 I want to welcome you all to this event unearthing solidarity global voices on mining justice. We're so glad to have each and every one of you here and particularly pleased to have our panelists and moderator with us tonight. I would invite us now to consider the territory that we are on. And perhaps you will listen first, and then we can invite you to add to it afterwards. We'll do a territorial acknowledgement and then an opening prayer. So I would like to begin by acknowledging that we are meeting today on the traditional territories of indigenous peoples across Turtle Island. I would like to thank each group each individual for allowing us to meet and learn on together on their territories. I acknowledge that I am on the territory of the dish with one spoon wampum belt covenant. I'm on these territories of the Huron-Wendat, Petun, Seneca, and most recently the Mississaugas of the Credit Indigenous Peoples. This here in Toronto has also been a gathering place for Metis, Inuit and many other First Nations peoples, historically and presently. We honour all that was here for thousands of years before us across Turtle Island. We honour the struggles and the lives of those who gave themselves for it, for all those here today, and for the ancestors beneath our feet and the land on which we stand. With our ears to the ground, we can hear them, an infinity of footsteps of those who long called this land home. The unfolding of bundles, the undoing of colonisation and the opening of this land to allow treaty to come alive. We affirm our relationship to each other and to the land. We acknowledge and pay respects to the Indigenous nations and ancestors of all this land. As we acknowledge the first caretakers of this land, I also situate myself in the Dawn Valley watershed, shared with a vast array of creatures and elements. And I ask you to join me in prayer. Creator God, I give thanks for each of the speakers that will share their wisdom and their stories with us today. I give thanks for each listener who will open their hearts and minds to new information, new thoughts, new motivation and energy. Thank you for the passion in this room, the passion for justice. And pray that your spirit will enliven that passion. That we will continue to work for the greater good of all. Creator God, we ask your guidance and your blessing on our time together. Amen. Again, welcome to everyone. And I invite you now if you want to offer a territorial acknowledgement or an introduction. You could do so in the chat. I want to introduce you to the moderator for our panel today. Kwiak is a lifelong champion for communities affected by mining and author of unearthing justice, how to protect your community from the mining industry. And I want to tell you a little bit about this book, it has been translated into three languages with an additional addition. And it's a particular forward for an African edition. Three of us from three different organizations, myself from Kairos Dean Deatlaw from Development and Peace and Johannes Chan from the student Christian movement, work together to bring about a reading group this winter, beginning in January. And we chose this book. Unearthing justice. And read several chapters of it through January with a group of students meeting on the U of T campus students and young adults and who were interested in mining justice. And so that forms the basis of our conversation today and how we came to be inviting these particular people to speak to you today. And so, with that, I want to tell you a little bit more of Jones history before I turn it over to her. Joan was the founding national coordinator of Mining Watch Canada. She worked there from 1999 to 2009. And she continues to do work for Mining Watch and many communities. I see organizing and research have been indispensable for all of us seeking mining justice in Canada. And Joan has long been a friend to both Kairos and development and peace and work together in many campaigns. So, welcome Joan, and we look forward to your guiding us through this panel this evening. Thank you very much, and welcome everybody to the webinar. Before we start mining, you're going to be hearing from three courageous and learned people about the impacts of mining in Brazil and the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and in Canada. And we will be reflecting on the role that the Canadian government and our provincial governments are playing in these impacts. So, first of all, I want to tell you about the Canadian mining industry. It is a very important thing. It is a very important thing. Basically, mining is at the forefront of the colonial assault on Indigenous peoples. It is in Canada, and it exports these lessons in colonialism around the world. Mining is a waste management industry. It has a short-term benefits and very long-term consequences. The mining industry controls the discourse about it, shakes government law regulation and policy, and pays little tax relative to its earnings. The true costs of mining are externalized to communities, the ecosystems, and to the workers themselves. Mining cannot exist without enormous government subsidy. And we can put mining in its proper place by supporting affected communities, understanding and debunking the myths that the industry propagates, and by organizing efforts to change Canadian law and policy. And with that, I'd like to introduce our first speaker. Father Dario Basi is a naturalized Brazilian Camboni missionary. He has just finished a six-year service as provincial coordinator of his congregation in Brazil. Previously, he studied and worked for four years on the outskirts of the huge city of Sao Paulo. I think it's the fourth largest city in the world, with a particular dedication to defending the rights of children and adolescents. And before that, he spent 10 years in Mariano State in the northeast of Brazil. In one of the communities there, which I'm going to mispronounce, I'm sure, Piqua Acalandia, where he was a parish priest, he took up the cause of the communities affected by the mining and steel cycle. Specifically, the communities were suffering because of the Grande Carajas Project, the largest iron ore mine in the world, owned by the company Vale. Vale is, by the way, in Sudbury. He became the coordinator of Justices Nos Trilhos Network, a network of affected communities along the Carajas Corridor, from where the ore is extracted and exported from the heart of the Amazon. He is also Latin American Ecumenical Network, he is also with the Latin American Ecumenical Network of Churches and Mining, and an advisor to the Pan-Amazonial Ecclesial Network. Welcome, Father Dario. Thank you, Joan, what a good