Foreign Affairs Committee on Oct. 8th, 2009

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

Good morning, everyone. This is Thursday, October 8, 2009. The Foreign Affairs and International Development Committee is meeting to discuss and hear testimony on Bill C-300, An Act respecting Corporate Accountability for the Activities of Mining, Oil or Gas in Developing Countries.

We're very pleased to have with us this morning Ms. Catherine Coumans, the research coordinator for the Asia-Pacific program at MiningWatch Canada. Thank you for coming, Ms. Coumans. We also have Richard Janda, a professor at McGill University. He is accompanied by research assistant Rachel Doran. We thank all three of you for being here today and we look forward to your comments.

I'm not certain if you've had the privilege of appearing before committee before, but we look forward to your opening comments. Try to keep them within a ten minute range, and then we'll be able to have more time for questions.

I would invite Ms. Coumans to open.

[Catherine Coumans, Research Coordinator and Asia Pacific Program, MiningWatch Canada]

Thank you, Mr. Chair, and my thanks to the members of this committee for providing us this opportunity to speak to you today.

In 2008, John Ruggie, the United Nations special representative on the issue of human rights and transnational corporations and other business enterprises, concluded his first two-year mandate by stating, and I am quoting:

The root cause of the business and human rights predicament today lies in the governance gaps created by globalization—between the scope and the impact of economic forces and actors and the capacity of societies to manage their adverse consequences.

These governance gaps provide the permissive environment for wrongful acts by companies of all kinds, without adequate sanctioning or reparation. How to narrow and ultimately bridge the gaps in relation to human rights is our fundamental challenge.

While the high-profile work of Special Representative Ruggie is garnering a lot of international attention, it is appropriate in this context to remember that Ruggie's conclusions of 2008 had already been recognized in the groundbreaking and unanimously endorsed 14th report of this committee in 2005. I am now quoting from this committee's report of 2005:

These hearings have underlined the fact that mining activities in some developing countries have had adverse effects on local host communities, especially where regulations governing the mining sector and its impacts on the economic and social well-being of employees and local residents, as well as on the environment, are weak or non-existent, or where they are not enforced.

That was the SCIFAIT report of 2005, which is now being echoed by John Ruggie, special representative, in 2008.

I had the privilege of testifying before the subcommittee in 2005, and I am encouraged to see some familiar faces of members of Parliament from that committee around this table today.

I would like to start my presentation by putting a human face on the problem that Ruggie identifies and then to explain why MiningWatch Canada believes that Bill C-300 is an appropriate response.

I was first confronted with the environmental devastation and the human rights and health consequences that can result from irresponsible mining practices when I arrived on the small Philippine island of Marinduque in 1988 to start my Ph.D. fieldwork in religious anthropology. I had never seen a mine or spent one day of my life thinking about the potential consequences of mining.

It was sheer coincidence that a huge copper mine in the central hills of this small island province was owned and operated by a Canadian company, but this fact did not immediately persuade me that I had any role to play in the struggle that was taking place on this small island to protect a critical marine environment, the food security of 12 fishing villages that relied on coral reefs for their food, and the health of local children who were exposed to metals in mine waste being dumped into Calancan Bay.

I lived in one of those fishing villages for over a year and came to understand, as I carried on with my research project, the devastating impact the mine was having on the lives of the people of Calancan Bay. It wasn't until years later that a health study conducted by the Philippine department of health confirmed that the children that I had been surrounded with during my fieldwork had unacceptable levels of lead, cadmium, copper, and zinc in their blood. The Philippine government declared a state of emergency in Calancan Bay for health reasons. This was in 1997.

In 1993, the same year that I completed my Ph.D. in Canada, an earthen dam burst at the same mine site and tons of highly acidic and metal-rich mine waste flooded down the Mogpog River. Villages were inundated with mine waste. Houses and livestock were swept away and two young children of Marites Tagle died. They were smothered by the mine waste.

The Canadian managers of the mine said that the mine bore no legal responsibility for the disaster as it was an act of God, brought on by a typhoon. Mrs. Tagle reportedly received, for compassionate reasons, 1,000 pesos from the mine for each of her two dead children, which in Canadian dollars is about $23.

The Mogpog River has never recovered. It is heavily silted by mine waste that flows through the dam. Studies have shown that it is acidic and laden with toxic metals.

