Rio Tinto suddenly has a pair of 60-year-old legal problems in Canada that miners worry will scare off investors – Financial Post
December 8, 2015
Rio Tinto Group has found trouble on both ends of Canada. The global mining giant is being told it can’t skirt a pair of lawsuits that reach back to projects built in the 1950s, a quarter-century before it first set foot in Canada.
On a single day in October, the Supreme Court of Canada cleared the way for separate aboriginal groups to challenge the future operations of a Rio Tinto hydroelectric dam in British Columbia and an iron-ore mine, with accompanying railway and port, in Quebec and Labrador.
The rulings received scant notice during the final days of a dramatic Canadian election that brought Justin Trudeau and his Liberals to power. Now the cases are sparking a debate as to whether they will discourage investment in the resource sector, or perhaps instead force companies to treat Canada’s 1.4 million indigenous people as full partners.