presentation, too much for me. And thank you to the organizers of this very important meeting. Sorry for my English at the beginning, I have to ask patients because my English is very little, but I could try. I prepared a PowerPoint to help myself and also some written things to go through my presentation. I am very happy to stay here with you and we believe very much on the importance of interconnection and network among countries. So let me allow me to share the PowerPoint, let me see if it is functioning, is it okay? Okay, so I'd like to start to present our reality in three steps. The first one is talking to you about some conflict situation we are facing in Brazil. The second step is to share how we feel, not just we know, we recognize, but we feel in our hearts, in our bodies, the resistance of the communities. And the third step is to talk with you about which kind of support we would like to receive and to interchange between Brazil, other countries, obviously, and Canada. So, regarding the first step, the conflict situation, I would like to talk to you, for example, about our friends, the indigenous Yanoman, with very much respect, the same respect you started with in this very strong prayer you made. We have to enter really with our, in this sacred war of the indigenous, and in the special case of the Yanomami people, we, as the images present us, we are really facing a passion situation. This comparison between this living, but very suffering body of a Yanomami indigenous person and the body of Christ in a very strong Russian picture. It's very strong, the similarity. The Yanomami leaders are weakened because of hunger. In the last years, 570 children at least died because of hunger in their land, in a land marked by malaria, the lack of medical assistance, and the contamination of their territories. You can imagine, in their territory, we have almost 30,000 of Yanomami indigenous people, and in this moment we have 20,000 illegal gold miners inside their land, and they are the very responsible for the degeneration of the territory. We can conclude that in the Amazon forest, mining has reached its limits, and it's seeking to invade more and more frontiers, sacred territories that we just have to protect. A second story I can try, I can present is about a Canadian company, Kinross. Brazil is the fifth country with the highest investments from Canadian mining companies. And a report by the Canadian NGO Above Ground denounced direct impacts of Kinross in Minas Gerais state in Brazil, on Afro communities, water contamination with arsenic, threats received by the local leaders, and a large consumption of water by companies. And also the tailing dams at Paracatu, the place where the company is installed, are vulnerable to fear. It is a gold mine. Generally we consider gold as a noble matter, but we can state that its extraction in the most of the cases is full of violence. The third case is from my land where I lived, as Joan was explaining for 10 years, Piqua, but you pronounce it quite well, Joan, Piqua is a region where we have the largest open pit iron mine in the world, and it is very inside the Amazon forest in the eastern part of the Brazilian Amazon forest. And beside the mine, we have all the iron ore transport system, because they extract the iron ore and they export it to China, to Europe. And this iron ore transport system, which is 900 kilometers long, is a railroad passing through something like 100 communities, indigenous people, Afro descendants, farmers, very simple people see this crossed by this railroad. And the impacts in this case are deforestation, pollution, accidents caused by the train that crosses. So we can say and conclude in the case of Piqua that mining not just marks the place where the ore is taken out, the hole, let us say, but is marking entire regions and condense their economies to mining dependency. The fourth and last case I will present to you is the case of Brumaginio, probably you heard about it because it's the worst situation we have to face in 2019. It is a case of a mining waste dump collapse that killed 2,072 persons and contaminated an entire river basin. It happened just four years after another very similar crime that the same company, Vale in Mariana, not so much, not so far from Brumaginio, provocative. There we had 19 vests and another river basin contaminated up to the sea. And nothing has been learned between one case and the following one. On the contrary, it was known that Brumaginio's dam was dangerous, but they didn't make anything to prevent the accident. Vale preferred to take the risk. The lesson we understand and the question we raise is how much our lives worth. If it is convenient, the company preferred to continue their business, taking any kind of risk and calculating how much, if it was the case, they will have to pay. Let us follow for a minute in silence, in a silent respect for the victims, the scene of this criminal collapse. Where do people find the strength to face this level of conflicts and this proportion of the enemy they have to combat? First of all, I would say from memory and celebration. It is very important for us and we find that spirituality is the root of resistance and it is a bond between the people and their territories. For example, in Brumaginio, every year on the 15th of January, the anniversary of this crime, we celebrate the pilgrimage of integral ecology. And every month of every year on the 15th day, a memory of the victims is held. And it is impressive, the local people's strength despite the humiliation they suffer. Another example of resistance is the popular mobilization. This is from this photo and this story is from my territory, Pikia. There, the community is claiming for integral reparation for the suffer violation of pollution and conflicts of the railway for over 15 years. And now they are achieving a collective resettlement in a region far from pollution, without the company's influence corrupting the community collective organization. In most of the cases, it's interesting how the companies tried to enter to divide and to seduce leaders of the communities to weaken their organizational resistance. But in this case, even if we have our failures and our weaknesses, we could avoid this kind of influence. And we could maintain the community sufficiently united to achieve their dream. Still, they haven't resettled themselves, but we have reached something like this 65% of the construction of the new city, let us say. The third example of resistance is the international alliance. That's why I'm very glad to stay here to have to know Joe and to have this collaboration with the organization that organized that