This past April I was back in Marinduque after 20 years. I helped villagers fill rice bags with waste from the river in an attempt to lower the level of the river and stop the regular flooding of nearby villages with contaminated water.

In 1996 I was at Cornell University doing post-doctoral research when yet another mine waste impoundment in the hills of Marinduque burst. Another river, this time the Boac River, filled with mine tailings from the mountains to the sea.

This third disaster on this small Philippine island finally closed down the mine. But now, more than 10 years later, the tailings are still piled in sandbags along the banks of the Boac River. Canadian engineers Klohn Crippen have warned that further disasters are likely as the dams and structures of the deserted and unrehabilitated mine site in the mountains crumble away.

I've told you this story because it contains elements of many of the stories regarding Canadian mining companies operating overseas that we are dealing with daily at MiningWatch Canada.

MiningWatch started in 1999, so I've now worked at MiningWatch for 10 years. When I first started at MiningWatch, I did not expect, as an employee of that organization--I was the original employee--that I would see cases as bad as the one that set me on this path in my life. But in fact we are dealing with these same situations literally all the time, from all over the world--irresponsible mine practices, environmental degradation, human rights abuses, health impacts, and the complicity of corrupt, inept, or even dictatorial governments.

Philippine dictator Ferdinand Marcos turned out, when he was deposed, to have been a secret partner in that Marinduque mine that was run and owned by a Canadian company. He had a 50% share in that mine.

The other aspect of this story that is common to others that we deal with at MiningWatch Canada is the lack of recourse for the people who have been damaged--the lack of, as Ruggie put it, sanctioning or reparation.

In this case, a lawsuit was launched by the Province of Marinduque in 2005 against Placer Dome, which was the mining company, now taken over by Barrick Gold. This lawsuit is slowly making its way through the courts. It is a potentially precedent-setting case, because the court it is making its way through is in the United States. Just last week a U.S. judge ruled in favour of the province's suit, and sent it to Nevada state court to proceed.

Three similar suits against the company in the Philippines, one dating back to 1996 when the final spill happened, continue to languish and are going nowhere.

Before turning to the merits of Bill C-300, I want to quickly touch on just a few of the mining cases we are engaged in at MiningWatch Canada.

My final submission to this committee on this brief will provide further detail and references for these cases. I only heard that I was presenting for you on Monday, so I haven't had a chance to finalize my brief. I will just run quickly through this, in the interest of time, to give you a sense of how broad this is.

We are engaged in a number of cases right now. The first is in Ecuador. In March of this year, Toronto-based law firm Klippensteins filed another potentially precedent-setting case against the Canadian junior called Copper Mesa Mining Corporation and against the Toronto Stock Exchange on behalf of Ecuadorian villagers who allege that the company's paramilitary agents have resorted to physical assaults, death threats, and other human rights abuses to break opposition to the company's operations.

This committee in fact heard from one of those villagers, Carlos Zorrilla, from the community of Intag, I think a year or two ago.

The second case is in Tanzania. An independent scientific report released just this week supports reports that we have been receiving from communities near the North Mara gold mine regarding serious human health impacts, and even deaths, related to acid mine drainage and heavy metal and cyanide leakage from the mine into the surrounding environment, and particularly into the nearby rivers.

I won't quote from the report, but I have a copy with me. I can do that later.

The third is in Papua New Guinea. This year Norway's government pension fund announced that it has dropped its shares in Canada's Barrick Gold as a result of the Porgera Joint Venture's mine waste disposal into an 800-kilometre-long Strickland River system.

This is a mine that literally dumps its tailings and its waste directly into a huge tropical river system, one of the largest in the world. That waste goes all the way down, 800 kilometres, to the sea.

At the same mine there have been allegations of killings of civilians by the Porgera mine security guards, and these allegations became the subject of a Papua New Guinea government inquiry in 2005 and 2006, but the final report of that inquiry was never released. In 2005 the then-owner of the mine, Placer Dome, did admit in a newspaper article to eight deaths at the hands of its security guards.

Honduras. Tests carried out by an organization in the United Kingdom and Development and Peace here in Canada have shown evidence of dangerous levels of arsenic, cyanide, and other heavy metals in water sources flowing close to or from within the mine boundary. In 2007 the Honduras Secretariat of Natural Resources and Environment fined Goldcorp, a Canadian company, one million lempiras, equivalent in value to about $26,000 Canadian at the time, for pollution and damage to the environment.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

Ms. Coumans, you're quite a bit over 10 minutes right now. I'm just wondering how much more you have in your presentation.

