Barrick Gold, the University of Toronto, and the Corporate Capture of the Canadian Government

From: Capitalism and Dispossession

$2.80

In Chapter 7, author Sakura Saunders presents a historical account of how Canadian civil actors have attempted to compel the Canadian government to hold Canadian mining companies to account for human rights abuses and environmental harm abroad. Despite sustained efforts over the past twenty years from Canadian civil society, these initiatives have been met with co-option, hostile retaliation, and feigned incompetence. The dynamics that have upheld corporate impunity reveal the institutions, companies, and politicians that have worked to delay and divert the movement for corporate accountability. The chapter focuses on Barrick Gold’s mines in Tanzania and Papua New Guinea and examines topics such as the Canada’s Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs and International Trade (SCFAIT), National Roundtables, the dismantling of the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA), Bill C-300, and the Canadian state repeated failure to create even modest mechanisms of accountability.