Lewis appeals to miners' conscience
May 16, 2006
Toronto Star, by Lisa Wright, Business Reporter
VANCOUVER-Mining companies benefiting from the recent bull run in commodities should funnel a chunk of their massive profits toward social responsibility by helping Africa with the AIDS crisis, says Stephen Lewis.
"It's a nightmare," the United Nations special envoy for HIV/AIDS in
The presentation in
Lewis, who flew in from
But his message was no joke.
"For reasons I don't fully understand, these big mining corporations still have not been willing to make contributions to the fight against AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria outside helping their `own' employees in the countries where they operate," Lewis said.
He said big international miners have come a long way since the 1970s, when Lewis tangled with some as leader of the Ontario New Democratic Party.
Some companies then "recklessly toyed with the lives" of miners, some of whom contracted diseases such as asbestosis and cancer while working underground.
Dave Porter, a British Columbia-based member of the First Nation Summit, who sat on the panel with Lewis discussing corporate responsibility, said big mining companies "were totally impervious to social change in those days.
"Mining companies today are much more responsive to the needs of aboriginal communities," said Porter.
But Lewis reminded the audience that these global companies could do so much more, particularly in this sector and in this hot cycle, to reach out to the communities impacted by the devastation of these diseases.
He recommended that large miners be required to donate a portion of their budgets, at least 0.7 per cent of their gross profit (much as many governments have committed to do by 2015) to the global fund to fight AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria.
"And I will continue to seek that dramatic and real example of corporate responsibility," said Lewis.
He said he has been "tromping around" Africa for the past five years in his UN role, which ends this fall when he begins teaching at
The pandemic of HIV/AIDS has also been "extremely challenging" for the mining industry in
"There's been an evolution in the response of these mining companies. At first they pretended it was not happening, but as their workers were dying in higher numbers, they started to treat their workers and their (employees') partners and their children," he told the audience.
Now it's time to push into broader communities to sustain societies, Lewis said, adding global companies may be reluctant to change, "but change they will."
The industry gathering, which ends tomorrow, is expected to draw a record crowd of up to 6,000 people checking out hundreds of booths and workshops at the Vancouver Convention and Exhibition Centre.