Learn about the personal journey and political fight of the Diaguita peoples in defense of their territory as they travel to Toronto, the corporate headquarters of Barrick Gold a company infamous for human rights violations and threats to intellectual freedom.

2 locations to choose from:

Wednesday January 11th at 6:30pm in the Nat Taylor Cinema (Ross Building) at
York University

Thursday  January 12th at 7:30pm in the Palmerston Library Theatre
560 Palmerston Avenue

***FREE***

Over 70% of mining companies are based in Canada, operating abroad and on indigenous territory with little environmental and social regulation and political impunity.

hosted by Mining Injustice Solidarity Network
www.solidarityresponse.net
http://cryoftheandes.com/wordpress/

For the York campus screening FB page, please click here:
http://www.facebook.com/events/213993182019794/

For the Palmerson Library screening, please click here:
http://www.facebook.com/events/232269483516292/

Extended notes

The indigenous Diaguita community in the arid Atacama region of Chile has always opposed  Barrick Gold’s Pascua Lama open pit gold and silver mine on their ancestral lands beside the border with Argentina. Now the Diaguita’s only source of water is threatened as the government prepares to allocate rights to Barrick. The filmmakers follow community leader Sergio Campusano of the Diaguita Agricultural Community Los Huascoaltinos as he seeks accountability from Barrick Gold in Toronto and from government officials in Alto del Carmen in Chile. The mining law is blamed by the Diaguita for allowing Barrick to deny access to their ancestral lands. The Diaguita complain that Barrick is doing exploration work in seven other areas of their land without permission, and pumping groundwater that would normally flow into the Huasco River.

Even though water was defined as a “national public good” in the 1981 Water Code,  it was also deemed a “market asset” and Chile gave away water rights for free to companies in the “productive” sectors: mainly multinational corporations engaged in mining, forestry, agricultural  exports, and hydroelectric development. Until now Rural Water Associations such as in Huasco have been protected by a separate law and their water has always been pristine. After large municipal water services were sold off in 1998, multinationals owned 83% of all water services. It’s close to 100 % now due to further sell-offs in 2004.

The Ontario Teachers Pension Plan controls 4 of the 13 largest water service companies. Some farmers in the Huasco Valley are not happy that Barrick is trying to buy water usage rights from other farmers. Some farmers are thinking of leaving for areas near the coast.

Even from the 16th century the Spanish made no claims on the Diaguita lands. The Diaguita community remained intact as other indigenous communities were assimilated into Chilean society. In 1902 Indian lands were measured and in 1903 Estancia de los Huascoaltinos were
given domain title to 381,000 hectares communally held ( less than in 1600). In 1997 land titles that had been double-registered from 1910 by other farmers and ranchers – regarded as illegal encroachments by the Diaguita – were made legal by the “Law of Agricultural Communities”. The Diaguita say they lost 140,000 hectares from this, and blame the government for not recognizing them as an indigenous people. In 1998 Barrick bought two ranches that had been double-registered in 1913 yet within Diaguita lands. They have closed the roads ever since and deny the Diaguita access to their grazing pastures. In 2005 the Diaguita declared their lands as a “Private Wilderness Protected Area”. In 2008 they requested to CONAMA (National Environment Commission) that their lands be recognized under existing legal framework as qualifying for protection as “Huasco Private Nature
Reserve”. CONAMA “refused to evaluate the project by declaring themselves incompetent”.

Critics have asked for a new environment agency, a department qualified to do environmental impact studies, and an agency responsible for enforcing regulations.

The Diaguita are aware of the severe water shortages caused by mining in the almost desert-like Atacama and Antofagasta regions to the north. The nearest  large town of Copiapo, where the mining disaster happened two years ago, used to be supplied by three rivers, but two have dried up. People buy water from mining companies that build desalination plants on the coast. BHP Billiton is building one for their Escondida copper mine for $4.3 billion. Water is used by the Collahuasi mine to pump iron ore slurry via 8 inch pipe 203 km. The largest power plant in South America is being built between Alto del
Carmen and Copiapo: the coal-fired Hacienda Castilla 2354MW, $4.4B plus $300M for a port.

