Canadian Extractives As Development Slideshow
The Story of the Photo Exhibit
Amnesty International Canada proudly presents Canadian Extractives as Development: Myth or Reality?, a new photo exhibit by documentary photographer James Rodriguez that engages viewers to consider essential questions about Canada’s self-proclaimed role of responsible global leader in mining development.
Canadian embassies and trade commissions have aggressively promoted the mining industry’s agenda on foreign soil, while large-scale public media campaigns, both at home and abroad, promote corporate social responsibility practices. Canada’s Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s support for the mining industry has gone as far as outspokenly accusing those opposed to mining as being “in favour of keeping people poor” in developing countries.
But Canadians must ask ourselves: have Canadian-run mining projects truly brought economic and social advancement to impoverished communities in Latin America? Or has mining provided unprecedented cash flow for very few in the North, while causing massive environmental degradation and health issues, social conflicts, corruption or even spawning brutal violence in the Global South? Communities from Argentina to Mexico seem to argue the latter. This controversial question is explored in AI Canada's photo exhibit.
Canadian Extractives as Development: Myth or Reality? aims to bring home the debate regarding the perceived benefits of the Canadian government’s support for an unregulated overseas mining sector by presenting first-hand the stories and voices of those affected by Canadian policies and investment. These stories of everyday-people-turned-human-rights-defenders, most of them Indigenous men and women of Mesoamerica, will undoubtedly provide the Canadian public with the so-far untold story about this highly-controversial Canadian economic development model.
Based in Guatemala since 2004, documentary photographer James Rodriguez presents an unequivocal visual registry of the impact Canadian mining industries have had on rural communities in Mexico, Central America and the Dominican Republic.
Images from the exhibit are available as framed photographs or printed canvass banners. Each set of prints comes with text cards which accompany the images.
For information about hosting the photo exhibit, please contact the Business and Human Rights team: bhr@amnesty.ca or call 1-613-744-7667 ext. 102