Bill C-300 (Historical)

Corporate Accountability of Mining, Oil and Gas Corporations in Developing Countries Act

An Act respecting Corporate Accountability for the Activities of Mining, Oil or Gas in Developing Countries

The purpose of this enactment is to promote environmental best practices and to ensure the protection and promotion of international human rights standards in respect of the mining, oil or gas activities of Canadian corporations in developing countries. It also gives the Minister of Foreign Affairs and Minister of International Trade the responsibility to issue guidelines that articulate corporate accountability standards for mining, oil or gas activities and it requires the Ministers to submit an annual report to both Houses of Parliament on the provisions and operation of this Act.

[Bernard Patry, Liberal, Pierrefonds—Dollard, QC]

We have Bill C-300 also. We cannot start everything.

[Mary Ann Mihychuk]

I often try to translate how the career can attract anybody. I recently spoke to a grade five class and asked them, who wants to travel around the world and make an enormous amount of money and find a diamond mine? Every kid in the class had their hand up; they wanted to travel, see the world, and have a fabulous career. That's mining today.

Women are better communicators. We work with a lot of scientists. They could use improvement; let's just put it that way. Women have that skill set. Gaining a social license for Canadian companies, which is Bill C-300.... We are the best in the world, and there's always room for improvement. Often it's a question of our ability to communicate how we're safe and clean and sophisticated in a mining industry, and that voice coming from a woman can be often much more powerful than the traditional methods that we've used may be.

There are many jobs—financial, being CEO, being that communicator, going to the darkest jungles of Africa—and a mining project changes their world, and for the most part in a positive way, bringing wealth, development, schools, medicines. We can be very proud of our industry, and I think there are many different jobs that are of great interest to women. We just need some help getting on TV spots, getting the media to be interested. They want to hear about disasters; they want to hear about mistakes. That's inherent in how the media works.

That's where government comes in. You have programs, you have educational institutions, you have NRCan. We need to use those tools to be able to present the industry—engineering, mining, the RCMP—in a way that we understand it: wonderful, well-paying, successful, and opening the doors to the world.

[Peter Goldring, Conservative, Edmonton East, AB]

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

I would like to say a few words on what my colleague was just talking about, the other important issues. Rights and Democracy should certainly have a thorough airing itself too, but I'm looking at the draft schedule here, and I'm seeing five instances of “Bill C-300 or...”. Those “ors” can really mean no Bill C-300, if you want to interpret it that way.

I want to underscore the importance of reviewing Bill C-300 and having an airing and consultation on it, because I believe one matter was overlooked in the previous hearings. I want to bring out this one short comment here from one company. It underscores the importance of having discussions not only with the mining industry, but also with the other ancillary industries that are contributing to the economy. This company has one paragraph that says:

Canun International is a Canadian-owned Canadian-based company. We are not a mining company per se however the equipment we supply is made in Canada and is sold to the mining companies. There is no doubt that should this bill proceed in its present form it will be used to attack the Canadian mining industry. This will result in the corporate offices, of those mining companies under attack, leaving Canada. Their leaving will, in turn, result in the total loss of our business and the loss of the twenty-nine jobs dependent upon that business.

I want to underscore the importance of continuing with the consultation on Bill C-300 and bringing in some of these ancillary companies for their viewpoint on it, too, to see if this isn't a common thought and a common concern, not only of the mining industry corporations themselves, but of many other Canadian industries.

At this time of concern for the economic well-being of our country, I think we have a duty and responsibility to thoroughly discuss that. So rather than looking at the “ors” on Bill C-300, I would think we could take the time to plug in sufficient time for Bill C-300 and to be sure we allow sufficient time for the rest of this session.

[Jim Abbott, Conservative, Kootenay—Columbia, BC]

I'm only 30 seconds away from that cusp.