In Feb. 2010 a complaint (filed in 2005) against Chile by Diaguita Agricultural Community Los Huascoaltinos was deemed admissible by the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR). Thus, this international body recognizes that the Chilean state committed alleged violations of rights enshrined in the American Convention on Human Rights when Chile approved Barrick Gold’s Pascua Lama mining project. The testimonies began Oct. 2011.

In Nov. 2011 a coalition of NGO’s in Chile presented a report to Barrick investors US EXIM Bank and EDC of Canada that declares Pascua Lama is in direct violation of the Equator Principles, which are global norms laying out conditions for responsible investment.

But what are the implications of this donation? How much influence will Munk have over the University’s curriculum and bias? Who is Peter Munk and what is his company Barrick Gold’s reputation worldwide?

This website has been created to provide facts to inform these discussions. In it, you will find a profile of Peter Munk and his company, Barrick Gold, as well as an analysis of the Munk Memorandum of Agreement with UofT and an analysis of this donation within the larger context of transnational corporate impunity and the struggle for corporate accountability within Canada.

Intended to empower students with the information necessary to demand a cancellation and renegotiation of this contract, this campaign is more than a source of information, but a link to an on-going campaign to achieve that end.

To learn more and get involved, please attend…

WHAT: Munk and UofT info session
WHERE: OISE 2279, 252 Bloor, UofT Campus
WHEN: Friday, Sept 30, 4-5pm

Recommended reading/viewing to get the facts!

The petition! See our demands of the University and register your support!

The Munk Primer:  a full, 6-page Munk Primer with a 6-point, bullet-proof critique of the Munk Contract. Namely, that:

• The Contract Was Negotiated and Approved in Secret
• The Contract has strings attached, compromising academic integrity
• The Donor has a Conflict of Interest in the School’s Area of Focus
• The Donor’s company has a reputation worldwide for Human Rights Abuses and Environmental Devastation
• The Donor has a History of Intimidating and Threatening Academics
• The Contract demands that UofT House a Right-wing Think Tank

Peter Munk in his own words: the must see video that exposes the truth and rhetoric behind Barrick Gold. view here.

Contact: MunkOUTofUofT@gmail.com if you have any questions or want to get involved!

(photos: Mining Injustice Solidarity Network: solidarityresponse.net)

Approximately 70 people gathered today at a commemoration held for the seven individuals killed in Tanzania at African Barrick Gold’s North Mara Mine. Public outcry over this violence has been amplified by recent reports that local security/police forces employed by the mine have attempted to ban a memorial ceremony for the deceased. To the horror of many local families, these security forces also stole 5 of the 7 peoples’ bodies from the mortuary.

The company has claimed that this violence was in response to an invasion of 1500 local people looting for gold ore. For others however, the real crime can be linked to the history of large-scale mining in the region. Editor of ProtestBarrick Sakura Saunders comments: “This mine was built on displacement and dispossession of the local people. These communities have a long history of small-scale mining for their livelihood that has been taken from them. Now, these same communities are being criminalized for using the survival-mechanisms that they know. They are being killed for ‘stealing’ the same gold-laced sand that used to be theirs.”

Unfortunately, this is not an isolated case. According to Carlos Jimenez a member of the Mining Injustice Solidarity Network, local mining communities often feel negative impacts and experience economic losses. He also expresses other concerns as a U of T student. He states, “It is disgusting that the University of Toronto chooses to accept donations from an industry which destroys communities and legitimizes it under the rhetoric of development. We must evaluate what kind of influence mining companies have in communities both at home and abroad.”

U of T alumni soon-to-to be graduate student Kwanza Msingwana agreed. “Barrick Gold should be held accountable . . . rather than just take the goods of Tanzania and leave the people impoverished leaving the environment in a bad state so that people cannot continue to benefit from the environment.”

President of Science for Peace, Judy Deutsch also expressed concern for human rights violations as well as the toll that mining has on the environment as a whole. She states, “The focus needs to be on preserving cultivable land and preserving water, not sacrificing young people to enrich entrepreneurs such as what just happened at the North Mara mine.”

