Canada has long profited from West Africa’s gold resources. In fact, every year, these firms extract billions in revenue from the region. Right now, however, Canadian companies in West Africa are quarreling with an increasingly independent bloc of states determined to constrain the ability of foreign corporations to profit from African resources.
It’s good to see these countries trying to avoid colonialism. I’m not sure that their control over their resources is going to necessarily be better environmentally and in terms of human rights as there’s a lot of artisanal and illegal mining that goes on in Africa and that’s just abhorrent. I’m not saying that Canadian mining groups have these things in mind at all, but at the very least, they have the ability to design and engineer facilities that can manage mine wastes