The point I'm trying to make is that because of the unintended consequences of Bill C-300, the management decisions that the EDC, which is a crown corporation, would be forced to make, and their decisions on whether they are going to be releasing money, cannot be overridden by this committee. That's my 30 seconds.

The point is that you cannot have a committee micromanaging a minister or a ministry. That is not the way our parliamentary system works, nor should it. To take it a step further, you cannot have this standing committee micromanaging the EDC, the CBC, or Rights and Democracy. That is the essence of this thing.

The essence is that the opposition members in this committee--for raw political reasons, I suspect--have decided that because they have the numbers and can force the issue, they are going to force the government to hear certain witnesses at this committee. It is the position of the government that it is unparliamentary and it's really worse than just not being of value. It's a lot worse than not being of value, because it breaks down what I've been speaking about for the last few minutes, which is the relationship of the government of the day to the committees of the day, to the respective ministries or the respective crown corporations.

If we want to talk about micromanagement, let's move from the widow of Mr. Beauregard to the unions. Obviously when the unions make whatever their testimony may be, these representations would be best suited to a labour-management negotiation, and they would not be best suited to an open public forum. Unions serve very valuable purposes, and I'm not speaking negatively about unions for a second. I'm simply saying that there is a time and there is a place for dialogue and for discussion, and that discussion, in my judgment, should not be in public, but behind closed doors. Once they arrive at a conclusion or fail to arrive at an accommodation, then that can go to the public to bring public pressure on whatever it is that union and management are going to do.

Basically I visualize that bringing the union here would have a result something like this: I see the union making a recommendation--any number of recommendations--outlining the way they would like to see the staff relations and the entire Rights and Democracy organization run. Simply because of numbers and because we're in this minority Parliament, a majority report would come out of this committee vis-à-vis Rights and Democracy that would then take up an awful lot of the issues that had been put forward by the union--to what value? The union can make those representations in private or in public now. What value is there in making their representations to this committee in this forum? I fail to see what value this committee is bringing to this situation.

I'm going to get to the staff in a second, but I want to step aside from this for a second to go back to something that I report that I said in another meeting of this committee. I pointed out that there are, I understand, upward of five million women in the world who, in maternity, end up losing their lives. I pointed out that upward of half a million children never see the fifth year of their lives.

I pointed out the number of difficulties there are in which Canada is involved, whether it be Haiti, whether it be Chile, any of these situations, the horror stories we get from Sudan, or our necessity as a sovereign nation to put on the international public record exactly where we are coming from with respect to the Arctic, for example. It just goes on and on, the number of things, should the committee choose to have these meetings in the extended manner being talked about and with the number of witnesses. The committee is basically walking away from the responsibility we have to those situations that I just suggested, and there are literally millions more.

I think any government that does not listen to committees, that does not listen to reasonable, responsible testimony and reports of committees, is shortchanging the people of Canada, and I say that as a member of the government of the day. Committees have an exceptionally important value in the democratic process and in the governing of this great nation.

The difficulty I am having--and it is an immense difficulty, and honestly, it is a sincere difficulty--is the fixation over Rights and Democracy. I am not suggesting that what has happened in terms of Rights and Democracy has not been vexatious and concerning. Of course it has. It would have to be, to any responsible and reasonable adult. But to be saying that those vexatious issues here in Canada with one institution in fact are more important than dealing with what Canada's position should be at the G-8 and the G-20, with the opportunity this committee has to offer that kind of advice and counsel to the government in public, if the government chooses not to take the advice coming from the committee, that becomes part of the political dialogue we have in Canada.

The government is asking for input from this committee on the G-8 and the G-20, but this committee, the opposition members, are choosing to fixate on one issue. I must admit that I find it very disappointing.

Coming back to the union, the relationship of the union as a public union is a very interesting one, one that I dare say very few people in this room could appreciate in terms of the nuance, all the intricacies of the relationship.

[Jim Abbott, Conservative, Kootenay—Columbia, BC]

I will tell you where I'm going, and you can watch me get there.

