Delphine Abadie

Canada and the geopolitics of mining interests: a case study of the Democratic Republic of Congo

The very process of global governance widely escapes the reach of nation-states and national communities. Its binding influence is even more obvious on the African continent, where many states are commonly described as weak, failed or collapsed. Boaventura Santos De Sousa defines ‘globalisation’ as the process by which a particularistic entity manages to expand its influence and power beyond its frontiers, and consequently manages to acquire the capacity to designate as ‘local’ a condition which it captures. According to this perspective, ‘localised globalism’ is characterised by transnational practices that have a binding impact on the local context, which is therefore restructured in order to meet the outsiders’ strategic imperatives. Another form of globalisation, designated as ‘cosmopolitanism’, occurs when transnationally organised allies use the existing norms of the global governance system to serve their shared interests (De Sousa Santos 2008). The liberalisation of the natural resources sector in Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) is at the very heart of the globalisation process which is transforming the political economy of the Great Lakes region, thus mediated by the international financial institutions (IFIs) and their conditionalities. Concomitantly, as Béatrice Hibou argues, the DRC state, just like many other countries on the continent, is characterised by a criminalisation of the state largely maintained by cronyism, clientelism and criminality. This process has been deepened by structural adjustment and its correlated economic liberalisation and privatisations of public offices associated with IFI loans (Bayart et al. 1997). Today, 75% of the extractive industry multinationals – mainly juniors of exploration – are hosted in Canada or registered on the Toronto Stock Exchange (TSX). According to the Ontario Ministry of Northern Development and Mines, in 2006 more than 50% of the world’s mining companies were listed on the TSX and more than 80% of the global mining industry’s investment financing was raised there. The market value of those companies is about Can

Noir Canada : pillage, corruption et criminalité en Afrique

380 billion. This concentration of mining companies in this one jurisdiction is not fortuitous: during the last two decades Canada has constituted itself as a legal haven for the extractive industry (Deneault and Sacher 2011). In the context of a multipolar world, this article will analyse how Canada is positioning itself as an ‘extractive industry power’ by focusing on a Congolese case study, with the aim of reinforcing our understanding of the industrial and financial mechanisms of unequal globalisation.