Word "Canadian" So "Reviled in Some Places" that Visiting Canucks Say They're Americans

I'll confess that I own a backpack with a prominent Canadian maple leaf that I've lugged around Europe once or twice since the invasion of Iraq. Not as some kind of self-conscious act of political protest, mind you,  just to avoid the kind of casual sneers that were fairly common for U.S. travelers during the Bush years.

Perhaps that's why this story, from The Toronto Star, jumped out at me:

Canadian mining companies are facing allegations of abuse and assault on local citizens in dozens of developing nations.

[...]

The word "Canada" is so reviled in some places that traveling Canadians mask their citizenship by wearing American flags on their caps and backpacks.

Who'd have thunk it?

The allegations are severe: From Ecuador comes a lawsuit, filed in Ontario, alleging that in 2006 a Canadian company's armed security forces attacked unarmed locals with pepper spray first, then fired guns to dampen protest near a proposed mining site.

In El Salvador, allegations of violent attacks against anti-mining activists. In Mexico, allegations of human rights and environmental abuse that led a Mexican court to close a Canadian-owned mine.

[...]

The allegations of human rights abuses come from at least 30 of the world's poorest countries and have named companies of all sizes, from giant corporations to junior mining companies.

Thanks to reader Larry C. for flagging the article,which features some truly beautiful corporate propaganda.

First, various corporate-right flacks blame the countries' own "poor governance" for Canadian miners' abuses of local populations, which basically translates as: 'but they totally didn't stop us!'

According to some dickhead from the Mining Association of Canada:

"If (countries) had the capacity to protect civil rights and live up (to) their international obligations with appropriate justice systems, etc. we wouldn't have much to talk about."

Spoken like a pirate!

Then there's this bizarre statement, by Stockwell Day -- social-right knucklehead and Trade Minister to PM Stephen Harper (a buffoon I've dubbed "George Bush without an army"):

International Trade Minister Stockwell Day says there will be no legislative action because it would not work, and the companies do not need it.

"As you know, one country doesn't develop laws that apply in another country," he said in an interview.

As you know, countries "develop laws that apply" in other countries all the time. We've had a law on our books since 1789 giving American courts jurisdiction over acts committed by Americans "in violation of the law of nations or a treaty of the United States" no matter where in the world they occur. And these are human rights allegations, which of course are governed by international as well as domestic laws (Canada tends to sign those treaties and often even respects them!).

Even more broadly, all countries have import requirements that dictate how firms operate abroad if they want to bring their products into their home markets. But never mind all that anyway, because it's ultimately all about the benjamins, at least according to the next stock argument:

The companies say they have done nothing wrong – mining copper, gold and other metals brings only prosperity to these poor regions.

At best, it's an exaggeration; at worst, a laugher. There's the much-discussed "Dutch disease" -- in which countries that rely on partnerships with multinationals to develop extractive industries for economic growth end up crowding out domestic industries (while shipping most of the profits abroad).

That's part of the larger phenomenon known as the "resource curse." Wikipedia's entry is pretty good:

The resource curse (also known as the paradox of plenty) refers to the paradox that countries and regions with an abundance of natural resources, specifically point-source non-renewable resources like minerals and fuels, tend to have less economic growth and worse development outcomes than countries with fewer natural resources. This is hypothesized to happen for many different reasons, including a decline in the competitiveness of other economic sectors (caused by appreciation of the real exchange rate as resource revenues enter an economy), volatility of revenues from the natural resource sector due to exposure to global commodity market swings, government mismanagement of resources, or weak, ineffectual, unstable or corrupt institutions (possibly due to the easily diverted actual or anticipated revenue stream from extractive activities).