Documentary critical of Hudbay Minerals begins Canadian tour

According to a press release from Investigative Media, “Flin Flon Flim Flam“, a documentary film critical of Hudbay Minerals’ worldwide operations and plans for the Rosemont mine, will make its Canadian premiere at 7 p.m. Tuesday at the Royal Cinema in Toronto.

The Toronto screening opens a 13-city tour across Canada including Montreal on May 25, Ottawa on May 26 and concluding in Victoria, B.C. on July 15.

“Hudbay has a long history of tightly controlling information released to the media and the public under Canada’s right to reputation law,” Arizona investigative journalist and filmmaker John Dougherty said in the release.

“This film produced in the United States provides a rare glimpse into the operations of one of Canada’s oldest mining companies without the threat of a defamation lawsuit that has been used by Canadian mining companies to stop publication of critical information in Canada,” he says.

The film will be screened on June 10 in Flin Flon, a remote mining community 500 miles north of Winnipeg where Hudbay has had its main operations for more than 85 years. The documentary triggered vigorous community discussion after Mr. Dougherty asked the community school board for access to Flin Flon’s only theatre to show the film.

“The documentary reveals a company that knowingly poisoned people in Flin Flon with heavy metals, used strong-arm tactics with a First Nation, stands accused of heinous crimes in Guatemala, deployed Peruvian police to tear gas and beat women in Peru and is now seeking to destroy a rare desert aquatic environment in the Coronado National Forest in Arizona that is home to the only known wild jaguar in the United States,” Mr. Dougherty said in the press release.

“This is not information Hudbay wants to have anyone share with Canadians,” he says. “That’s why I’m bringing the film to Canada.”

The Canadian release of Mr. Dougherty’s exposé comes shortly after a New York Times April 2 front-page story reported on Hudbay’s dismal human rights record in Guatemala and pending civil litigation in Ontario that has national consequences for Canadian mining companies operating abroad.

Hudbay stands accused of murder, a shooting and gang rapes in connection with conflicts with indigenous communities in Guatemala. The film includes interviews conducted in September 2014 with many of the same Guatemalans featured in the Times story.

Mr. Dougherty will be available to answer questions after the screening and will have different guests appear with him during the tour. Additional screening locations can be added to the tour by contacting Mr. Dougherty at www.investigativemedia.com.