Student opposition to SFU’s involvement with the Canadian International Institute for Extractive Industries and Development (CIIEID) reached a new high at the end of the summer with the release of a petition calling for the institute’s closure.

A collaboration between SFU, UBC, and École Polytechnique de Montréal, the CIIEID was created as a venture to lend Canadian mining expertise to developing countries where current mining practices may be more environmentally and socially damaging than necessary. 

Since the institute opened its doors at UBC’s campus in January of this year, concerns about the CIIEID’s corporate ties to the extraction sector have continually been raised by student groups on both UBC and SFU campuses. Now, students are taking their objections to centre stage.

“We’re trying to unite the voices of people at our universities and stakeholders from our community to let the highest authorities at UBC, SFU, and École Polytechnique de Montréal know that we’re not excited for our universities to be involved in something like this,” said Sam Stime, UBC graduate student and one of the driving forces behind the petition.

Students from UBC and SFU, along with environmentalists and concerned community members across the Lower Mainland, have banded together under the name Stop the Institute. Their goal is to coordinate efforts that aim to shut down the CIIEID unless changes to its internal structure are implemented. Their petition outlines issues of academic freedom, lack of impartiality, lack of credibility, and lack of accountability.

“Right now there is no representation of the historically marginalized; the voices of people of communities that have been negatively affected [by Canadian mining companies],’ Stime said.   

Jasheil Athalia, one of the principle organizers of Students for Transparency in Public Education, a faction of the Simon Fraser Public Interest Research Group (SFPIRG), told The Peak that she is worried about how SFU’s association with mining corporations will affect public perception of the university overall.

“As a student, I just don’t feel right graduating with a degree from SFU knowing that I contributed to that family somewhere in Columbia that doesn’t have a home now [due to foreign mining in their community],” said Athalia.

Transparency around funding sources has also caused controversy at SFU and UBC. When the initial grant of $24.6 million from the federal government’s Department of Foreign Affairs, Trade, and Development (DFATD) runs out after five years, the CIIEID’s Contributions Agreement states that further funding for the institute will be sourced from “fundraising, scholarships and chairs, research and charitable grants, tuition and other revenue streams and in-kind support.”

Stime told The Peak that, since the institute will be accepting money and in-kind aid from mining corporations who have vested interests in foreign extractive sectors, he feels that the academic freedom of the universities to conduct and publish unbiased research may be compromised.

However, influence from corporate mining executives on future projects for the institute is very minimal, according to Dan Shapiro, a member of CIIEID’s executive board and a professor in SFU’s Beedie School of Business. “We will do our research, and sometimes decide it’s not a good idea to go into an area,” he told The Peak. “We aren’t out there to make [the corporations] money. They knew that was the deal when they signed on.”

Stime said he feels that “many developing nations view Canadian mining companies as completely predatory,” based on the track records of some large corporations. He said he believes this calls into question the qualifications of the CIIEID to offer advice to developing countries.

Kristina Henriksson, director of learning and education on the CIIEID management committee and SFU adjunct professor maintains that the CIIEID is an autonomous, research-and-learning based endeavour that has no interest in forcing advice on communities in developing countries who don’t want it.

“We’d never go anywhere without an invitation,” Henrikkson explained. “Establishing best practices will require input from everyone involved.”