Civil society organizations in Canada criticized the bilateral free trade agreement between Canada and Ecuador, recently signed in Ottawa, and called on members of Parliament to reject the agreement when it comes before Parliament for ratification.
The groups joining this call were MiningWatch Canada, the Americas Policy Group, the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives, the Canadian Network for Corporate Accountability, Climate Action Network Canada, and Common Frontiers.
Maninder Sidhu, Canada’s minister of international trade, and Luis Alberto Jaramillo, Ecuador’s minister of production, international trade, and investment, were the free trade agreement’s signatories.
The Canadian organizations described the bilateral agreement, which primarily aims to draw in and safeguard Canada’s investment in Ecuador’s mining industry, as “deeply dangerous.”
“Yet again, the government is prioritizing the profits of Canadian resource-extraction companies over the lives and rights of Indigenous women and girls, both in Canada and abroad,” said Ketty Nivyabandi, secretary general of Amnesty International Canada’s English-speaking section.
Opposition from Ecuador’s groups
Apart from Canada’s assessment of the agreement predicting insignificant trade growth, the Canadian organizations noted that multiple Ecuadorian civil society groups and Indigenous communities opposed and raised concerns regarding the free trade agreement.
“The harms linked to Canadian mining in Ecuador are already well documented and the Canada-Ecuador Free Trade Agreement will only make them worse,” said Arturo Ezquerro-Cañete, MiningWatch Canada’s Latin America program coordinator.
“President Noboa wants to accelerate mining expansion, and Canada is helping him do it – all while continuing to shield Canadian companies from meaningful accountability,” Ezquerro-Cañete added. “It’s the same playbook: protect mining investors, not the communities living with the consequences.”
Issues arising from free trade agreement
In their media release, the Canadian organizations expressed concerns that the free trade agreement:
- would deepen the Ecuadorian human rights crisis – including increased militarization, repressed dissent, criminalized environmental advocates, and executive decrees threatening the rule of law – aggravated by Canadian mining investment in Ecuador
- lacked transparency, consultation, or the free, prior, and informed consent of the impacted Indigenous peoples, in breach of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples and Ecuador’s obligations under the Escazú Agreement
- had no corporate accountability mechanism in Canada, given the recent closure of the Canadian Ombudsperson for Responsible Enterprise (CORE) and the absence of due diligence legislation, with communities jeopardized by Canadian companies’ operations in Ecuador having no standing in investor-state disputes
- included an investor-state dispute settlement (ISDS) mechanism, which was prohibited by the Ecuadorian constitution and which was rejected in two recent plebiscites
On Apr. 23, MiningWatch Canada announced that it had signed an open statement seeking the establishment of an alliance of governments around the globe committed to freeing themselves from ISDS, described as an international system of secretive tribunals.
“It is a slap in the face to democracy to put an investor-state dispute process in this free trade deal when the Ecuadorian constitution and the people of Ecuador are clearly opposed,” said Stuart Trew, director of the Trade and Investment Research Project at the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives. “This trade deal will give Canadian mining companies a coercive tool to steamroll over local opposition to their projects and avoid accountability for rights violations.”
Other mining-related news
Here are some other mining-related news stories.
On June 30, the Yukon government shared that it had entered into an agreement with First Nations regarding a new process to conclude, within the current mandate, new minerals legislation replacing the Quartz Mining Act and Placer Act.
On May 13, the New Brunswick government announced the introduction of the Mineral Resources Act, replacing the Mining Act and aiming to enable approval process streamlining, reclamation requirement enhancement, and reinforced financial assurance measures limiting future mine site abandonment.
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