The inclusion of Mr. Beauregard's widow as a witness, the inclusion of the unions, and the inclusion of the fired staff is, for this committee, to micromanage. That's where I'm going. I will now go back on that path.

As I mentioned, the difficulty is that we are quite frequently driven as politicians to be responding to the call of the day. We are sometimes driven by news media. We are certainly driven by public opinion. When we are driven by that public opinion, there are times when--simply because of the momentum caused by the news media and by the chatter in a Tim Hortons--that direction isn't necessarily in the best interest of whatever the issue may be.

You then come from the ministers and the ministries. You then take a further step to a crown corporation. Let's name the EDC. Actually, let's name the CBC.

In the case of crown corporations, of course, there still has to be some oversight and some accountability on behalf of the taxpayer and on behalf of the people of Canada by the Government of Canada. That very wisely is achieved by the power the Prime Minister and the cabinet have in selecting the directors and the presidents, the officers of those corporations.

In the case of the CBC, for example, where you have the Government of Canada actually taking upward of a billion dollars from the national treasury and giving it to the CBC for them to actually manage.... I must admit that when I was the heritage critic, I would say it was probably every 18 months that somebody, somewhere, on some issue, would actually start to try to micromanage the CBC.

I recall one instance in particular when if it hadn't been so time-consuming, it might even have been a little bit humorous. It basically had to do with the programming of CBC Radio 1. We had many representations about four or five years ago--maybe it wasn't that long ago, but in that timeframe--when the new CBC management decided they were going to change the format of CBC Radio 1. Pardon me, it was CBC Radio 2. The reason why this was particularly significant to lovers of classical music was that up to that point the majority of the programming had been classical music.

It must be said that the CBC had made the decision that they were not only going to be playing classical music, they were in fact going to be producing classical music. So there was a following of Canadians--if I recall the numbers correctly, it was in the neighbourhood of 2%--who were following CBC Radio 2. When they were told that CBC Radio 2 was no longer going to be strictly a classical music station, there was a great tumult. There was a great exercise on the part of the listeners and certainly on the part of some of the members of the standing committee.

We ended up actually having closed-circuit television between Ottawa and Vancouver, and I can't recall the other locations where the other witnesses came from. It was really quite interesting to follow this, but it turned out to be, if I may say so, a little bit of a waste of time. The reason why I say it was a waste of time is because at the end of the day the CBC politely listened, and then the CBC politely went ahead and did what they were going to do in the first place.

In the meantime, what the committee had done, and this is instructive for this committee, was they had used up, if I recall, at least five committee meetings, at least five. We actually used up a fair amount of money in terms of the closed-circuit testimony. We ended up pontificating as a committee and doing whatever we thought was best. At the end of the day, the CBC politely went ahead and did what it was going to do anyway. Now, remember that the CBC, as with Rights and Democracy, is governed by people who are appointed by this Prime Minister and by the cabinet. So they ultimately at the end of the day are the people who directly answer to the subscribers, the viewers, the customers, the clientele of the CBC.

However, the attempt on the part of the standing committee in fact was rather vacuous, and of course that was the position that I and the other Conservative members took throughout the entire exercise. I don't think this committee wants to take vacuous steps with respect to Rights and Democracy or steps that will possibly be best handled in a court of law. The widow of Mr. Beauregard has access to courts of law and has access to all sorts of remedies. Certainly I'm not a lawyer, so I have no idea of how many, but I do know there would be remedies that would be available to her to be able to take care of her concerns.

I suggest that what would happen if she did come to this committee is there would be an awful lot things that are extraneous to her basic fundamental requirements that would be handled, and would be handled in such a public way as perhaps to even be detrimental to her position.

