tried before until finally they got to the

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ruling of a judge who said, no jurisdiction in Canada, go take this over to Guatemala.

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And that's what changed in July of 2013. when finally a Canadian judge looked at the whole

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thing and went, of course, these should be heard in Canada. Correct. That was actually the

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legal precedent. That set the precedent that opened the door and made the Hudbay lawsuits

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famous. And it actually started to get us some mainstream media coverage for the first

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time. And I don't want to thank the mainstream media because they should be writing on these

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issues all along, which they don't. But they started covering this story because it was

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novel. And then there was some good reporters who wanted to dig a little bit deeper, um individual

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reporters. So that raised the profile of the Hudbay lawsuits and things just started to

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move forward and gather energy. then the 11 years of legal slogging started from 2013

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right through to 2024. I'm just chuckling because you say this breakthrough moment happened and

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I keep having to remind myself you're talking about over 10 years ago. And the settlement

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doesn't actually happen until October 2024, correct? Well, that's it because how do they

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change strategies? They fought hard to try and have these thrown out of Canada. They're called

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pre-trial motions to dismiss. Dear Canadian court, before you even read that stuff, they

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should not be held here. They should be in Guatemala because blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Well,

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that blah, blah, blah is important. Why don't they want it? Why do they want to it to Guatemala?

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As it happened in other cases around the world, because they know they won't admit it. Like

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if you read the websites of the Canadian government or the mining industry, and I'm simplifying

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this a bit, but they would say, We are working in Guatemala according to the rule of law.

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We are bringing development there to help the poor because they need jobs. are, Canadian

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government has full diplomatic relations with the democratically elected government of Guatemala.

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I'm simplifying a bit, but not much. That is classic sort of PR 101. Canadian government

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and the mining companies all say the same thing. When you work in these countries, or when you

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see the history of Guatemala and Canada's role there and the mining industry's role there,

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we know that they know that we know that they know that none of that is true. Like they're

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profoundly undemocratic countries. They are characterized by what I said before, military

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repression, impunity, corruption, exploitation, racism, et cetera. Again, I'm simplifying,

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but not much. And the companies know this. And the Canadian government knows it, but

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they don't say that. So they want the trial headed, sent back to Guatemala because they

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know that dollars to donuts, it's not going to go anywhere there because part of the corruption

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is the corruption of the legal system. One more element of corruption. think that brings

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us to part of the pattern that I'm kind of backtracking as to the coup. And, you know, we've seen

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this replay so many times, it's almost comical if there wasn't so much at stake. where the

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Canadian government refuses to recognize uh elected folks in South America, or the global

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South, or all over the place. And once a coup happens and the right people are there, Canada

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all of a sudden reestablishes diplomatic relations and enter in co, almost immediately, right,

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with the 40-year lease. And I know that that coup was US backed, but it's hard for me. And

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I don't know if you actually say that in your reporting. I don't think you do, but it's hard

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for me to believe that Canada just happened to walk in afterwards, that there was no role

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for them or INCO on the ground ah to establish that coup and to then take over the resources

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of Guatemala. Yeah, just like that part of the pattern on top of the violence that then

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needs to happen in order to make way on Indigenous land, right? Because they have the coup, they

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have the political element, but they don't have the physical land just yet. Right? I don't

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know. I'm just like, we just finished doing an episode, Santiago and I talking about the

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ceasefire in Palestine and where we just consistently see these patterns that where you can just

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watch the media, but but more so capital and the Canadian government and other global governments

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just work seamlessly together um to instill the conditions that they need for maximum resource

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extraction. Listen, that's an extremely brutal example of many of the same factors that go

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into a story like the mining industry writ large and then specifically in this case, the

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HUD-based story. These are very predictable systemic stories. the situation with the US

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and Canadian backed genocides is just in Palestine. It's just so extreme that I'm sure anyone listening

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to this show or most people would be shaking their head in agreement one way or another.

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It's just so extreme, but it is the coming together of all of many of the same factors

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at play. And that's pretty demoralizing stuff, honestly. It's tough. mean, it does bring you

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to, think, like, I mean, we're not there, we're not signing off or anything. But the final

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point you kind of make in your report uh or close to the end was, you know, system change.