The names of the individuals killed in North Mara mine were read out loud: Emanual Magige, 27; Chacha Mwasi, 25; Chacha Ngoka, 26; Chawali Bhoke, 26; Mwikwabe Marwa, 35. Statements were also read from Tarime residents and advocates who work in the region.

Despite receiving formal invitations, no administrators of the Munk School of Global Affairs were available for comment.

A man stands by a house in what used to be a rural area. It has almost since been overtaken by waste rock from Barrick's North Mara mine.

By Sakura Saunders

leer el artículo en español aqui.

On May 16, over 1,000 people entered a mine in northern Tanzania, desperate to collect whatever gold they could from the modern industrial site that used to be their bread and butter. But instead of providing the displaced artisanal miners with a boost to their meager income, the day ended in horror.

The next day, African Barrick Gold, a subsidiary of Toronto-based Barrick Gold, released a statement admitting that seven people were killed and twelve injuried at their North Mara mine in Tanzania. The killings came at the hands of Tanzanian police, who Barrick originally claimed were under sustained attack by 800 “criminal intruders” (a number Barrick revised to 1,500), who illegally entered the North Mara mine to steal gold ore. Since this fatal confrontation, tensions have been high in the Tarime District, with an increase in the number of police, the deployment of water cannons, the arrest of journalists and two members of parliament for “instigating violence,” and the theft of five of the seven bodies from the mortuary by police.

Confrontations between local people and the mine’s security forces are not uncommon near Barrick’s North Mara mine in Tanzania. As Bloomberg journalist Cam Simpson reported in a December 2010 feature story about the mine, before this latest massacre “at least seven people have been killed in clashes with security forces at the mine in the past two years.” These security forces, according to company documents, include police who Barrick pays to guard its North Mara mine.

“They are not arresting them or taking them to court,” said Machage Bartholomew Machage, a member of the Tarime District Council, the highest local government body, in an interview with Simpson. “They are just shooting them.”

One week after the most recent spate of killings, the police stormed a local mortuary and stole the bodies of four of the dead. This move, according to locals, was to prevent the villagers from holding a planned memorial service at the mine on Tuesday.

Police also arrested and charged two members of Parliament, a legal advisor, and journalists for “instigating people to cause violence.” MP Tundu Lissu, who was among those arrested, was in Tarime to assist with post-mortem medical examinations of bodies to identify exactly which parts of the bodies of the deceased were shot by the police.

“Normally if you shoot a person on the head it means you intended to kill them. However, if you shoot them on the leg it means you tried to stop them from doing something… this exercise will help us to know the police’s intention,” he explained to local journalists. Tundu was arrested two days later at the funeral of the local villagers killed by Barrick security.

At this time, Lissu and six others remain in police custody and their bail has been denied. Meanwhile, the four journalists, MP Esther Matiko, and opposition cadre John Heche posted bail and were released after six hours in custody.

According to George Marato of Tazania’s Guardian newspaper, these violent confrontations can be blamed in part on corruption amongst the security forces at Barrick’s mine. According to his interviews with locals following the latest killings, police and company staff conspire to facilitate illegal entry into the premises to scoop sand with gold concentrates. For example, one group would pay one million shillings (around $650) in exchange for a half-hour of scooping sand from the ground.

The violent confrontations occur, according to Marato, when disagreements arise over the amount of compensation for company insiders, often due to hikes in “gold theft fees.” He writes, “Ensuing wars of words turn into confrontations that provoke policemen to fire at the very people who had been co-conspirators not long previously.”

This situation, according to Marato, is then compounded by local youngsters who attempt to force their way to the compound to scoop the sand free of charge.

Tensions with the locals can be traced back to the mine’s early history of displacement and dispossession. Before the mine opened, an estimated 40,000 people living in the area, a large majority of the population, depended on small-scale mining for their livelihoods, according to a history compiled by the mine’s first proponent, Afrika Mashariki Gold Mines Ltd.

