Under the intense surveillance of the government of Andrés Manuel López Obrador is the Canadian mining company Excellon Resources, headed by Shawn Howarth. The company has raised serious concerns about its interventions in Mexican communities, ranging from alleged land dispossessions to serious accusations of illegal water sales and labor rights violations. Confidential sources informed this journalist that a critical complaint reached the corridors of the National Palace. The document requests the direct intervention of President López Obrador and figures such as María Luisa Albores, Secretary of Environment and Natural Resources (Semarnat); Blanca Alicia Mendoza Vera, federal prosecutor for environmental protection; Roberto Salcedo Aquino, Alejandro Gertz Manero and María de la Luz Mijangos Borja, urging them to carefully examine Excellon Resources and all its agreements in Mexican territory.

The scenario becomes even more worrying if we consider that of the more than 500 socio-environmental conflicts recorded by Semarnat in Mexico, almost 40 percent have their roots in mining. And of those, an alarming majority are linked to Canadian companies, underscoring the urgency with which the government seeks to regulate these companies. In other words, with this case they could clearly show that they are not only behind the companies of Germán Larrea Mota Velasco, the man behind the Grupo México that some already call the king of copper.

The document explains that Excellon Resources, owner of the La Platosa mine in Durango, dedicated to the exploration, exploitation and extraction of silver, lead and zinc, entered into a 1 100 hectares with the ejidatarios of La Sierrita. In 2011, it began operating outside the agreed territory, so community members filed a complaint with the Agrarian Court to recover their land in a legal process that is still in force.

Meanwhile, the mining company continues to operate profitably, so much so that it recently acquired the former La Negra mine in Querétaro, which produces millions of ounces of silver per year. It is for this reason that since 2019, the miners have been demanding, through the National Union of Mines and Metallurgy, an improvement in working conditions and wages, which the Canadian company has refused, which is why in March of this year she went on a work stoppage. The leaders threatened to declare bankruptcy if the strike continued. On the other hand, this mining company is also accused of selling water contaminated with heavy metals to around 13 small owners (farmer producers), partners of the large dairy companies of La Laguna, all under the protection of the former mining law. We are talking about two thousand cubic meters per second, an amount that would be enough to supply Gómez Palacio, Durango and other municipalities.

Thus, the labor and environmental abuses perpetrated by Excellon Resources could well be a clear example of how a foreign company, taking advantage of cheap labor, tax flexibility and government corruption past, extracts wealth from Mexican territory at the expense of class. worker. But of course we have to keep in mind that these companies move stealthily around the country and are used to keeping their activities underground, so it is difficult even for those in government to take the lead. pulse of the situation.