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Here's why Stephen Harper was in Peru last week instead of in Parliament trying to end the crisis that's destabilized his entire government. The Prime Minister has two great economic passions. The first, of course, is building pipelines to enable ever more quantities of oil to flow from the Alberta tar sands.

Passion number 2 is the promotion of Canadian mining interests across the globe, not least in Africa and Latin America. Why? Okay, you support the oil giants because you think global warning is hooey. But mining? How does it help Canada to have our PM personally advance the interests of our multitude of mining companies in relatively poor foreign countries? How does it help the people of those countries?

In Peru, Mr. Harper announced $53-million in "aid projects" over the next six years, most of them related to extractive industries. But why aid booming Peru when the government is ending all aid to several truly needy African countries. The answer is simple. As pointed out by Ian Smillie, one of Canada's most thoughtful development experts, the projects Canada is to fund will likely "make life easier for the 75-odd Canadian mining companies operating in Peru".

Ottawa Citizen reporter Elizabeth Payne, who also follows these issues, makes a similar point. Canada, she reminds us, "is not simply a neutral player whose sole interests are in helping Peru work better to benefit its poorest people, but a country that has tied its foreign policy to the success of Canadian mining and other companies abroad. That has resulted in billions of dollars of Canadian investment in Peru…..Canada's interests in Peru are resource companies interests, but what happens when those interests conflict with the best interests of Peruvians?"

In fact there is already considerable social unrest in parts of Peru, much of it related to pollution from mining, Payne writes, "where Canadian mining companies have a large presence." Indeed, says former Peru cabinet minister Jose de Echave, cited in The Tyee, "Many of Peru's historic and current mining conflicts are related to Canadian companies." Does our PM know – or care?

In fact, Mr. Harper in Peru was simply echoing Mr. Harper in the Congo last year, when he also unabashedly plugged the interests of Canada's many mining interests there.

Don't doubt the significance of this stance. The PM has now reversed 50 years of bipartisan Canadian aid policy by turning a good chunk of our foreign aid into props for the resource extraction industry, despite its dismal record in many poor countries, not least of course Congo. But Harperland doesn't get hung up on the evidence thing.

For those who follow these issues, however, and especially for those wise enough to subscribe to Mining Watch Canada's vital updates, the Harper policy of backing Canadian mining companies, regardless of their wealth or record, is little less than tragic. But even the casual reader is likely to come upon the latest horror story somewhere in the world involving a Canadian mine.

Just last week, for example, a news story from Chile reported that the country's environment agency had levied a $16.4-million fine – the largest possible – against Barrick Gold Corp. for "very serious" violations of its permit related to water protection measures. Indigenous communities near the $8.5-billion mine – as so often the victims of mining initiatives– cheered the decision.

On the very same day, a new report by World Vision, the Christian charity, documented the widespread use of children as young as eight working in African mines. Their report focuses on the Congo and doesn't name names. But the child labor phenomenon covers most of the continent. Look: All mining is tough and nasty. But in poor countries, where so many Canadian mines are prominent, it's positively hellish.

In far too many of those mines, worker safety is irrelevant, wages are pitiful, managers routinely bribe officials, companies pay trivial royalties and taxes, human rights abuses are widespread, conflict and violence are common, environmental degradation is ubiquitous.

Don't get me wrong. Mining in Africa and Latin America is often extremely profitable to the mine owners; that's why they're there. It's just that it rarely accelerates national development or benefits local communities. That's what the "resource curse" means.

But this government is not for turning. Even the World Bank is ignored when it refutes Harper dogmas about mining driving development. As a recent WB report states, "Strong economic growth in the past decade among African countries rich in oil and minerals has failed to make a significant dent on their poverty levels [and] the decline in poverty rates in resource-rich countries has generally lagged behind that of countries without riches in the ground."

For years, knowledgeable civil society critics have demanded that Canadian mining operations abroad be toughly regulated. Both Opposition parties strongly favor such regulations, which Liberal MP John McKay has incorporated in a private members bill now before parliament. Yet the government continues to take the corporate side, insisting, against a mountain of evidence, that voluntary codes are sufficient. That's why an extraordinary 75 per cent of all the world's mining companies have registered in Canada.

Be proud: We've become the Liberia of mining companies, everyone's carefree flag of convenience. As Peru expert Stephanie Boyd writes in The Tyee, the government has turned Canada's foreign aid sector into "the PR wing of the mining industry with the Prime Minister himself as head PR wonk."

And that's why Mr. Harper is more comfortable greasing the wheels for Canadian mining companies in Lima than accounting for Duffygate in the House of Commons.

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