Small scale miners, represented by five villages, had mineral rights to the lands that they mined, but were forced to sell these claims to Afrika Mashariki under illegal and irregular circumstances, according to a legal complaint launched in July 2003 by the Lawyers Environmental Action Team (LEAT) on behalf of 1,273 former small-scale miners. In another lawsuit, 43 landowners alleged to have been paid no compensation, while being forcefully evicted from their lands.

Since then, there have been multiple fatal confrontations at the mine site. In December 2008, one such incident resulted in a civilian uprising where locals set fire to $7 million worth in mine equipment. This number, which was originally estimated at upwards of $15 million, is disputed by locals. As now, Barrick blamed the damage to equipment on “well-organized groups” that raided the mine site. However, signed affidavits [1, 2] from witnesses to the event claim that angry villagers had only set one Caterpillar loader on fire on a road outside the mine, after they had heard of the killing of their compatriot. These affidavits and others [3, 4] describe this incident in detail, as well as documenting the history of violence and impunity at the mine site, and the criminalization of community advocates following the murders.

 from PorgeraAlliance.net  

A recent landmark decision of the National Court that gives Porgera Joint Venture Company exclusive rights of occupancy to its Special Mining Lease (SML) could affect thousands of landowners living in major resource development project areas throughout the country. Meanwhile, landowners from Porgera have traveled to the United Nations to advocate for the humane resettlement of the people still living within the SML.

The lawsuit, against the Wapini sub-clan living in the SML area of Barrick Gold’s Porgera mine, sought permanent injunctions against the landowners who were continually tearing down a fence that the company was building around the SML.

Danny Gonol, the lawyer representing the Wapini landowners, submitted on behalf of the landowners that the company was constructing the fence through their village and this would result in their displacement, as well as destruction to their homes, food gardens and economic trees.

The resettlement of people still living inside the SML area of the Porgera Mine has been a key demand brought by the landowners association for many years.

“We are forced to live like squatters in our own land. The company’s mining activity, through the mine waste and now this giant fence, has overtaken all of the land that we once used to live in and grow food,” said Mark Ekepa, chairman of the Porgera Landowners Association. “With this legal decision, the national government is legitimizing Barrick’s use of force in evicting indigenous landowners from their own land. We have no where to go, so we are taking our struggle to international bodies”

In 2008, the Porgera Landowners Association joined forces with other Porgera-based groups to form the Porgera Alliance. Since that time, the Alliance has made annual trips to Barrick’s Annual Shareholders meeting, the Canadian Parliament, and the United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Peoples (UNPFII) to advocate for resettlement of landowners who live inside the SML.

“Our government is weak and depends on companies like Barrick to provide revenues from resource extraction,” said Jethro Tulin of the Porgera Alliance. “While we try to work with our government in PNG, we have found that the government speaks like the company and the company speaks like the government. Meanwhile, there is a human rights crisis on the ground that neither body wants to acknowledge.”

Mr Gonol said that his lawfirm is contemplating lodging a Supreme Court appeal against the National Court decision.

Confrontations between local people and mining security are not uncommon near Barrick’s North Mara mine in Tanzania. As Bloomberg journalist Cam Simpson reported in his Dec ’10 feature story about the mine, “Security guards and federal police allegedly have shot and killed people scavenging the gold-laced rocks to sell for small amounts of cash, according to interviews with 28 people, including victims’ relatives, witnesses, local officials and human-rights workers.”

These conflicts take place in the context of forced displacement, destroyed livelihoods and farmlands, and the on-going poisoning of local residents that characterizes Barrick’s North Mara mine.

While Barrick has recently begun to admit to the killings of “trespassers” near the mine, they continue to deny that a 2009 toxic spill that resulted in the death and poisoning of many villagers near the mine site. In fact, while local news reports linked the toxic spillage to increased rain, Barrick once again blamed “vandals”. According to the company’s Corporate Social Responsibility reports “vandals stole PVC plastic lining from a waste water containment pond, allowing acidic waste water to seep from the pond.” Even though local reports in media and with the North Mara Ward Authority reported that 20-43 people in North Mara died within weeks of the spill, Barrick continues to assert that “this event was an isolated incident and to date there is no evidence that there has been ‘serious human health impacts or even deaths’ associated with this event.”

