Underneath Mark Carney’s management, international funding agency Brookfield was accused of breaching Indigenous rights or harming the atmosphere in no less than 4 nations, CBC Indigenous has discovered.
Carney, who’s working for prime minister as Liberal chief, spent greater than 4 years as vice chair after which chair at Brookfield Asset Administration, the place he targeted on inexperienced investing and renewable vitality.
Throughout that interval from 2020 to 2024, Brookfield companies confronted studies of significant human rights abuses in Brazil, Indigenous resistance in Colombia, a First Nation’s $100-million lawsuit in Ontario and an environmental dispute in Maine.
In Ontario, Maine and Colombia, Brookfield-owned hydroelectric dams and one wind farm allegedly threatened Indigenous rights or broken the atmosphere. In Brazil, worldwide NGO Global Witness accused Brookfield and subsidiaries of deforestation and human rights violations, together with the tried eviction of an Indigenous group and breach of anti-slave labour legislation in 2021.
Whereas the multinational conglomerate denied any wrongdoing, the disputes have raised questions in regards to the former central banker and UN local weather motion envoy’s monitor document.
“I am not making an attempt to level a finger at him personally, however the firm of Brookfield, no, will not be measuring as much as what they may do and will do, and now we’re saying should do, legally,” mentioned Toronto lawyer Kate Kempton.
Kempton represents Mississauga First Nation in a lawsuit in opposition to Ontario and Brookfield Renewable. It was filed in 2022 over 4 dams on the Mississagi River on Lake Huron’s north shore.
It was filed as a final resort after “Brookfield shut the door in our face” when approached a couple of benefits-sharing settlement, mentioned Kempton.
Carney advocates for extra financial benefits-sharing agreements and financial reconciliation in his e-book, Values, however Mississauga First Nation’s chief says they did not expertise that in any respect from Brookfield Renewable’s Canadian agency, Evolugen.
“If something, we have been ignored,” Brent Niganobe instructed CBC Indigenous final month.
The chief mentioned the dams in query devastated the group by destroying fishing websites, flooding territory and displacing folks. Whereas that was many years earlier than Brookfield purchased the dams in 2002, the First Nation alleges Brookfield benefited from prejudicial regulatory adjustments in 2019.
In the meantime, the dams proceed to impression the land, mentioned Niganobe.
“There’s nonetheless impacts with the fish. There was a spill at considered one of them that we did not discover out about until later, so it continues to create havoc on the atmosphere.”
From Maine to Colombia
In Maine, conservation teams sued Brookfield Renewable in 2021.
The teams alleged 4 dams on the Kennebec River have been violating American federal legislation by repeatedly killing Atlantic salmon from an endangered inhabitants. The teams withdrew the claim in 2023, vowing to give attention to the relicensing course of as a substitute, however they and native Wabanaki nations proceed to advocate for the dams’ removing.
Failure to take action will “jeopardize the way forward for our sustenance fishing heritage,” mentioned Chief Kirk Francis of the Penobscot Nation and Chief Clarissa Sabattis of the Houlton Band of Maliseet in a March 5 information launch.
Greater than 4,000 kilometres away in northern Colombia, the Sogamoso Dam, owned by Brookfield’s Colombian enterprise Isagen, induced important harm to ecosystems and native communities, according to a 2023 collaborative report by some 50 civil society teams.
In the meantime, the Wayuu individuals are resisting an Isagen wind farm in La Guajira, Colombia’s northernmost peninsula. Nacion Wayuu, a neighborhood NGO, accuses Isagen of invading their ancestral territories and advancing the mission with out consent.
Firm has denied allegations
In an announcement, the Carney marketing campaign declined to handle the studies straight.
“Mr. Carney left his profession in enterprise and finance to run for workplace and is targeted completely on serving the folks of Canada,” wrote Liberal spokesperson Jenna Ghassabeh.
“He’s deeply dedicated to advancing reconciliation and upholding the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.”
Questions on Brookfield must be despatched on to the agency, she added.
Brookfield did not reply to media requests nevertheless it has beforehand denied the allegations.
In Ontario, Brookfield is mounting a court docket defence in opposition to Mississauga First Nation, whereas the U.S. federal vitality regulator final month recommended the dams in Maine keep operating, supplied Brookfield makes adjustments to permit endangered fish to cross via.
In Colombia, Brookfield referred to as the allegation that its dam was damaging the atmosphere and native communities “unfounded.” The corporate denied the allegations about Brazil, telling World Witness it “unequivocally refute[s] the particular allegations of human rights abuses in direction of Indigenous tribes.”
There are optimistic tales, too.
In Australia, Brookfield Properties launched “Reconciliation Action Plans” in 2022 and 2024. The agency reportedly pulled out of a controversial Australian fuel mission in 2021, amid native considerations about harm to culturally vital historic Indigenous petroglyphs.
Evolugen gave 4.4 hectares of land back to Michipicoten First Nation in Ontario in 2018, after elders raised considerations it might threaten an vital religious and therapeutic web site, and in 2012, Brookfield Renewable gave about 40 hectares of land to the Hiawatha Institute for Indigenous Information in New York state.
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