I would like to have the opposition answer this question. If she did come to this committee and if she did make testimony, how would that advance her situation? If she did come to this committee and she did make testimony, how would that advance the ability of this committee to be able to change what regrettably has occurred? That's why I said at the outset of my comments here that I'm concerned about even raising this issue. I'm trying to raise it in as unemotional and as dispassionate a way as I possibly can. That said, the only thing that I can really visualize happening is that if she did come there would be an emotional reaction to a situation over which this committee has absolutely no control.

I've spoken about the CBC and it being an arm's-length organization. Let me speak about EDC, for example. EDC also is an arm's-length organization. They were given a tremendous amount of money, many billions of dollars, from the federal treasury from which they work. The interesting thing about EDC is that they have actually found themselves in a position in Canada of being a major supporter of our mining industry as well as obviously all of our export businesses.

With EDC we have seen with the testimony on Bill C-300 that if Bill C-300 were to go forward, EDC would actually be precluded from being able to carry out the kind of funding that they presently are doing on behalf of mining companies. This would represent a lack of funding support in the magnitude of about $22 billion to $23 billion, which were the figures from last year.

I can't imagine what that would do to the mining industry in Canada. They would be forced to make the decision on the basis of Bill C-300. Because what Bill C-300 actually calls for is that if things change, if there is a material change in the relationship the mining company has with the national government or with respect to the bureaucracy in the host nation, and there are questions that may arise, they would actually, according to my reading of Bill C-300, have to withdraw their tens of millions of dollars, or maybe hundreds of millions, from a given project.

That being the case, if they had to withdraw that money, the question on behalf of any prudent financial manager would be, “If I may have to withdraw this money because of something that may happen in the future”--

Mining Industry

[John McCallum, Liberal, Markham—Unionville, ON]

Mr. Speaker, the second petition is signed by approximately 400 individuals who wish to create effective laws regarding corporate social responsibility, particularly in the area of mining. They ask that we consent to the expeditious passage of Bill C-300.

[John McKay, Liberal, Scarborough—Guildwood, ON]

Mr. Speaker, this is a petition signed by quite a number of folks in Canada, calling the Government of Canada's attention to alleged abuses of human rights and degradation of the environment by Canadian mining companies.

Whereas the petitioners feel that it is a duty of Parliament to hold Canadian companies responsible for their activities when operating in foreign jurisdictions, the petitioners humbly call upon the Government of Canada to do the following: create an effective series of corporate social responsibility laws and consent to the expeditious passage of Bill C-300.

Corporate Social Responsibility

[John Duncan, Conservative, Vancouver Island North, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I have the honour to present two petitions on the same subject. The petitions represent about a hundred of my constituents. They strongly support Bill C-300, An Act respecting Corporate Accountability for the Activities of Mining, Oil or Gas in Developing Countries.

Business of the House

[The Speaker, Liberal, Peter Milliken]

I would like to make a statement concerning private members' business. Standing Order 86.1 states that all items of private members' business originating in the House of Commons that have been listed on the order paper during the previous session shall be deemed to have been considered and approved at all stages completed at the time of prorogation.

In practical terms, this means that notwithstanding prorogation, the list for the consideration of private members' business established at the beginning of the 40th Parliament shall continue for the duration of this Parliament.

All items will keep the same number as in the first and second sessions of the 40th Parliament. More specifically, all bills and motions standing on the list of items outside the order of precedence shall continue to stand. Bills that had met the notice requirement and were printed in the order paper, but had not yet been introduced, will be republished on the order paper under the heading “Introduction of Private Members' Bills”. Bills that had not yet been published on the order paper need to be re-certified by the office of the Law Clerk and Parliamentary Counsel and be resubmitted for publication on the notice paper.

All items in the order of precedence are deemed to have been considered and approved at all stages completed at the time of prorogation. Thus, they shall stand, if necessary, on the order paper in the same place or, as the case may be, referred to the appropriate committee or sent to the Senate.