For context to the health concerns and on-going conflict in the North Mara region, please see the following reports:

North Mara’s message to government, by Beldina Nyakeke of The Citizen (Tanzania) May 2011

Tanzania: Killings and Toxic Spill Tarnish Barrick Gold, by Zahra Moloo May 2011

REPORT: Africa Barrick: Clean Up Your Act! people and livestock threatened in tanzania May 2011

FOR COMPLETE CONFERENCE SCHEDULE PLEASE VISIT: http://www.solidarityresponse.net/mining-injustice-conference/conference-agenda-2011/

***bring your own cup and a blank t-shirt if you can!***
…
This conference reflects the collective effort of several organizations and grass roots groups in Toronto, in collaboration with peoples, communities and organizations facing and resisting the entrance of corporate mining mega-projects into their territories.

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Friday May 6th, 7 pm: Conference ‘soft-launch’ – meet and greet with affected community members and activists at Beit Zatoun (612 Markham Street)
RSVP here so we know how much food to bring!: http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=180292898686837

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Saturday May 7th, 1:15 pm: keynote speaker Winona LaDuke and concurrent sessions as well as workshops and caucuses! (Sidney Smith Hall)

Official conference launch, 8 pm – 2 am: dance party (193 Dowling Street @ Queen Street West)

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Sunday May 8th, 10 am: concurrent sessions as well as workshops and caucuses (cont.!) (Sidney Smith Hall)

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Particular themes that will be discussed this year include:
• Gendered violence, inequity and feminist perspectives
• Militarization and forced displacement
• Indigenous knowledge and spirituality as forms of resistance
• Labour rights and the rhetoric of development
• Criminalization of dissent and protest
• Environmental contamination effects and health
• Food security and water rights
• The cycle of supply and demand of uranium in the North
• Tar sands and the petroleum industry in the North and South

++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Stay tuned for a list of speakers or visit our website at www.solidarityresponse.net

Endorsed by: AccentsBookstore, Barrio Nuevo, Bayan Canada, Canadians Against Mining in El Salvador, Centre for Research on Latin America and the Caribbean, Common Frontiers, CUPE 4400, CUPE 3903, Environmental Justice Toronto, First Continental Encounter of the Peoples of the Abya Yala-Ecuador, First Nations Solidarity Working Group, Guatemala Community Network – Toronto Kitchener-Waterloo Mayan Project – Tzijolaj-Ottawa, Health for All, Indigenous Environmental Network, Latin American and Caribbean Solidarity Network, Latin American Trade Union Coalition, Migrante, MiningWatch Canada, Munk OUT of UofT, NooneisIllegal, Ontario Coalition Against Poverty, Opirg Toronto, Osgoode Environmental Law Society, Philippines Solidarity Network of Canada, ProtestBarrick, Rights Action, Science for Peace, Students for a Free Tibet, Toronto Bolivia Solidarity, Todos por Guatemala, Workers Assembly.

If you would like to endorse this event please email Mining Injustice Solidarity Network at miconference2011@gmail.com

Friends of the Earth International calls in to question the necessity of the Canadian-owned corporation’s gold mining operations. With the vast majority of gold used for jewellery, Barrick’s gold mines on average use more water[1] than the entire bottle water industry in Canada[2], and this water is polluted with mining waste products such as cyanide, mercury, arsenic, cadmium, selenium, and sulphides.

Romel de Vera, coordinator of Friends of the Earth International’s program on Resisting Mining, Oil and Gas,said, “All this waste, pollution and impacts on communities lives and livelihoods is in exchange for a product that has very few practical applications. With environmental costs almost entirely unaccounted for, the processing costs are all that stand in the way for companies to realise huge profits at the expense of those living next to the mines.”

Last year, the Norwegian Pension fund divested $230 million from Barrick for ethical reasons[3], especially related to their mine in Papua New Guinea. And when Swiss Research firm Covalace compiled both quantitative and qualitative data spanning seven years and 581 companies they listed Barrick as the 12 least ethical company in the world[4].