prepare this, this meeting. In the case, one of the examples of international alliance is investigations. For example, popular movements are increasingly investigating the chain of products extracted from some lands to others. We try to show how the gold, copper, the iron ore used in the global north, and the products sold there often carry the blood of peoples or the ashes of the amazing. I want to say about the support from Canada. The first support we are asking to you obviously is solidarity and we are very, very excited in seeing so many persons interested in this kind of discussion. The world and life are more than good. So what we are needing is sensitivity, denunciation, people echoing the community's cry. We understand the importance of meetings like this. We understand the importance of you all keeping connected to development and peace to Cairo's to the students Christian movement. This kind of alliance going on not just reduced to a webinar, but a kind of commitment. The second possibility of alliance is dispelling the myth of money. Because it's very easy to fall down into the companies narratives for sure they have many money to make propaganda and to to to to to to to to design their narrative in order that people believe them. So please don't fall into their, their midst. For example, this kind of rhythm of mining is unsustainable. We can at all explain it and tolerate this kind of economy is killing. And it's not me who is saying it but also Pope Francis. This economy kills. This kind of economy this kind of money does not generate development, or at least develops just only only only a very few little group of people. So the very, the very important part is to support the self determination of communities to encourage their ways of life, and their kind of local economies. The third perspective of collaboration is about laws, as John was already saying in her introduction. For example, the due diligence. The laws in the global north that oblige companies to track the entire production chain laws that make big companies responsible for the partners they should they choose from the beginning up to the end of the chain. And also, for example, the binding treaty for companies and human rights. The fourth and last collaboration is one is an initiative of our churches and mining network, which is the divestment campaign. We try to show the connection among among the mining companies that cause violation, the banks and investment funds and our money. And it is a church campaign so we try to stimulate and to invite the churches the religious groups dioceses to give the first example of this movement of divestment, because generally they are supposed to be as one of the ethical references to the society so they have even if they don't have so much money, but their movement could be could propagate a thinking reflection to withdraw money from these funds that are feeding the deaths and the accidents and the nature. Okay, so thanks for your attention I hope that you understood me and I will be available for diary. Thank you so much Father Dario that was really really interesting and helpful and very moving. Our second speaker is going to be Loretta Williams from the Chilcotin nation in British Columbia. I'm she's proud member of the Henning one of the Chilcotin communities. And she has been a mining advisor a mining coordinator for that First Nation and she was one of the founders of First Nations women advocating for responsible mining which took on mining all across British Columbia. She's very proud to have Loretta here today and she'll bring home to us I'm quite sure how these kinds of issues happen also in Canada, and it's what these companies have learned to do in Canada is being exported and used abroad Loretta. Thank you very much, Joan. We've shared a lot of space together and you know it's still. We're still doing the same thing still the same battle as this back when. Again, my name is Loretta Williams. I'm coming from you on the unseated territory of the shishkwap. I live, I live here in Williams Lake. And outside of my community, my community is 200 kilometers away from where I live right now. But I have a long story to tell lots of stories and I'll just hit on a few important topics. I'm from this ice goatee nation. My community is the honey goatee and I was raised by my grandparents since a very young age as I could remember and within their teachings and within my aunts and uncles teachings and in my, my grandparents, my parents, you know everyone around me, we were taught to be very like you know respect our land you know because our land looks after us. You know, I come from an area where the waters are clean you can drink from the rivers, you can drink right out of the rivers and, and you know there's we haven't been there's no logging in our territory no mining. And it's because you know we've protected we've protected it and our grandparents before us and and our children will continue on after us. So yeah we've been taught to respect everything the land you know like you know if you're going to go camping you leave the area cleaner than you then you that when you first got there. You leave a small footprint in anything you do whether it be hunting, fishing, berry picking you know you don't overuse you don't overtake. If you're going to use one area one year you don't use it the next year you find another area to fish or hunt or or berry pick or or gather your medicines. Very traditional. I was raised by my grandparents who were fluent in in their language which is to tell cotton language and, and my, my grandmother never spoke a word of English, you know she was all English was never important to her. She would never, never speak it and but my grandparents, my grandfather was very fluent with the language so that was that's how I was able to learn a lot of what he had to teach I understood the language language very well, but I could not speak it. I did in my younger days but we've been through so much trauma that you know, through residential school system where our children were taken from us, or we were taken from our parents and put into homes. And it was a very traumatic experience and the many of us have lost our language since, but we have a high number very high probably the highest number in our territories. That still speak the Chilcotin language. So yeah I come from an area that is is very pristine. And we have the backdrop of the coastal mountains and snowcap mountains, clean waters, wild horses. And in a very proud people, you know, we're very, very proud we're very, very respectful. And, you know, we're, we're very nice people you know if you ever came to my territory