At prorogation, there were 11 private members' bills originating in the House of Commons adopted at second reading and referred to the appropriate committee. Therefore, pursuant to Standing Order 86.1: Bill C-290, An Act to amend the Income Tax Act (tax credit for loss of retirement income), is deemed referred to the Standing Committee on Finance.

Bill C-300, An Act respecting Corporate Accountability for the Activities of Mining, Oil or Gas in Developing Countries, is deemed referred to the Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs and International Development.

Bill C-304, An Act to ensure secure, adequate, accessible and affordable housing for Canadians, is deemed referred to the Standing Committee on Human Resources, Skills and Social Development and the Status of Persons with Disabilities.

Bill C-308, An Act to amend the Employment Insurance Act (improvement of the employment insurance system), is deemed referred to the Standing Committee on Human Resources, Skills and Social Development and the Status of Persons with Disabilities.

Bill C-309, An Act establishing the Economic Development Agency of Canada for the Region of Northern Ontario, is deemed referred to the Standing Committee on Industry, Science and Technology.

Bill C-310, An Act to Provide Certain Rights to Air Passengers, is deemed referred to the Standing Committee on Transport, Infrastructure and Communities.

Bill C-391, An Act to amend the Criminal Code and the Firearms Act (repeal of long-gun registry), is deemed referred to the Standing Committee on Public Safety and National Security.

Bill C-393, An Act to amend the Patent Act (drugs for international humanitarian purposes) and to make a consequential amendment to another Act, is deemed referred to the Standing Committee on Industry, Science and Technology.

Bill C-395, An Act to amend the Employment Insurance Act (labour dispute), is deemed referred to the Standing Committee on Human Resources, Skills and Social Development and the Status of Persons with Disabilities.

Bill C-442, An Act to establish a National Holocaust Monument, is deemed referred to the Standing Committee on Transport, Infrastructure and Communities.

Bill C-464, An Act to amend the Criminal Code (justification for detention in custody), is deemed referred to the Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights.

Pursuant to Standing Order 97, committees will be required to report on these reinstated private members’ bills within 60 sitting days of this statement.

In addition, one private members’ bill originating in the House of Commons had been read the third time and passed. Therefore, pursuant to Standing Order 86.1, the following bill is deemed adopted at all stages and passed by the House.

Bill C-268, An Act to amend the Criminal Code (minimum sentence for offences involving trafficking of persons under the age of eighteen years). Accordingly, a message will be sent to the Senate to inform it that this House has adopted this bill.

As they are no longer members of this House, all the items standing in the name of Ms. Dawn Black, Mr. Bill Casey and Mr. Paul Crête will be dropped from the order paper.

Consideration of Private Members’ Business will start on Friday, March 5, 2010.

To conclude, hon. members will find at their desks an explanatory note recapitulating these remarks. I trust that these measures will assist the House in understanding how private members' business will be conducted in the third session. In addition, the table can answer any questions members may have.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

It's not debatable.

Merry Christmas, everyone. I hope we all come back in good spirits. When we do come back on Tuesday, it is my intention that on that first Tuesday we move to clause-by-clause. About five minutes ago we received some amendments for Bill C-300, so we would then move to proceed with Bill C-300 on the Tuesday.

The meeting is adjourned.

[Peter Goldring, Conservative, Edmonton East, AB]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.

As it's been a little bit of time since we had that meeting and discussion, I just wish to reiterate some of my comments to bring us up to date. This is relevant to the motion put forward by Mr. Dewar.

I'll just read that motion so that we have clarity on the issue:

That, in the context of its study on the treatment of Canadians abroad, the Committee report the following recommendations to the House of Commons calling on the government to: recognize its constitutional duty to protect Canadians abroad; enact legislation to ensure the consistent and non-discriminatory provision of consular services to all Canadians in distress; and create an independent ombudsperson's office responsible for monitoring the government's performance and ordering the Minister of Foreign Affairs to give protection to a Canadian in distress if the Minister has failed to act in a timely manner.