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Like, because you do have a victory. know it has an asterisk next to it that you've

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explained, but, you know, you've set a precedent. But the mining hasn't stopped, not even at

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that location. Right. And then You've just explained this pattern is repeated a hundred

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times over and in all these different places. And I think your quote there was like, look,

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like things won't change unless the Guatemalan and Canadian governments essentially function

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entirely differently, like a whole different beings altogether. Otherwise they're really

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just not band-aids because they don't really, but perhaps. ah It changes the way some of

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these companies will need to operate in the future just because there might be financial

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implications, image, will it create a political crisis you need here in Canada? I guess like

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that's the goal too, right? Like there's not been a lot of noise made here in Canada, even

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though we were so proud of our mining industry. And this is such a sensational story. I mean,

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the violence that took place, you know, can and would be made into a movie, you know, and

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the media just kind of didn't really grab hold of this despite its sensationalism and clear

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Canadian ties. um So yeah, any idea on like Santiago, do you want to chime into as well?

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Like we almost had that conversation earlier where trying to explain how um a story like

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this didn't get more traction. think it's because it is so systemic. And so. um The, as I said

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earlier, and as we were saying earlier, I don't think the media before 2010, let's say, properly

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reported on mining related harms and violence, corruption, et cetera, around the world properly.

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And I don't think they started to do it after 2010. What they start, I shouldn't say 2010,

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it was really 2013 when the judge accepted jurisdiction. and created this novel thing in Canada. So

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they said, oh, let's pay attention to that. And fair enough, I'm glad they did, but they

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should have been doing their jobs right from the get-go. And they gave Hudbay extra attention

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all through the 2000s, all through the 2010s and into the 20s. There's similar mining

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stuff happening across the planet all the time. And they're not then saying, oh, there's a

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bigger story here than we knew. Let's go follow them all. They did give some attention to the

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HUDBAE because it was a novel civil lawsuits that changed Canadian law and fair enough.

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um And then I think it's just reverted to status quo again now. And there's just no, they're

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not gonna really follow up on the story because it has to do with big corporate interests,

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big investor interests. You scratch the surface on this stuff and all of our pension funds

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are invested in the mining industry. let alone many sectors of the military industry, let

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alone the oil and gas. Like it's very systemic stuff. And it was, be a little bit like snarky

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about the media, was like fun to have these novel lawsuits. ah But let's get back to,

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you know, promoting Canadian interests at home and abroad around the world. And that's really

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what our fundamental job is, in sort of concert with the government and our business interests.

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And so they're not really, we're hoping that these lawsuits are sort of opening the door

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on getting a tiny bit more access to even minimal civil law and criminal law justice. I don't

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think the media is using these lawsuits as a crack into doing more wide reporting on

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the systemic nature of mining related harms in many countries around the world. In fact,

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right now there's... There's these pretty extraordinary lawsuits in Canadian courts against Barrick

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Gold. And Barrick Gold is a bit like the elephant in the room in the Canadian mining industry,

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particularly the gold industry. But Barrick Gold is a giant. And Peter Monk, the famous

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Monk Center, and these are people that donate gazillions of dollars and get their names splashed

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all over buildings. And they're great philanthropists. And so Peter Monk and Barrick Gold, that's

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kind of mining royalty. If you look at the board of directors of Bear Gold, and I haven't

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done it recently, but when Brian Mulrooney left office, you know, the next week he entered

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the board of directors of Bear Gold, like the revolving circle between political interests

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and political sector and corporate sector. So Bear Gold is like the elephant is a grandfather

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of the mining industry. There's lawsuits today in Canadian courts, civil lawsuits. for some

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very serious harms and violence and killings in Tanzania. That's a pretty good story. We'll

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follow up with them. Yeah. You know, breaking news, Globe and Mail, breaking news, global

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news, et cetera. And if they did give some serious attention to Hud Bay, which they did

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to a certain extent, it's a logical step to pick an even bigger situation and say, let's

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really shine a light on this. It's not happening as far as I know. And I think it's sort of

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the closing in of sort of establishment interests and the image we project of ourselves as Canada

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around the world and how we want to always promote Canadian political slash economic interests

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at all costs in a very unjust, unequal global economic political system. Think Hunger Games.

