OPEN LETTER: The Institut du Nouveau Monde and Minalliance: A Disingenuous Alliance | Coop média de Montréal
What are these organizations? The Institut du nouveau monde, primarily funded by the Government of Québec, presents itself as an organization that favours civil society participation in all types of debates of social importance. As for Minalliance, it is nothing more and no less than the public relations arm of the mining industry, mandated to charm the people of Québec with their aromatic “positive contributions” to the development of Québec in a way that oddly reminds us of what the father of public relations, Edward Bernays, called “propaganda”.
In March, the two groups are organizing a tour of Québec to hold public consultations about our mining future… funded entirely by Minalliance. Nothing, these days, escapes private sponsorship, not even processes of public deliberation on the future of our collective resources and wealth. In this context, the very notion of what can be regarded as public territory is financed by private mining corporations, which have the most to gain by influencing the debate in their favour. On the one hand, it is very disconcerting that the industry defines — through Minalliance — the boundaries of political debate, for which it is directly concerned. On the other, the Institut du nouveau monde’s endorsment of the process in the name of civil society leaves us further
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