Canada-Tanzania Relations

What are the chances that the Prime Minister of Canada would come to Tanzania for the first time in nearly 30 years while I am living here? It happened this week...

Controversy over mining overshadows health initiative

PM announces $105-million contribution, but Barrick is top concern of Tanzanians

ALAN FREEMAN

From Tuesday's Globe and Mail
November 27, 2007 at 4:44 AM EST

DAR ES SALAAM, TANZANIA — The goal was to leave the image of a benevolent Canada investing in the health of poor Africans, but in the end it was another Canada, that of its globe-hopping mining companies, that stole the day.

Prime Minister Stephen Harper spent eight hours yesterday in this commercial centre on the Indian Ocean, visiting a school, lunching with Tanzania's President and announcing a $105-million contribution to a new health-care initiative in Africa and Asia.

Yet it was a 45-minute meeting with officials from a dozen Canadian investors, led by mining giant Barrick Gold Corp., that dominated Mr. Harper's news conference with President Jakaya Kikwete.

Thanks in large part to Barrick's three gold mines, Canada has emerged as Tanzania's largest foreign investor, prompting a resource boom that helped Tanzania record a 6.2-per-cent growth rate last year.

Yet the mining success has prompted allegations that royalties are too low and that Tanzania's people, still among the world's poorest, are not sharing adequately in the bonanza.

Adding to this is a nasty labour dispute at Barrick's Bulyanhulu gold mine, where 1,000 of the 1,900 workers have been on what the company calls an illegal strike for the past month.

A court hearing scheduled for yesterday, at which the union hoped to obtain an injunction to stop Barrick from hiring replacement workers, was postponed to today for reasons that were unclear.

Mr. Harper would not comment on the strike other than to say that he expects Canadian companies to "act responsibly within the laws of the land" when they are abroad. He praised Tanzania for creating a stable political and business environment that encourages Canadian companies to invest.

Mr. Kikwete was also diplomatic when the subject turned to Canada's investment in the mining industry and in particular the work of a committee created to advise the Tanzanian government on whether to change the royalty regime.

"We are not blaming the mining companies," the President said, noting that the companies are living within Tanzanian law.

He added that the goal of the review is to achieve a "win-win situation" for the companies and the government.

"We'd like to see more and more Canadian investment," Mr. Kikwete said.

It was the second time in recent months that Mr. Harper had met Barrick officials during an international trip. In July, he stopped off at Barrick's offices in Santiago, Chile, where the company is developing the massive Pascua Lama mining project in the Andes, despite protests from environmentalists.

Joan Kuyek, the national co-ordinator of MiningWatch, a group that critiques what it sees as irresponsible mining practices around the world, says Barrick's Tanzanian operation displaced thousands of small-scale miners and gives little back to Tanzania.

"If Mr. Harper met only with people chosen to have him meet with and didn't meet with the small-scale miners, didn't meet with the people who have to deal with the social and economic and environmental price that these mines are racking up in Tanzania, and didn't meet with their representatives, well I think that's pretty shocking," Ms. Kuyek said.

But Vince Borg, vice-president of communications for Barrick, said the displacement occurred before Barrick took over the Tanzania operation and that the ombudsman for the World Bank has found that the numbers of displaced people have been exaggerated. And, Mr. Borg said, the company has been "generating substantial economic and social benefits for thousands of Tanzanians."

The scheduled highlight of Mr. Harper's visit, which came after the Prime Minister's participation in the Commonwealth leaders summit in neighbouring Uganda, was his announcement of a $105-million Canadian contribution to a health-promotion program in Africa and Asia.

The goal of the Canadian-led program is to raise as much as $500-million to support basic health services, including training for 40,000 health workers; measles and MMR inoculations; insecticide-treated bed nets to protect children and pregnant women from malaria; antibiotics to fight pneumonia and a range of other health projects.

Mr. Harper said Canada remains on track to double its international aid to Africa to $2.1-billion in 2008-09 from a base of $1.05-billion in 2003-04.

But non-governmental groups have expressed concern that Africa is no longer a foreign-policy priority for Mr. Harper, who has emphasized Canada's commitment to Afghanistan and a renewed interest in Latin America and the Caribbean.

Mr. Harper was greeted earlier in the day at the airport by Mr. Kikwete, Tanzania's top general, a military band, a phalanx of traditional dancers, a unicyclist and a man on stilts. He was immediately whisked off to a nearby primary school where hundreds of enthusiastic pupils, dressed in white and blue uniforms, greeted him waving Canadian and Tanzanian flags and singing at the top of their lungs in Swahili, "Tanzania, We Love You, Tanzania."

Fighting off the 37-degree heat and his discomfort with crowds, a smiling Mr. Harper was ushered into a preschool class where children were being quizzed in Swahili and English on their knowledge of animal names.

Mr. Harper bantered with Mr. Kikwete but engaged only briefly with the children. Toward the end of the brief encounter, the President asked a child: "What's his name?"

"Har-per," responded the child, to which a grinning Prime Minister responded with a personal round of applause.

Mr. Harper is the first Canadian Prime Minister to visit Tanzania since Pierre Trudeau came here in 1978.
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Multinational companies coming into countries where they exploit both the national workers and resources, while giving as little back to the economy, is a huge problem in the developing world. While I like and respect Harper, he must know that coming into a country such as Tanzania on a diplomatic mission, and then using the time to meet with Canadian investors who are already under scrutiny for their policies here, would lead to a negative outcome in the media. I do feel for him though, as the left-wing journalists pay him no favours in their description of his activities, "Fighting off the 37-degree heat and his discomfort with crowds, a smiling Mr. Harper was ushered into a preschool class where children were being quizzed in Swahili and English on their knowledge of animal names." This passage is clearly meant to make it sound as though Harper was somehow uncomfortable in his duties here, even though there is no actual evidence to support that claim. Personally I am glad to see that the Conservatives are making an effort to draw attention to the issues facing Tanzania and the rest of Africa. It is commendable that Canada has doubled its aid to Africa in the past couple of years, but we are still far below the promised 0.7% of our GDP that is meant to go to international development programs.

To find out more about the problems that Canadian mining companies are causing in the global south, go here: http://www.devp.org/devpme/eng/education/educationcampaign-eng.html