Company that plans to mine First Nation land creates ad in which bikini clad women share "facts".

KWG Resources,  a Canadian mining company has set it’s eyes on mining many areas of the northern half of Ontario’s Boreal Forest. These mines will be catastrophic to the environment for many reasons, and even more so because infrastructure such as roads, rail and transmission lines will need to be built to transport the plundered chromite deposits in the James Bay Lowlands to markets worldwide. This proposal is strongly opposed by Indigenous populations that have lived there forever.  

KWG in a pathetic effort to put out any negative press their mining proposal has generated created a 1 minute sexist ad, in which young bikini clad women attempt to sell the destruction of Aboriginal land and the people that reside there by presenting “5 Interesting ‘Ring of Fire’ Facts”. The Ring Of Fire is located on the north shore of Lake Superior. This mining operation “would destroy more than 70 natural streams and ponds. The mine would be located roughly 10 km from the Peninsula Harbour Area of Concern, an area of Lake Superior already highly contaminated after years of industrial use.” 

You just can’t make this stuff up!

Telesur reports:

The video, entitled “5 Interesting ‘Ring of Fire’ Facts,” was published last week as part of the Mining Minute series on KWG Resources Youtube channel,and has been criticized by some editorials in northern Ontario publications as “archaic and humiliating” and not “socially progressive,” according to The Star newspaper.  

RELATED:  Canada: Indigenous Women Resist Environmental Destruction

According to environmental group Wildlands League, the mining company’s use of the women in bikinis is proof the development is off course. The development plan is that of building a rail line through the Ring of Fire.

In the video, each fact is presented by one of the young woman. One scene depicts a woman identified only as Ashley, sitting on a swing and saying: "First Nations is (sic) interested in sharing in the resources of Ontario's Ring of Fire.”

Ontario Nature reports on efforts to stop this atrocity.

In northern Ontario, First Nations are the most affected by the presence of mines. First Nations have a constitutional right to be consulted on land use decisions that may impact Aboriginal and treaty rights.  The Ring of Fire is a crescent shaped area located approximately 240 kilometres west of James Bay and northeast of Thunder Bay. There is tremendous opportunity in the Ring of Fire to create new jobs in northern Ontario. 

The escalation in staking and mineral development has led to confrontations with some First Nations.  Kitchenuhmaykoosib Inninuwug, a remote northern Ontario Aboriginal community, recently won the first stage of a controversial legal battle that could have major repercussions for mining and resource extraction operations throughout the province. In a landmark court decision, the Ontario Superior Court stated that no award of damages could possibly compensate KI for losses of cultural values if development proposed by Platinex Inc. (exploring platinum deposits) were to occur. The Court granted KI an injunction, thereby preventing the company from continuing work within KI’s traditional territory.

With respect to the Ring of Fire activity, Ontario Nature supports the Matawa First Nations and the Mushkegowuk Tribal Council’s call for a Joint Review Panel and public hearings into the environmental and socioeconomic impacts of the Cliffs Natural Resources Chromite Project. This project, the first in the Ring of Fire to undergo an environmental assessment, will see the creation of two open pit mines, a tailings impoundment area, an ore processing facility, a chromite processing facility and would cut a swath over 200 kilometres long through unroaded boreal forest to transport materials and people to and from the site.  It would open up an area of northern Ontario poised to become one of the largest mining centers in Canada.