The Reminder is making its archives back to 2003 available on our website. Please note that, due to technical limitations, archive articles are presented without the usual formatting.
At first glance, it looks like a poster for a low-budget horror movie. â??Hudbay Mining Get Your Bloody Hands Off Indigenous Landsâ?ù it reads, cartoon blood dripping off the words â??Bloody Hands.â?ù In the top half, the smiling head of Hudbay CEO David Garofalo is sandwiched between two images of a stern-looking Arlen Dumas, Chief of Pukatawaganâ??s Mathias Colomb Cree Nation. The poster was used to promote a recent aboriginal-based protest against Hudbay held in downtown Toronto during a company board meeting. It is evidence that Hudbayâ??s image problem in some aboriginal circles is worsening. In fact, the company is becoming a national symbol, in the protestersâ?? eyes, of the corporate invasion of traditional native territory. Iâ??m not saying that is fair or even accurate. But in this perception-driven world, it is what it is. The planned Toronto protest followed two protests earlier this year at Hudbayâ??s Lalor mine and another at a company information session in Winnipeg. The theme of the protests is not always uniform, but basically the participants believe they have been left out of the approval process â?? and benefits â?? of Hudbayâ??s Manitoba operations. For its part, Hudbay has staunchly defended its practices and made it clear that it welcomes further engagement with First Nations. In fact, when Hudbay celebrated its historic â??first blastâ?ù at Lalor in 2010, the company made a point of inviting David Harper, Grand Chief of MKO, which represents northern Manitoba bands. At that time it looked like Lalor would be a win-win for both sides. Grand Chief Harper spoke of having his people take up jobs at Lalor, and Hudbay seemed more than open to that opportunity. But with Lalor now well under development, things are not coming together so smoothly. The same Mathias Colomb protesters who blockaded Lalor this past winter have vowed to return to Hudbay properties this summer. I recently had an interesting conversation with an aboriginal man, a resident of this area, who has followed this matter with a watchful eye. While he does not support blockades or protests, he said things have to change in order for this region to move forward. He said Hudbayâ??s stats show the company has a long way to go before the percentage of First Nations people in its workforce matches the demographics of the area in which it operates. He didnâ??t lay all the blame for this at Hudbayâ??s feet, by the way. He knows it wouldnâ??t be right to say one party in this dispute deserves all of the blame. But that hasnâ??t stopped the protesters from vilifying Hudbay. Once a heavy-polluting symbol of all that is supposedly wrong with Canadaâ??s environmental laws, Hudbay is now becoming a different kind of symbol. And it doesnâ??t really matter whether that is fair or not. Local Angle runs Fridays.
