'Canada-Ecuador: When Stock Exchanges Fuel Human Rights Violations'

"In simple terms, the lawsuit alleges that money acquired by Copper Mesa in the Toronto Stock Exchange helped to fund the company´s human rights violations. The TSX defense will undoubtedly argue in court that the exchange cannot regulate where every dollar raised is spent, but the inescapable fact is that it was warned, in no uncertain terms, and previous to listing by local government officials and others in Ecuador that the exchange’s decision to allow listing would likely lead to the kind of violent confrontations and human rights violations which later ensued...The lawsuit will also hopefully force the issue by bringing it to the forefront of legal and public opinion.  It is an issue that- incredibly- is little known about within Canada.  And it’s an issue that every Canadian should know is closely tied in with the powerful lobby of the country’s extractive industries, which for years has stopped cold measures to try to regulate it, or to tax it as it should be.  Implying, at the very least, massive corruption and a lethal weakness in its democratic process. It is the same corruption that makes it feasible for Northern Alberta’s oil sands to be exploited, causing irreparable damage to the land and water, and people. It is the same system, in short, that makes it possible for Canadian mining companies to fund mayhem and get away with murder." [Upside Down World]