moved for leave to introduce Bill C-474, An Act respecting the promotion of financial transparency, improved accountability and long-term economic sustainability through the public reporting of payments made by mining, oil and gas corporations to foreign governments.
Mr. Speaker, thank you for reading out the very extended name of that bill. We are calling it, for want of a better term, the sunshine bill, because it is intended to shine a light on the whole business of murky payments that go on in some transactions with respect to the obtaining and retaining of mining licences.
The bill needs to be situated in a worldwide effort to deal with some of these more odious practices that mining companies find themselves in. In particular, the U.S. has passed legislation called the Cardin-Lugar amendment, which is based upon the Dodd-Frank bill. It essentially says that these payments need to be disclosed to the Securities and Exchange Commission, and if they are not disclosed, then that company would be delisted from U.S. stock exchanges.
The U.K., the EU, Australia and others are trying to engage in this international effort, so the bill is to be situated in that entire international effort to close these loopholes and to deal with these kinds of practices.
I look forward to the debate and I look forward to support from my colleagues.
(Motions deemed adopted, bill read the first time and printed)