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Are all of these lawsuits happening in civil court? None of it qualifies for criminal court.

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A, there's not too many of them, but Hudbay was the first and uh they broke this door open.

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There was a second case filed from Guatemala against a company called Tahoe Resources.

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Soon after it was filed, these cases were filed in 2010. Once the jurisdictional precedent

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was set in 2013, some cases were filed against Hudbay. Tacho resources, another mining struggle

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we worked on and some other groups like Breaking the Silence. And those lasted five years

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and they got a settlement in that case. But they, I think for reasons related to settlement,

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they're not allowed to talk about it. I'm actually not even sure what I just said is true, but

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no one's talking publicly and openly about the Tacho lawsuits. So I'm presuming that they

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were not allowed to through the settlement agreement, whereas we were allowed to. It was something

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we fought for at the settlement process. And we had sort of a six month quiet period.

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Was that a compromise between like a just like zero? Yes. And but now we're able to talk

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about virtually anything and give these opinions and tell my version of someone else's version

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of the whole story and try and dig deeper on all this. After the Tahoe cases, there was

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a case from Eritrea against a Canadian company called Nevson Mining. I think that's its name.

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And Nevson was partnered with the Eritrean government and they were doing slave labor

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at the mining, at some of the mine sites. And now there's the Barrett Gold cases. There's

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four cases that I know of. There's not been like this tidal wave of, whoa, now we can

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finally get justice. And this is on the civil law side. So I'm hoping they'll get more attention

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on the Barrett Gold cases to help keep up. keep trickling all this attention up and out. The

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criminal law side is like a black hole. We have a law in the books called Corruption

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of Foreign Public Officials Act. It's already criminal law. The law is there. is Canadian

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government officials and or company private actors, companies, banks, investors cannot

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make payoffs to officials in other countries. And officials includes, as far as I understand,

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uh political officials, judicial authorities, military, police, etc. Like anyone who's paid

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by the public in X country is a public official of sorts and you can't corrupt them. Makes

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sense. I think we have similar laws in Canada. You can't pay them explicitly to make political

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moves, but you can reward them financially, right? Because we brag about doing that all

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the time, right? It depends on what it is. So you'd have to read the law itself. But I can

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give you two examples. How this is going, the use of this law is going nowhere fast. Even

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in the Hudbay lawsuits, because of some decisions that Hudbay took, we had to fight some further

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legal battles during the 15 years. And through this, some of their internal corporate documents

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were revealed into the court record. So Corey Murray, as lawyers, got access to 19,000 confidential

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corporate documents that Hudbay had related to all of this mining stuff. We write about

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it in the report a bit. But that information is not made public. Corey Murray can use it

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to bolster their arguments if they go to court before a judge. They can't make it public.

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But if we're forced to go to court on a certain point, to argue a certain, they can make some

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of those documents public, put them in the court record, as they say, to explain to a judge,

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see, this is why we think we're right and they're wrong. We had to do that at least once in

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a significant case. and Marie were able to put it in court records that show that Hudbay was

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making uh fundamentally illegal cash payments of hundreds of thousands of dollars to police

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and military to co-plan and co-carry out the forced evictions that I was referring to, including

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the whole scale destruction of Lotecho, the community where the women were gang raped,

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in January of 2007. So that therefore, police and military were working together with the

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private security guards. And everyone knows this in Guatemala. Everyone knows this on the

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ground in Latin America and the global south. Companies work with military and police and

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their local security guards. But they always deny it and you don't get proof. But we got

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proof, made it public, so now we can talk about it this way. My understanding is that if there

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was uh an office in the attorney general's office, a robust office, when we're looking for corruption

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of foreign public official cases around the world and we're on the ball, we provided them

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with corporate documents. showing how they made these payments with no receipts, no contracts,

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no invoices to police and military via third parties to do the very things that we said

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they did that they denied that they did. That's not only strengthened our lawsuits in Canada,

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the civil lawsuits to say HUD-Base acting negligently, but you would think that would be, hmm, smells

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like or sounds like corruption. It sounds like that might be some company payments. to foreign

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public officials, police and military to do these things. Why don't we send a team of

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investigators, let's get some prosecutors and go down there and investigate this further

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to see if there's actually enough grounds to open, to file criminal charges for corruption.

