Demonic Metals: Cobalt & The Birth Of A Mining Superpower / Charlie Angus

Charlie Angus, MP for the riding of Timmins-James Bay in Ontario, Canada, joins me to discuss his new book Cobalt: Cradle of the Demon Metals, Birth of a Mining Superpower, published through House of Anansi Press. He shines a light on how the fascinating, and disturbing, history of a small mining town in Ontario, aptly named Cobalt, is tied up in the genocidal, and ecocidal, history of the nation-state of Canada, and its outsized role in the global mining industry today.

What does a small town in northern Ontario have to with Canada's rise to becoming the world's reigning mining superpower? How is cobalt, this "demonic" metal, tied to some of the most horrific crimes of settler-colonialism and financial, extractive capitalism in the modern era? 

“The tale of the early-twentieth-century mining rush at Cobalt has been told as a settler's adventure, but Indigenous people had already been trading in metals from the region for two thousand years. And the events that happened here — the theft of Indigenous lands, the exploitation of a multicultural workforce, and the destruction of the natural environment — established a template for resource extraction that has been exported around the world.”

Bio:

Charles Joseph Angus is a Canadian author, journalist, broadcaster, musician and politician. He has been the Federal Member of Parliament (MP) for the riding of Timmins-James Bay since 2004. He is a member of the New Democratic Party and currently serves as the Vice-Chair of the Standing Committee on Access to Information, Privacy and Ethics and is the NDP Critic for Indigenous and Northern Affairs (Youth). Charlie ran as a candidate in the 2017 NDP Federal Leadership Race. Charlie lives in Cobalt, Ontario with his family.

Episode Notes:

Purchase a copy of Cobalt: Cradle of the Demon Metals, Birth of a Mining Superpower from Bookshop

Learn more about Charlie and his work at his website