you would be invited into for tea or coffee and panic. Oh my gosh they would make you panic on the spot. You know we're just very kind gentle people. And, and when to seek them like to seek a mind's limited came to our territory. I was, I was a young mother back then and, and I was a natural resource worker, and, and I had attended one environmental assessment workshop was a week long, and I did not even know after that, that workshop didn't get meant and I, and I heard within the meeting that like they told me like that there was a mining company interested, they had been doing exploration in our territory and I didn't even know about that I was just I was just really green to everything about mining. And, but they, I heard that you know they're they're wanting to construct a mine I was like what is like what. I went home, and I started asking around and they're like yeah and then shortly after that to seek a mind's limited came to our nation, promising prosperity. And funny enough, that's what they, that's what they named their project as well, their first project the prosperity project, but they came into our territory and they asked our chiefs if we wanted to. To join them in investigating what this mine could be for our territory and for our people. And so we didn't really think we had a choice you know we didn't feel we had a choice, whether we could just say no right there, or if we had to go with the process and so we thought about it you know we sent them away and we thought about it and we talked to our lawyers and our lawyers said you know you have to, you probably should get involved because at this point. You don't know what that mine means for your territory. If you wanted to fight them you wouldn't know, but we're like we know what's going to happen you know it's right there plain and simple they're ready right above river. They'll impact that whole territory did you see that map of the mine that they're going to create. We know what it's going to do already we know what's going to do it to our people. But still we were, we were forced you know to go into this process that wasn't ours, you know. And so here we go we, we create this this agreement with the mine to go ahead and see what this mine could mean to our people in our territory you know like, get to know the impact, get to know the benefits, maybe it would maybe it would benefit us who knows, but we had to investigate anything to do our, our due diligence as a people. And so here we go and this is like 2004 and we went into. So this the mine that they're proposing was a huge open pit mine. They were after the gold and the copper within that area. And it was in most of the, the most of the most of the deposit was right underneath one of the lake fish lake. And like I said it was like it was proposed right above a river in our territory that that always had returning Chinook salmon and an area that was very high. And we knew that there was a lot of underground water systems through there and very valuable ecosystem you know it was it's home to the grizzly bear. It was a very historical site. It was like it trails used to go through there. Years ago when people used to pass through the travel from one area to another very rich in stories and we knew these stories but they were sleeping their stories were sleeping we never we never talked about them for a while. And so we did this okay we're like okay so we, we, we started this process and was to collect base baseline data. You know to see how see what the land was like right now so check, we had to we did studies on the birds and and the water reptiles, the four leg it's air quality you name it underground water. And we went through all that in a neutral way you know like we wanted to collect this information, you know, and also like how the how the mind would impact our people, the social impact study. And so here we go we just we dived right into it and it took us years I ended up being I ended up being that person who coordinated this whole thing it was ginormous it was huge amount of work. We had to hire people from our community to help with each one of those studies we had to hire the experts. And we made sure we told the mining company that we're not going to accept what they, what their studies were, we wanted to do all of the hiring of experts that we knew that that we trusted, and they let us do it you know. And so we did and you know we did our archaeology study and in that that area was so rich like there was grave sites there. There was, we found an old, an old pipe within the area and it was, it was from over one of our medicine people are medicine people used to gather in that area and that's where they went to go get their strength, their, their spirit, their power to be medicine people. Very rich and cultured everything like you know we were very connected to the area and the lake, oh my gosh it was such a, it is still an awesome producing like trout producing lake. Very beautiful, you know, it had the backdrop, like I said, of the coastal mountains just beautiful, beautiful clean waters air everything. So, you know we did the whole studies and like, and I kept walking into the room and presenting to our people this is okay this is what we learned today. They're like okay right I like you know, we're pretty much done listening to all of this you know and listening to see go come in and tell us a story on the mine on their project. And our people knew that that mine, that mining company or that mine would would impact us. And so we full out opposed it to seek a mind's limited got very angry. And they went away, but still we are still in environmental assessment process and we went through that process. We actually went through two environmental assessments and new prosperity the prosperity project and the new prosperity project. We had hearings in our communities where our people told stories how they were connected to the land and they basically begged that the government not to destroy it. We had children tell them like you know this area is very important to us and we do not want it wrecked. And, but we posed it and, and you know we came out on the other side luckily twice we had two oppositions like the government oppose that project twice. And we were very lucky, we were one of the lucky ones you know because we watched other other nations near us and we made friends all over the place through this process and we saw them. We saw the government approve minds in their in their territories which was really heartbreaking for us. And that's how we first Nations women advocating for responsible mining was was created and I was one of the founders. And we use that table to be able