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And what HUD-Bay did probably is small beans compared to what I think many corporations,

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banks and investors do. regularly around the world. But for me, and I can't say this legally

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because I don't know the law of that one, it's like an open and shut case that this should

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be investigated. At least investigated, right? So that's I mean in answering Santiago. There's

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no political will to even go after minimal criminal law accountability because the civil

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law is minimal civil law accountability that's never been done before. and we helped achieve

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it, and I'm grateful, but it's not system change. We don't even have minimal criminal law accountability.

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And then of course, we're one of those countries, the great West, we believe in the rule of law,

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we believe in democracy, we believe in good governance and accountability and all of this

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stuff that we preach to the planet. And there's just all of these cases all the time, just

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in the mining sector where we don't. It's just the opposite. I would argue there's plenty

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of political will. It's just pushed in the other direction, right? Like they aren't just not

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doing anything. You've given countless examples where they go out of their way. The Ambassador

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Cook uh story that you tell in their report is a great example of, you know, even someone

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kind of taking personal risk to defend or aid in a bet the mining companies in their human

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rights abuses, right? They're taking political risks sometimes to bolster this industry

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that they've kind of centered our economy around. Yes. Well, that it's the economy and these

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are economic interests to Canada to grow the Canadian economy, keep the profits flowing,

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keep ah the pension funds providing a good return for investors, keep private equity

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funds getting a good return on their investment. It's a very big systemic thing. So there's

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a marriage of interests between the mainstream political parties, corporate banking investor

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interests, including pension funds, et cetera. And then I think our media plays its role to

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sort of promote this and defend it in many ways. It's always a bit simplistic because there's

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always exceptions. in the role the media plays and there's good politicians trying to chip

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away at it and et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. But as a generalization, it's a very repetitive

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pattern. It's so frustrating to hear you say that it's predictable, you know, and it's

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not that you're saying flippantly, but it's just like, oh, what do you mean this was so

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predictable? And like, sure enough, you give examples. I'm not denying it by any We wrote

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this book, based on four different mining struggles, or we co-edited with a professor friend of

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mine, Catherine Nolan. In 2021, it was published and it's called Testimonial, Canadian mining

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in the aftermath of genocide in Guatemala. And it deals a bit with the lawsuits, but

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they were still ongoing. This deals with... four different mining resistance struggles

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in Guatemala that Rights Action has been sort of grassroots funding and involved with since

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2004. And everything's a repetitive pattern. And at the same time, Rights Action, just

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in our little corner of the planet, Honduras and Guatemala, we're working on two major mining

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resistance struggles in Honduras. They could have been included in the book. uh It's just

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repetitive patterns, the role of the Canadian government, the role of the embassy. The role

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of the local governments and their militaries and police, the roles of the local corporate

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elites who are our business partners, and then back in Canada, the role of our media and not

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properly reporting, the role of our Canadian government to promote the expansion of Canadian

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corporate interests and investor interests in other countries. And if and when the harms

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and violations start trickling out into the public sphere through the work of grassroots

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activism, independent journalists. Sometimes every now and then mainstream news, deny, deflect,

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obfuscate, or outright lie in certain cases. Anything, instead of doing what a government

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should do and go, we better look at what our companies are doing there. It's a very repetitive

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pattern. And Guatemala and Honduras are just two examples. The Hudbay minerals is just one

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typical example, except for there are these unique spectacular lawsuits that move the needle

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a bit and change the playing field just a bit. Hudson's Bay being at the, or Hudbay being

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at the root of this is, says a lot, I think about our Canadian image and our history,

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right? They're, of course, they're not going to go and look at what those companies are

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doing because they're following the exact model of colonization that was done here. in Canada

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and they are exporting this model outward, actively. yeah, like expecting, not that

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you're naive and expecting better of them, of most of them, but it's, that model, yeah,

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is not new to South America whatsoever. But I still think folks would be shocked, even

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people in the know, to read this report. So I won't just link the report. I'm also going

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to link the book. testimonial as well uh for folks to hopefully get a read out of that.