Heri Ayubu, from Lawyers Environmental Action Team/Friends of the Earth Tanzania said: “ There have been two reports[5,6] confirming lasting negative effects of a toxic spill from
Barrick Gold’s North Mara operation in Tanzania that occurred in May 2010. Villagers alleged that up to 40 people and from 700 to 1,000 herds of livestock died from the contaminated water and the nearby community are still experiencing health problems to date. Despite this Barrick has taken no action and is still endangering peoples’ right to life.”

Natalie Lowrey, from Friends of the Earth Australia who is inside Barrick Gold’s Annual General Meeting in Toronto, Canada and joining the rally outside said: “In Australia, Barrick has desecrated an ecologically and culturally significant site on Wiradjuri lands[7]with an open-pit mine in the bed of Lake Cowal within a flood plain.

Wiradjuri Traditional Owners have been fighting Barrick in the courts for 10 years on the desecration of sacred sites at Lake Cowal and on the protection of Wiradjuri Native Title Rights.”

Friends of the Earth is joining ProtestBarrick.net with Barrick Gold impacted communities from Tanzania, Philippines and Papua New Guinea on a two week speaking tour in Canada from 27 April
until 15 May.

Actions protesting Barrick Gold are also taking place in Latin America

FOR MORE INFORMATION:

Romel de Vera, Friends of the Earth International, Tel: +63
906 305 7097 (Philippines), mel.devera@lrcksk.org

Natalie Lowrey, Friends of the Earth Australia, +1
647 838 8455 (Canada), natalie.lowrey@foe.org.au

Heri Ayubu, Lawyers Environmental Action Team-Friends of the Earth Tanzania, +255 656 322 271 (Tanzanian office),
heriayubu23@gmail.com

NOTES

[1]. Of the 23 mines that Barrick provides water usage data for, the
average water consumption totals 3.6 billion litres/year for 2009.
Barrick Gold
website.
http://www.barrick.com/CorporateResponsibility/Reporting/PerformanceTables/Environment/default.aspx

[2]. In 2006, Canada consumed 2.15 billion litres of bottled water
http://www4.agr.gc.ca/AAFC-AAC/display-afficher.do?id=1171644581795&lang=eng

[3]. Norwegian Government website
http://www.regjeringen.no/en/dep/fin/press-center/Press-releases/2009/mining-company-excluded-from-thegovernm.html?id=543107

[4]. Huffington Post The 12 Least Ethical Companies In The World:
Covalence’s Ranking”,
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/01/28/the-leastethicalcompani_n_440073.html

[5], Bitala, Manfre, Charles Kweyunga, and Mkabwa LK Manoko, “Levels of Heavy Metals and Cyanide in Soil, Sediment and Water from the Vicinity of North Mara Gold Mine in Tarime District, Tanzania” June 2009
http://www.protestbarrick.net/downloads/North%20Mara%20Pollution%20Report.pdf

[6]. Norwegian University of Life Sciences, Investigation of trace metal concentrations in soil, sediments and waters in the vicinity of Geita Gold Mineand North Mara Gold Minein North West Tanzania, 2009
http://www.protestbarrick.net/downloads/FinalTanzania-2.pdf

[7] Barrick Gold’s mine in Lake Cowal, the ‘Sacred Heartland of the
Wiradjuri Nation’, http://bit.ly/lakecowalaerial 19 April 2011

WHEN: Wednesday 27 April @ 10.30AM
WHERE: Metro Toronto Convention Centre, 255 Front Street West, Toronto

JOIN THE RESISTANCE TO END CORPORATE IMPUNITY!

WHO IS BARRICK GOLD? Barrick Gold is the world’s largest gold mining company, founded and chaired by Peter Munk. With a former Prime Minister on their board and former executives sitting on the board of the Canadian Pension Plan, Barrick enjoys government funding and diplomatic support.