I also want to reiterate my concerns for this motion. My concerns for this motion are on multiple levels.

First and foremost, to the first point, “to recognize its constitutional duty”, I disagree. I do not believe there is any reference in the Constitution of Canada, from its latest to its most primary elements--the capitulations of Montreal to the capitulations of Quebec City to the Treaty of Paris, furthermore, taking it all the way back to its basic, core roots. I intend to demonstrate that as best I can.

Also, on the “constitutional duty to protect Canadians abroad”, once again, I find no reference, from the information that I have, in the written Constitution or the implied Constitution, going back and channelling all the way back through all the written documentation. I'm going to be presenting and reviewing quite a bit of this.

The other concern I have is that on the basis of what I believe is misinformation, it also calls for “ordering the Minister of Foreign Affairs to give protection”. I take great umbrage to the idea and the concept of ordering constitutional application when it is not there and ordering the Minister of Foreign Affairs to somehow subscribe to something that is not there.

I believe, in the context of this motion, that my concern is for the greater good. And I hope that people don't feel that I'm making an objection to this and raising this as a frivolous and vexatious factor. I'm taking that wording, of course, from the other bill we're working on, Bill C-300. But I do want to draw the parallel with that. The parallel is that as a government, and certainly one in a minority government position, we are vulnerable to motions and bills that have serious problems. Of course, being in a minority government situation, I hope people can understand that we have a duty to the citizens of Canada to stand up and speak out and try to effect change as best we can in a minority position. With that, I want to be at least very thorough in the discussion and in the discussion about my concerns with this motion.

There is an object lesson here, too, for Bill C-300 as well as for some of the other bills, frankly, that are in front of Parliament. They are bills that under a majority government would never see the light of day. But in a minority government situation, they might be forced through by an overly eager cabal of opposition parties in an attempt to embarrass the government more than to bring forward good legislation. We certainly have been witness to and have been talking to many witnesses on Bill C-300. here in committee. We're hearing not only from witnesses from the major mining sector but also from people who represent the major mining sector and were very prominent politicians in their own right.

I refer, of course, to the ambassador to the United States, a Liberal, and Pattison, who was a Liberal minister. They abhor what is happening in the opposition party's ranks in trying to bring through Bill C-300., which is so flawed as to be dangerous to--

[Paul Dewar, NDP, Ottawa Centre, ON]

I'm trying to find the bridge here. I think we have one, and at the best moments in the debate in this committee we actually got to the point where people saw that bridge to cross to bring people together.

Mr. McKay's bill does not have the ombudsman in it. My private member's bill does, but I would have had to drop it, likely, if I had my number called and if the bill were brought forward, because it requires a royal recommendation.

Mr. McKay would like to have the ombudsman. You understand the limitations of legislation here. When we heard from people from industry, they said they liked the idea of an ombudsman who is a third party, who is not prejudiced, who would receive the information and then be able to go forward. That was something in the recommendations from the round table.

In light of that, if we saw that Bill C-300 had that structure with the ombudsman, do you think that would be something you could support? I know I'm asking you to put a little extra into your analysis here, but it's something that was out there before, in terms of the round table. Could you accept that process of an ombudsman, a third party being able to oversee this process?

[Toby A.A Heaps]

Sure. It stands for the International Finance Corporation Compliance Auditor/Ombudsman.

Of those 110 complaints, 80 have been perfunctorily dismissed. If you go to their homepage, it's right there: “How to file a complaint”. Anybody can complain. Anybody in the whole entire world can complain. You or I can complain right now, and there have been 110 in 10 years. It does have some weight when they come down with it. Its teeth are not quite as sharp as those of Bill C-300, but it has weight. So it's not credible at all that we're going to have billions of allegations.