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Lots to learn here. We'll probably follow up with Mining Watch as well to get some names,

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names to go. To get the breadth of the number of companies, why they're headquartered

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in Canada, why Canada calls itself the mining capital of the world. and how many are incorporated

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here and then the interplay between the Canadian mining industry and then the Vancouver stock

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exchange, the Toronto stock exchange and the New York stock exchange. That's the mining

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industry. uh Or that's a very central part of the global mining industry. These three

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stock exchanges and a majority of them are a significant percentage being incorporated

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in Canada because there's favorable laws to incorporating in Canada. And by a significant

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percentage just off the top from from my brief research, it's estimated anywhere between

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like 60 % to 75 % of global mining companies are based in Canada. Like we are, the scale

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of this is immense. Like, yes. And, and then scratch the surface on whether where there's

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mineral interests around the planet, which is, oh, by the way, the entire planet, because

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there's minerals everywhere. And then you get the marriage with political interests and which

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types of governments were favoring and holding up and which kind of, which types of governments

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were trying to malign and criticize and weaken so that we can hopefully help get a government

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in power that then opens their, their countries, their policies, their laws to global mining

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investment. Enter Canada. It's, it's crazy to me how I feel like most people at this point

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are familiar with, for example, the concept of Banana Republics, right? Like that got

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a lot of coverage in its time. Whilst this is a topic that like is, to the same scale

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yet has, we have barely scratched the surface on. Like I honestly, I have so many questions

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and so many things that I, I want to ask and learn about here that like it's It's frightening.

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Well, it's pretty daunting. it doesn't get less daunting until it gets exposed and one dives

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into it further. I grew up in Canada and spent a large part of my life in the US as well.

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I'm a US citizen as well. It's what I was astounded by 30 years ago and 40 years ago, and I'm still

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astounded today, is we really don't know how the global economy works. We don't know how

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it was created over 500 years ago through centuries of imperialism, colonialism, settler colonialism.

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And we don't know how those very centuries of imperialism, colonialism, and settler colonialism.

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was the implementation of this global economic system we live in today, and that the global

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economic system continues to work in very much the same way, even though out of all of that

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mess of imperialism, colonialism, and central colonialism, comes this nation state system,

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and we're all born and raised to say, we're 198 autonomous sovereign nations. But it's

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almost virtually nonsense, the whole thing, when you see sort of the distribution of political

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and economic and military power. And you see the roots of it came through the same processes

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that we've already discussed. And so that's a lot of unpacking to do. And uh you can go

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into any major store, like appliance store, automobile store, grocery store, clothing store,

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shake a stick at anything. And we don't know how it was produced or where in most cases.

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at what cost. and mining is just a story in Canada that's starting to get a bit of traction.

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But we don't know the cost of bananas, the classic example of the banana republics. We don't know

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the cost of oil and gas production. We don't know how it's actually produced and what's

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going on and what governments are being thrown, overthrown or put in place. And it doesn't

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mean everything that's on the shelf is produced through horrific conditions. it's it's way

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more Have you ever worked at Home Depot? I'll leave it there. think we got our points across.

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It's very systemic and it's part of the daily fabric of our lives. It is. It's nice to see

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victories even if they have, you know, qualifiers because it helps to create a more hostile environment

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for these players who have been operating with almost total impunity. Seeing them just try

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to flat out deny one point in your report, I think there's a quote there from a CEO, some

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suit, you know, going out. I wasn't aware of any any evidence presented that would make

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my company look bad, you know, and you're like, well, here's some like, I've got I've got

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plenty and, you know, yeah, it might be a small teeny tiny dent, but it's worth kind of. opening

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up and sharing all of the stories that all the lessons rather that you learned through this

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decades long ordeal. I know it didn't open the floodgates back in 2013. think folks were also

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waiting to see how this played out and it still seems kind of daunting, know, can they last

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10 years? But there's lots of lessons to be learned from this report and from the experience

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of those 13 brave giants. I do appreciate you amplifying that and being a part of it from

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the get-go. Listen, it's been a real... Doing this type of local to global human rights

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activism, land defense activism, is always hard and daunting. it has been a huge... In that

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context, it's been a huge, amazing pleasure and honor to have been involved in these lawsuits.

