Mining Injustice: Is ‘Canada’s University’ Complicit? http://www.mediacoop.ca/story/mining-injustice-‘canada’s-university’-complicit/6817

 recent post on the University of Ottawa website celebrates the signing of an agreement between the University and the Devonshire Initiative (DI), a "forum for leading international development NGOs and Canadian mining companies to come together in response to the social agenda surrounding private sector investment and community development issues". However, the University’s support for the DI is raising a lot of eyebrows. Emelia Koberg, a student and a founder of Mining Justice Ottawa, says “this agreement was created without any consultation with students or professors and meetings are now closed to the University of Ottawa community, the very people who are supposed to be supporting this project – what do they have to hide?”

The linkages between the Devonshire Initiative and government are a cause for concern. Marketa Evans, who founded the DI, is now Canada’s CSR councilor. Audience member Sakura Saunders, editor of Protestbarrick.net, asked why the Devonshire Initiative, which was founded at the University of Toronto’s Munk School for Global Affairs on Devonshire Place (Peter Munk, a large sponsor of the school is the chairman of Barrick Gold), had moved to the University of Ottawa – “to lobby government perhaps?”

In fact, the DI has been meeting with governmental organizations, such as the International Development Research Centre (IDRC), a Canadian Crown Corporation, to ask for support. In fact, CIDA is now funding the majority of a 1.5 million dollar project in Peru, while Barrick Gold, the largest mining company in the world, is paying 150 00 $. Catherine Coumans challenges CIDA for their financing of CSR projects, “Why is it that Canadian taxpayer dollars, earmarked for development aid, are subsidizing Canadian mining companies for their CSR projects, when this is the responsibility of corporations?”.