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CSR Institute Talk: Mining Conflicts & the Catholic Church – Exploring the Connections

Date
July 07, 2017
Time
12:00 PM EDT - 2:00 PM EDT
Location
Ryerson University’s Ted Rogers School of Management, 55 Dundas St. West, Toronto [9th floor, room TRS 3-109]

Over the past twenty years, the mining industry has made significant advances in practices of engaging with communities and addressing their environmental, social and economic (ESE) concerns, within the comprehensive framework of sustainable development. Nevertheless, complaints by communities and their Catholic Church-based allies about mining projects have not perceptibly diminished. The roots of such conflicts appear to lie deeper than the concern of responsible mining companies to address ESE issues in the areas impacted by their operations. Corporate social responsibility as practiced by mining companies appears to be falling short of meeting the expectations of Christian social justice as advocated by the Church. In his 2015 Papal Encyclical Laudato Si’ (“On Care for Our Common Home”), Pope Francis examined the issues around mining from the perspective of the “integrity of creation”: the interconnectedness of all things, animate and inanimate: all humans, all other living things, all minerals and metals, all solids, liquids and gases. In this talk, the speaker will examine the Encyclical for its relevance to the sorts of ESE issues associated with mining and the guidance that it provides towards anticipating and reducing conflict.

This event is co-sponsored by the Ryerson CSR Student Association, the Ryerson Commerce and Government Association, and the Ryerson Law and Business Student Association.  This event is supported by the Canadian Standards Association and the Trade Commissioner Service of Global Affairs Canada.

Jim Cooney has worked for over forty years in the international mining industry, initially for six years with Cominco Ltd. (now Teck Resources) and then for twenty-five years with Placer Dome Inc., where he retired in 2006 following the acquisition of that company by Barrick Gold and Goldcorp. During the past ten years he has acted as an advisor to a number of international mining companies on issues around sustainable development, corporate social responsibility and the social license to operate. He has lectured as Adjunct Professor at the Norman B. Keevil Institute of Mining Engineering, University of British Columbia, and as Adjunct Professor at the Beedie School of Business, Simon Fraser University. He is also Professor of Practice in Global Governance at the Institute for the Study of International Development (ISID), McGill University.