to support each other like it was a group of women who had very loud voices at at these mining meetings. And we were very outspoken on how those mine companies and how their projects were going to impact our people. So we, we group together, there was probably about 12 of us 20 of us and, you know, we help each other get through this workload, this unknown whatever gigantic giant that was coming into our territories. We supported each other we cried together and fn worm, you know, got us through many hardships and was always there to support because we had our experts and then we had our, we had our experts of the first Nations people who had been through this before us and. And then, and then we also won title of our territory the honey good Dean June 26 of 2014. We won title of our land, but it didn't include that area where the mine was going to be where we're being proposed you know, it was just outside of we won like we won area where we we own it lock stock and barrel, but we, it was just outside of the title area so we couldn't fight it in that way we still had to use our words, and you know we went through it. And in during that time, you know, like we saw the destruction of the lands very close to us Mount Polly mine breach happened, August 14, August 4 of 2014. And where billions millions millions of cubic meters of water and waste tailings went down into a lake and you know like I when I saw that I saw that my my worst nightmare had come true. One of the mines had breached and was in in the water system it was in a lake and it was coming down the river where our salmon were spawning at that time. It was the morning that happened was the exact same morning that we were supposed to go down to the river and fish for salmon. But we were scared to we were looking at the river and we were scared we're like, is this going to hurt us like how is it down here yet you know it was just so unknown. And many of us never did fish that river for four years afterwards because we're just, there was just not enough, we didn't have enough trust in their studies saying that oh it's okay you know, and to this date like that. The Mount Polly mine is still draining effluent into that into that water system into the Cornell Lake which is heartbreaking for us and as First Nations people. So today to see comments limited is still wanting to build the mine in our territory, even though like we have a full out oppose opposition to it. They bought up all of the exploration leases around in around like where they wanted to create that mine. We're still battling them to this day, which is just so unfortunate and so many stories to tell you and it felt like I had to rattle out one out but. My time is up so I just really would like to thank, thank everyone, thank Joan for inviting me here and always done and so solidarity with the people that are battling these lines, you know, it's so heartbreaking. So thank you. Thank you, Loretta for telling your story. It is absolutely heartbreaking. And that mining company just never goes away. And I it's, it's just something we're all facing and we're all struggling with, but you did win, but in those cases which was, I know it took everything you had for it and I really appreciate it. The next speaker is father, Jack, the Zumboo, who is a Jesuit, a Congolese and a specialist in conflict minerals, responsible mineral supply chain due diligence corporate social responsibility for mining companies, artisanal mining and strategic minerals and energy transition. His expertise also extends to renewable energy technology, especially in the areas of energy storage and transition technologies. He holds several master's degrees in governance and public policy of natural resources in international affairs, economics, politics and business law and agnation leadership. He's certainly a PhD student at the University of Quebec in Montreal, and recently completed the green justice speaking tour for the colleagues who put this event together tonight. I know that he's also a passionate advocate for the people of his, his home country and I welcome Father Shao to this talk. Thank you so much, John. I want to share my power bond with you. It is okay now. Yes, it's fine. Thank you for inviting me to share with you. The history of Congo, I can say the deal, the deal about Congo and Canada, yes, because I can say that Congo is one of the most richest country in the, in the world, but also, most of the poorest country. In terms of natural resources, we have all critical minerals for energy transition, but also we are facing huge impact of these kind of minerals in our country. So for me, this is very important to share with you some inputs. So I want to share my history is a tragedy. I want to show you just a tragedy of Congo now. Yes. So I want to share impact of critical minerals for green and clean technologies in Congo. About the green justice. For me, solidarity is very important. Yes. Solidarity is fundamental, fundamental is a fundamental value value of humankind. It is human cosmic and divine solidarity. It unifies the human and the divine, the cosmic and the real. And the visible and the visible, but also the solidarity. Reminds us that we are all made of the same cloth. With our fragilities and contingencies running through us. In the same way. In our universe. Our planet with all its biodiversity is also made of the same fragilities. Therefore, our strength then comes from our capacity to mutually support our human. And make and divine maturation as individuals, but also as community. For me, the concept of solidarity was very, very important for me. Because you are suffering a lot. And we need this solidarity. And the Pope Francis. Fratelli toti said that all of us, we are friends. Brothers and sisters. How can we support ourselves. And this sharing for me is very important to share with you what Congolese people are suffering. So solidarity is the ability to be touched. And to be challenged by fragility and suffering of others people for the suffering of our planet. The universe and the all biodiversity. In order to support them. But this already takes on its full meaning in the context of force. The context of people who are very important now. The context of vulnerable people. So those who are abusing in Congo. Human right abuse. Children evaluation. Women valuations. They're very vulnerable people. So they need our solidarity in a world where the strongest tend to let down the weakest. In a world where the richest tend to get richer on the backs of the poor. In a world where new form of slavery and abuse against children and women. And the venerable are still flourishing in a world where our common