RoyalOr to stake Mount Royal today
It looks like ripping up the ground to create open pit mines in places like Mexico, Honduras and Guatemala just isn’t enough for some Canadian mining companies: RoyalOr has gone local! The Johannesburg, South Africa-registered organization has plans to turn Mount Royal into an open-pit mine.
“People always talk about buying local food and local produce,” argued RoyalOr CEO and director Alonse Barbe to people on the mountain yesterday, “so why are we taking our gold all the way from Mexico when we could be taking it here from Mount Royal?”
anticipated pit scope for the Mount Royal project
Barbe cited the activities of his firm and other Canadian mining companies in communities around the world and the lack of reaction in Canada as an example of Canadians’ acceptance of the practice of open-pit mining. He also hopes that protests against and opposition to RoyalOr’s plans can be quashed in a similar manner to how dissent is dealt with in the developing world: through bribery of officials and silence in the media.
The RoyalOr plan involves digging up an area which goes from around Dawson College to St-Urbain Street on the Plateau. This would gut most of the mountain and also prompt the forced relocation of residents, many of them currently living in Upper Westmount. Barbe hopes that the company’s generous offer of moving everyone affected to places like Longueil and Laval for free will help to offset potentially litigious opposition.
There is also oppositon brewing against the project by community organization and citizens in general. It has also started generating buzz in the media, with articles appearing in the Montreal Mirror and Rue Frontenac.
It was with this in mind that Barbe and a team of surveyors, geologists and marketers went to the weekly Tam Tams celebration on the mountain yesterday to explain their project to members of the community. They were met with some skepticism, but support as well. Here is a video of some of what happened:
Representatives of RoyalOr will make their claim official today as they hammer in the last stake as part of a press conference. You are invited to join them at 1:30pm by the gazebo.