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with these badass lawyers in Canada, the amazing plaintiffs and their families, some incredibly

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courageous lawyers in Guatemala, and then just an endless list of sort of individuals and

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different organizations in Canada, the US and Guatemala, who helped in a myriad of ways all

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along the way. It was worth the whole thing, and that it was this hard just shows how hard

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it is. uh now on to sort of the next battle and keep chipping away on every single battle

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because it's, you can never prove that any particular justice struggle of this nature

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uh won't get somewhere. A lot of them don't, majority of them don't get too far in my life

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and that's really hard stuff, but they all trickle up and contribute to moving hopefully

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the needle in a certain direction on the planet. Even as we watch the daily news as to what's

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going on in a place like Palestine and you just shake your head and go, holy shit, this is

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really daunting stuff. Listen, I'm glad that Blueprints for Disruption is out there trying

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to do set up some blueprints for disruption. Well, we couldn't do it if there wasn't people

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causing shit for us to talk about. um in the courtrooms, on the ground, all over the place.

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We very much appreciate the effort it takes and then coming in and telling us about that

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effort just adds to your list of things to do. yeah, we appreciate it. Our audience does as

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well. um Any parting words? Any words of wisdom for folks that are in their own daunting fights

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right now? How does one want to live their life on this planet? Like this is sort of a...

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I don't want to keep this too short or sort of simplistic, but this is the global order

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we live in. More and more of it's being exposed. It didn't start with these lawsuits. You can

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go back 50 and 100 years and see some of the early roots of some serious local to global

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activism. And ultimately, in a sense, think through the type of work I've been involved

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with, we're just playing catch up with the last 500 years of how the modern global political

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military economic order is constructed. We're barely trying to catch up to something that

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was put in place through all that we've discussed over the last 500 years, including this abomination

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called the transatlantic slave trade. What an extraordinary contribution to this profoundly

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unjust global order. and the destruction it left behind. In this type of activism today,

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just with this mining industry, we're just trying to catch up to an order that's been put in

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place over 500 years. And it's going to take literally generations and generations to

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try and slowly shift and transform this stuff. And sooner or later, the transformation has

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to come through to the powerful countries and the source of real global political, economic,

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military power. In Canada, we live in one of those places. We are part of that order. ah

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We have to bring these stories home to ourselves and say these are our stories, ah whether

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it's the wars and interventions, whether it's the global economic model, et cetera. And then

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we have to say, how do I and we want to live our lives? Do we want to live this way as quote

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unquote Canadians? And that type of activism is happening all across the planet all the

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time. And it is daunting. But there's no other way than to keep chipping away and spreading

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it out. That is a wrap on another episode of Blueprints of Disruption. Thank you for joining

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us. Also, a very big thank you to the producer of our show, Santiago Helu-Quintero. Blueprints

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of Disruption is an independent production operated cooperatively. You can follow us on Twitter

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at BPEofDisruption. If you'd like to help us continue disrupting the status quo. Please

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share our content and if you have the means, consider becoming a patron. Not only does our

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support come from the progressive community, so does our content. So reach out to us and

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let us know what or who we should be amplifying. So until next time, keep disrupting.

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About the Podcast

Blueprints of Disruption
A Podcast for Rabble Rousers
Blueprints of Disruption is dedicated to amplifying the work of activists, organizers and rabble rousers. This weekly podcast, hosted by Jessa McLean and Santiago Helou Quintero, features in-depth discussions that explore different ways to challenge capitalism, decolonize spaces and create movements on the ground. Together we will disrupt the status quo one episode at a time.

About your host

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Jessa McLean

Host, Jessa McLean is a socialist political and community organizer from Ontario.