home planets and it resources are being over exported. It is worth reflecting on the updating of solidarity. So tonight, we attend to uncover these for what ends of the legacy from a mind justice perspectives. Based on mining in the DRC, and its impact on global green and clean energy technologies, and all the value value chains. I have just, I can say a simple question, I want to answer a simple question. How and in what way does mining for batteries or electric cars for solar panel for wind turbines for semiconductors for robots precision missiles space exploration. In short, for our social welfare and Western security, cause serious human social economic, cultural environmental and ecological injustices to the Congolese local communities. This is my question. So, as we are moving. We need transition to green technologies. So we need more and more minerals. This is my problem. So climate change is a huge challenge for all of us, our humanity. So we need transition from fossil fuel to clean technologies, clean energy, but how are we doing this. At the same time, we need also green technologies to support our transition. As you can see here. All I can say, all strategic technologies batteries for cell wind traction motors. Robotics drones. It. They're very important for our social and a security welfare in Canada and across the world. So minerals problems is a huge problem. Not only for money companies, but also for our way of living. So we need also conversion with the people, because we are final users of this kind of technologies. So we need conversions. Not only money companies, but also the people have to change. Our way of living. Because they're giving to us like consumers. But the issue here is the transition. How can we move from fossil fuel to green to clean energy. We need green or clean technologies, but how can we, how are we getting green technologies. Green technologies needs a huge amount of minerals. This is the problem of Congo. Because of the race of global north and China economies. To secure the supply chains of cobalt copper lithium of Colton. For robotics for fuel cell for wins. Congolese are dying. This is our problem. So from 1994 up to day. 10 millions of Congolese have died. Because of the control of strategic or critical minerals. It's our story. As can you see here. Congo is plenty of minerals. So our history is the is the drama of minerals. Since before our independence till today. And as it is with. I decide to study. Minerals mining economy, politics to know. How can we. How can I contribute to the peace for peace in my country. I came to minors to mining, because of the peace lack of peace and justice in my country. And the UN. Publish for report saying that. The control of strategic minerals is the roof of the complex in Congo now in Congo we have more than 200 rebel groups. In the eastern Congo. All of them are taking advantage of minerals. But the coal turn the cobalt. The gold. We here in Canada. In global north, we have the final uses of these kind of products. It can be directly or indirectly. Through our dish washes. Through our robotics through our solar panel through our missiles for our defense. As you know, all the precision mission missiles, they have semiconductor. They have semiconductors. And it come we produce germanium for semiconductors. So now Taiwan is known. Yeah, Taiwan. They have made semiconductor but. You need minerals for semiconductor. You need germanium and gallium for this. And they are now to Canadian money companies. Kiko Ivan over in Lubumbashi. The operating in germanium and gallium. In Zen income. So this is our history in Congo. The money extraction in Congo have a huge impact. On climate change land use water management, waste. Governance, health, safety and human rights. That's a problem. I can say that Congolese are not taking advantage of this kind of extraction. Extractivism in Congo. So the climate change is very challenging for our, our global. But many companies have a huge impact in Congo. Money in the IRC takes place both in nursery and our personal forms. Both forms of exploitation have very negative impact on local communities and countries. The first negative impact is their reality of conflict minerals in Congo. As I was saying, more than 10 millions people have died, have died as a result. For the control of rich means minus multinational. Automotive digital and arms companies are financing wars directly or indirectly in Congo. And now the consequence is the work of. You can see here women are working in the cobalt and copper artisanal activities. Before I came in Canada, I was working in Lombashi. In the center. So I was on ground working with these women to protect them because the water is very, very political toxic this water. Because all I can say in the south. Of Congo. Our corporate cobalt they have a huge amount of Iranian. When women are working there. They are serious health problem for our mothers for our children there. So I was working with them to protect to accompany them is the use issue for us in Congo. Because of the poverty, people are obliged to go for artisanal money. And they will sell the cobalt to mining companies and money companies will. Finally, sell here. So there's a link. There's the link between all these kinds of things. And it's the same. I am here with them. So I was in the ground. Here I am in the Glencore compounds near Glencore. And last August, I went to celebrate. To celebrate. I was very happy to see the green program. With Professor Dr. Beck. And also I went to see big nickel. I went to see also. I asked to them. Why are you doing things here differently than in Congo. It's the same multinational. Even kind of a celebrity. But in the Congo. It's not the same, I can say. You can see how people are suffering. In Congo. Another impact is the child labor. Here. I was asking to the children. I was doing my best how to get them out of this kind of things. The place of children is in the school, not in the mining. This is not acceptable for our cell phone. For our electric cars. For our batteries. We are exporting children upstream. So what do we need is solidarity. Not only downstream, but also in the all value chains of batteries. And green technology. You can see children families. This is not acceptable. This is our history. Our story. So it's the same. Soldiers are controlling. Minerals there. So what we need is solidarity. Because Canada is, I can say. A huge platform for mining. Around the world. So there is a link between Canada and Congo. Canada and mining companies are the first who came in Congo in 1993. I can say like London, first quantum, they are there in Congo. So 30% of mining