WHY PROTEST BARRICK? Barrick Gold takes advantage of inadequate and poorly enforced regulatory controls to rob Indigenous Peoples and communities of their land and livelihoods, destroying sensitive ecosystems, supporting brutal military and security operations, and suing anyone who dares to report on it. Impacted communities are coming to Toronto to confront Barrick, sharing their own undeniable perspectives and shedding light on the ongoing corporate impunity.

MAKE THE TRANSFORMATION AWAY FROM GOLD EXTRACTION!

WHY? With the majority of gold used for jewelry or to store wealth and the majority of gold extraction destruction on Indigenous lands around the world. It is time to question humans ongoing obsession with gold.

HOW? Through reduction, recycling and reuse of gold there can be a halt on new and expanding gold mining explorations and operations around the world.

More info: http://protestbarrick.net/
M 647-838-8455 :: E protestbarrick@gmail.com

JOIN US on our social networks:

http://facebook.com/protestbarrick

http://twitter.com/stopbarrick

http://youtube/waysofseeing

SUPPORTED BY:
http://protestbarrick.net/ :: http://porgeraalliance.net/ :: http://savelakecowal.org/ ::http://munkoutofuoft.wordpress/ :: http://foei.org/ :: http://leat.or.tz/ :: http://foe.org.au/ ::http://macec4marinduque.multiply.com/ :: http://lrcksk.org/ :: http://solidarityresponse.net/ ::http://ejtoronto.wordpress.com/ :: http://cupe.on.ca/doc.php?subject_id=253

Campus and community members were angered by the agenda for this particular Governing Council meeting. Governors were set to ignore a motion served by a student governor calling for a renegotiation of the Munk Foundation’s contentious donation contract with UofT, and to increase tuition fees so that for the first time ever, tuition and user fees are projected to surpass public funding in UofT’s operating budget.

University privatization means that the campus’ governing bodies are less accountable to the public, including students, workers and faculty – at the same time, governors are demanding that students pay more. “We don’t want corporate or bureaucratic control over the terms of our teaching, research or learning, yet the strings attached to the Munk donation mean that the activities of the new School of Global Affairs have to effectively be approved by the board of the Munk Foundation,” says Gavin Smith, Professor Emeritus of Anthropology at the University of Toronto. Smith finds these strings particularly troubling because Peter Munk is the founder and chairman of Barrick Gold, a company accused of human rights and environmental abuses around the world. Barrick Gold is also currently pursuing SLAPP lawsuits against three authors who have written about these issues.

After the rally, a hundred students, workers, faculty and allies proceeded inside the building to observe the GC meeting. According to paragraph 18 of the University of Toronto Act (1971), these meetings are open to members of the public. However, six officers from campus police blocked the doors to Council Chambers, preventing students, workers, and faculty from entering the meeting. Among those denied access were elected student representatives who were scheduled to speak on proposed tuition fee increases. Security insisted that Council Chambers was full, although reports from inside indicated that the 120-capacity room contained no more than 80 people. Frustrated about being repeatedly excluded from decisions about their own school and livelihoods, those gathered outside of Council Chambers began to chant, clap, and stomp to assert their presence.

Morgan Vanek, Member-Elect of Governing Council and Ph.D. Student in the Department of English, was inside Council Chambers. “The noise of people protesting outside Council Chamber was deafening,” she said, “But the Governors nonetheless voted to approve a tuition increase without discussion.” Vanek continued, “it’s obvious to me that there is a real problem when students, workers, and faculty are reduced to banging on a door to have their voices heard. It is time that we reconsider how this University is governed.”

Undergraduate student and participant Juan Carlos Jimenez found the experience to be empowering. “The energy [outside of Council Chambers] was incredible,” says Jimenez, adding that “for some of the people I met, this was their first time engaging in a protest. To see the Governing Council actively and physically alienate people who study and work here convinced a lot of us that something is seriously wrong, and that we need to work to change that.” Jimenez says that he is looking forward to future actions, and anticipates larger numbers and a greater impact.

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For more information, please contact:

Juan Carlos Jimenez, undergraduate student – 647-889-1756
Gavin Smith, Professor Emeritus – 416-535-6850
Johanna Lewis, undergraduate student – 416-797-8537