Further, perhaps our colleague from SNC-Lavalin did not mean what he said, because if I heard correctly, he said that if there were allegations of wrongdoing in a project they were involved in, they would divest. I don't think that's true, because of those 110 allegations that were levelled with the International Finance Corporation CAO, I'm almost certain that SNC would have been involved in some way with a couple of those projects. I don't think allegations are enough to make companies run away, because if anyone can make an allegation and you're willing to run away from a billion-dollar investment, that just doesn't pass the smell test.

In terms of the other remarks, I think it's natural for companies to sometimes say that the sky is falling. When we had labour, safety, and environmental regulations, those claims were all made, and they all proved to be blatantly false. In the end, companies were a lot more profitable because of them. I don't think this sort of notion of Chicken Little crying the sky is falling holds a lot of water. I don't understand when people ask why they need this if their companies are leaders in the world. Why do we have labour laws and environmental laws and other standards that are backed up by legal remedies in our country? You need an accountability mechanism. Why do we have referees at the hockey game? We need somebody who can put people in the penalty box when it's needed and help to hold order.

I hope the committee doesn't take these statements that are being made too seriously. In terms of your question of how we can brand Canada as a leader, how do we differentiate ourselves as Canadians when we're operating a mining company abroad? We do have a good reputation, but it's running on fumes to some extent. I remember being in Colombia, talking to the U.S. ambassador. She told me that there was a Canadian company operating in the heartland of FARC, that a U.S. company could never operate there, and that doing so was a privilege our country's companies enjoyed. If we want to continue to enjoy that privilege, we can't just rest on our laurels. We have to have something that gives real quality assurance, and this bill would offer a good starting point of a semblance of quality assurance.

If I'm in Africa, living in a community in the Congo and something is going wrong--and maybe nothing's going wrong--at least I know that if something is going wrong, there is real due process through which someone will listen to my complaint and hear it out if it is valid. That says a lot to countries, and that sort of thing would differentiate us so people could say when you deal with Canadians--

[Paul Dewar, NDP, Ottawa Centre, ON]

You guys might, but I'm in reality land.

Mr. Heaps, you were very clear in your support of the idea of Bill C-300. You said you wished some other facets could be put in place. I guess what you were getting at, and I've read your magazine, is you want to brand Canada in terms of its companies, as a sensible way for other countries to do business, to have Canadian companies come to their country.

What are some of the other things you think we should be doing on top of Bill C-300? I guess what I'm looking for is this dichotomy that was mentioned, a false one, between those who are in support of the idea of Bill C-300 and seemingly being against mining. I'd certainly take issue with that.

If all of us are trying to do the same thing, how can we take Bill C-300 and use it to improve our reputation overseas to ensure that our brand, as a country, is solid, is welcomed, and is advanced and promoted?

[Peter Goldring, Conservative, Edmonton East, AB]

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. Blackburn, all companies want to do better and the intent of this bill, although well-meaning, is problematic. The Canadian mining business has an excellent reputation, nationally and internationally. This has been confirmed by some of the witnesses.

There was a comment that sounded outrageous--namely, that there might be up to a billion complaints that have to be responded to. The language of this bill is instructive: the minister “shall receive complaints” from “any Canadian citizen or permanent resident or any resident or citizen of a developing country”. This implies investigating as well, not merely receiving the information.

Around here, we all know that from time to time we get thousands of pieces of information, inquiries, complaints, and instructions. So it is conceivable that there would be a billion responses to be made. This affects not only DFAIT and EDC, but also your own firms. If there are mass mailings, computer-generated mailings or whatever, they have to be deciphered to see what information there is behind them.

So it's not just the legal system of EDC and DFAIT that would be expanded. This would also affect your own firm. You mentioned that you have 10,000 projects internationally—$7 billion in Canadian business. It was mentioned earlier that the TSX will breathe easier because of Bill C-300. I'd like to know your response. Would you concur that the TSX would breathe easier? What happens to these large numbers of Canadian businesses? Will there be a departure from Canada? The alternative is to insulate yourself from this type of legislation, and the best way to do that is to relocate.