companies in Congo are from Canada. And 70% and 50% are from China. But Chinese bought the asset from Canada and the U.S. And now the U.S. and Canadian, they want to go back again because of the race of coal time, the race of, of cover. So Congo now is suffering the race between global north and China income. But the control of millions. I can say that this issue is very big, not only for mining companies because Canadian mining activities here in Canada is about 4% of Canada, Canada GDP. So our richest here, our welfare, like Canadians, 4% comes from mining activities. And the Toronto stock exchange is, I can say, the huge platform in the world of financing, exploration and extraction of minerals in Congo, in the world also. And I can say 70% of Congolese mining companies, they raise funds here in Canada. The main aim is also to study in Canada, to know how can I do my advocacy here in Canada. Yes. So what we need is just due diligence. We can support due diligence here in Canada. And it can have huge impact in my country income. So what we need is not just due diligence and because most of the due diligence are voluntary. And the Congo in the Congo, we have now 15 years of experience of implementing due diligence in mining, because Congo is like a lab of all international initiatives. And it can change because of voluntary aspects of due diligence. What we need now is mandatory, mandatory compliance and environmental social governance compliance. So I mean, governing the transition is like governing the cacophony. Yes, we have huge interests. And what we need is just mandatory because voluntary due diligence that doesn't work, doesn't work. So I can conclude that saying that a maximum of mandatory rules is desirable terms of ESG and compliance for all value chains of transistor technologies, not only for downstream here, but also in our stream. And what we need also in Congo is access to justice. Like the German due diligence, they allowed some who are working outside of Germany, they can have the place for access to justice in Germany. And I mean, in Canada also, what you are doing in Caritas in Cairo's and students and the work of John is very important for us in the South, so we can know a lot about Canadian rules and then we can prepare the people in Congo to get access to justice here in Canada. Thank you so much. Thank you so much, Father Jacques. That was very, very helpful and very, very interesting. I just wanted to say that one of the companies I've been following in Canada's electric battery materials and cobalt, which is processing ore from the Congo and just received a $51 million grant from the federal government under the critical mineral strategy. It's on the territory of the Tamag, the Tamiskaming First Nation, and they were never able to get involved in the project. So thank you very, very much. We have some time now for questions to answer some questions from people and if you had questions in the chat. I think, Joannis, you were going to provide us with some, some feedback. Sure. So the first question that I saw was asked by Stanley Lee, who asks how much influence is there from the global North and China re-mining and other energy projects, and I think Father Jacques addressed some of that, but if anyone. I think that was answered. Okay, sure. So I'll ask the second question by Kerry Richards was, are there any examples anywhere of a responsible mining operation as stewards of the land and a respecter of community? Is there any models to replicate or is all mining and impossible to exist anywhere? The implications of no mining shut down the green revolution requiring copper, silver, nickel, et cetera for electrical transmission. Are there books on the transformation of the mining industry? So, yeah, a number of questions I can repost that in the chat. Maybe I could just take a little bit of a run at that one and that is that most of the kind of changes that are needed are actually changed to much bigger to other systems. For example, if we're going to go with critical, critical minerals. A lot of what they're calling critical minerals are needed for the cars and arms and the space race, as Father Jacques pointed out. If we were to change how we did those things and instead of looking at lots of new cars looked at public transit. If we were to look at stopping the space race and probably having less arms, we'd be in a much better position. I don't know if one of the other panelists wants to take a quick stab at that one. No, we'll go ahead. Sure. So the next question comes from Stephanie Stringer. And it says Father Jacques may be about to answer this. But if not, in addition to regulation due diligence, et cetera. It seems to me that recycling and reclaiming minerals and metals is absolutely vital. In theory, it is possible to recycle metals more or less indefinitely, but often they are just thrown away. I wonder what the panelists thoughts are on this subject and whether there are any campaigns working on it. So do you have, do you want to answer that? Yeah. The question is very, very complex for me, because before going to recycle recycling, you have to produce first. I'm not convinced that we can do the transition with minerals. This, this, I can, my, my response is also my answer is also for the first question regarding money responsibly operation, operation in the world. I mean, I'm not, I'm not sure that we can do the transition. We can do clean technologies with minerals unless we change the technologies of extraction. Unless we change the respect of the land of the end the people. This is cost a lot for mining companies. So I can say that the more the mining operation is cheaper, the most. Our welfare is very good. And when mining operation is cheaper, like in Congo, with no respect of environmental, no respect of the people. We cannot support any more this kind of transition. Thank you. Father Dario has his hand up so we'll take him next. Thank you, Jax, and thank you, John for and thank you for the questions for sure john has a very, very good experience about that so she could explain about her book with very many answers to all of this. But I also want to add something in the same line of Jax, I don't know really any responsible mining operation. Yes, there are some efforts from efforts from the companies to spare water in some place to apply new technology in another, but it is very true that, as Jack said, that they applies the different way of doing according to the states where they are. So, if there are strict rules, they respect and where they are not monitor right monitor, they don't respect. So, I'm not very supporting responsible mining operation. I don't believe about it. Anyway, we, we are asking for mitigation, we are asking for integral reparation and we are also asking always for prevention. The mining zone, in some cases, the right to say no by some communities. And I think that transition could happen from uncontrolled mining operation with a reason regulated just from the by the financial interest to the essential And just one word about reuse and recycle. Yes, I think that the politics have to support this kind of economy, and they are supporting just extraction. So we have to decide in which way politics could pass forward to economy. But we also, and I feel here, defend that some kind of extraction have to be strongly reduced, for example, gold. The most of the gold is taken from a hole, and is put in another hole of the banks. It is very incredible. We don't understand this kind of money. So there are some kind of minerals that we have really to ban them. Thank you very much. That's a really good point. That would, in my mind include coal, uranium, and, and gold for sure most gold goes into the banks and into jewelry it's not used for anything else. As other questions. So I'll combine two Dean asks what are some similarities between the mining challenges for each of the areas discussed by our speakers, like in Brazil, Canada, and the DRC. And then I think a related question by Bridget, how cars can help Congolese people. There is emergency to help and ask Canada, China, US France to stop their deal. I was just asking about solidarity actions that other countries can take so if anyone has answers to that. Somebody want to respond to that. Anybody. Yeah. I mean, for me, the most important thing can be to support those who are documenting human rights abuse in, in, in mining operations, mining zones, and how can then also be very, very effective. How can then raise awareness in Congo and also outside of Congo in Canada. And because directly it's very difficult for them, but they need, we need collaboration between global north in Jews, and south global south in Jews, and then we can work together for me. I can say the sharing of knowledge, investigation, how to do investigation together, case studies together is very important for me then money. Yeah, thank you. Thank you. I'd like to just say that. That getting control of the discourse which I think both Jacques and, and Father Jacques and Father Dario referred to is really important because here we follow we swallow so many of the myths of mining. The critical mineral strategies being the latest offensive from the industry. Global south exists within the global north has Loretta pointed out there's within for indigenous people in this country, many of the same issues are true and have been true in the past. And we need to be able to recognize it that that happens. I think we've got, well, I think actually Kyra's was and development in peace we're going to talk and student Christian movement had a few things they wanted to let you know about actions that we're going to be taken in the next few, the next few weeks. Can somebody is Shannon, are you speaking to that or, or Ioannis or Dean. I'll speak to it at the, at the very end we have maybe. We're at five minutes 20 we've got five minutes left so great thanks john. Let me just share my screen here there are a few slides. The first one just a reminder about Jones book and an opportunity to say thank you so much to john for providing a really rich text that motivated us who participated in this reading group to want to learn more. So thank you for the roots of the webinar tonight and just encourage you to find that resource. And we should say thanks to the other folks who've helped us out Canadian Jesuits international were really useful and contributed a lot and helped us connect with Father Jack. The Diocesan Council in Toronto for development and peace contributed to this webinar to sell lots and lots of folks which is such a great testament to building those relationships of solidarity. So thank you for those two things that we can do some next steps. If you're wondering, here are some specific mining ones coming up Sunday, March 5. There will be a virtual prayer gathering organized by the Toronto Diocesan Council of development and peace. It will be a hope for mining justice prayer gathering for about a half an hour at 7pm. So thanks in the chat and also in a follow up email so I encourage you to register for that and come participate. It is on the fifth because March 5 through eight is the prospectors and Development Association of Canada convention which is one of the biggest mining conventions in the world it happens every year here in Toronto so look at your email there are also more information about where to act locally in Toronto but also ways to participate digitally there's lots of activists who organize plenty of things around the PDAC every year. And we'll send out some information to the folks who are registered on this webinar. So the goals that we'd like to mention, two of which Dario and Father Jacques gestured forward when talking about due diligence. Bill C262 and 263 both are related to due diligence in some different ways. They are explained in greater detail on the Kairos website. The peace and Kairos both have been working with others in the Canadian network on corporate accountability to urge these kinds of bills and legislation to be passed, and the student Christian movement has been a big help there as well. And the other bill would address environmental racism, which has quite a lot to do with issues of waste and mining and many other things we've talked about on the webinar to so the three kind of go together, so you can learn more legislatively that way. There are two more events that are in the nearer future not maybe as directly related but still related in the way that all these justice issues are related. The first is on February 22 right around the corner, Kairos is hosting another webinar, Voices of Resistance, a celebration of black history and imagining futures, and there will again be registration information in the chat. And then on February 25, just a couple days later, there is another virtual webinar that is the campaign launch for development and pieces campaign this year stand for the land, which has a lot to do with land defense and issues of land, and would really invite all of you to come to those. I want to take this moment to really thank our panelists, Father Dario and Father Shao, Ken Loretta Williams for sharing their stories with us and for their commitment and passion and their struggle as land defenders, and to thank the sponsoring organizations of this webinar for the opportunity to get this information out there.