[Catherine Coumans]

Maybe what I'll do is I'll skip over the further cases I have and just come to my concluding remarks.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

Okay, quickly.

[Catherine Coumans]

Let me first highlight that I believe we have come to an important consensus with industry. The Prospectors and Developers Association of Canada notes that many countries lack the governance and institutional capacity to enforce legislation and to ensure a stable regulatory regime. However, industry's response to this governance gap is to focus on voluntary CSR measures to be taken by corporations, supported by host country capacity-building to be undertaken by northern hemisphere countries like Canada.

Remarkably, this line of argument appears to support a position that extractive industries should remain exempt from effective legal and regulatory mechanisms, at least until the Government of Canada and other northern hemisphere countries have created sufficient capacity to regulate and provide legal accountability in all weak governance and conflict zones around the world where PDAC and its members choose to operate.

Voluntary CSR approaches by extractive companies, while necessary, are not sufficient to ensure respect of human rights and environments by corporations. They do not, for example, deal with the problem of laggards, companies that choose not to apply CSR standards, or apply them inconsistently and not uniformly across all operations. Another key problem with existing CSR codes and instruments is that they are all weak on human rights, referencing only a subset of human rights, if at all. Another key deficit of voluntary CSR instruments, and this is identified by Ruggie, the UN special representative, is that no CSR instruments have effective accountability mechanisms, particularly with respect to sanction and remedy.

If we can agree that there is a governance gap in many host countries in which our corporations operate, and that voluntary CSR measures, while necessary, are not sufficient, and if we recognize that there is no international regulatory system that can deal with corporate abuses in weak governance zones, nor is there an international legal system to which aggrieved parties can turn, then we must come to the conclusion that it is only the home state of multinationals, home states such as Canada, that can address the governance gap identified by Ruggie.

I'll leave it at that. I would say this conclusion is a conclusion this committee came to in 2005 with the report that was issued at that time. It's also a conclusion that 137 members of Parliament must have come to when they voted in favour of Bill C-300 in the House of Commons on April 22.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

Thank you very much.

We'll go next to Mr. Janda.

[Richard Janda, Professor, McGill University, Canadian Network on Corporate Accountability]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair and members of Parliament.

It's an honour to participate in these deliberations with you on a matter of considerable importance.

With your permission, I would like to begin by acknowledging the work done on this report by my friend and colleague, Charles Gonthier, retired Justice of the Supreme Court. Sadly, Charles has now passed away, but I want you to know that when I asked him to collaborate on the report we have prepared for your committee he firmly committed to doing so, even though he was already in hospital. He wanted to be involved as this work goes to the heart of one of his most cherished principles. He believed that, in addition to the freedom to access markets and the need to ensure equality between all members, a sense of fraternity is also required. Our responsibility to others was Charles Gonthier's pet subject. He saw corporate social responsibility as an example of this sense of fraternity. I would therefore like to dedicate this report to the memory of Charles Gonthier.

The report you have received was prepared for the Canadian Network on Corporate Accountability, which is a group of 20 NGOs that cuts across faith-based groups, human rights groups, and unions. It represents a cross-section of civil society. The work we did, though, was independent, and it was conducted through the Centre for International Sustainable Development Law, for which I am a researcher. I want to underscore that although I am the signatory on the report, it was work that was done with a number of jurists, and the findings we came to unequivocally were considered after a period of some long deliberation.

We were asked to look at what we were told were the most serious concerns being raised from both a legal standpoint and from the point of view of fundamental policy concerns about the bill. We were able to conclude, with no equivocation, that the bill was sound and that it addressed, in a measured way, all the dimensions of the national round tables on CSR strategy that remain to be implemented.

I would like only to underscore four elements of the report. And I welcome your questions about specific further features of it. I think that these are the four ideas that have been most critical to your deliberations on Bill C-300.

First, the question can be put as follows: is there undue prejudice to Canadian companies from this measure that will subject them uniquely to a process of oversight that other companies don't share, either in Canada or abroad? The answer we came to on that question is straightforward. Far from there being prejudice to Canadian companies, we believe there is a very close connection between helping to build the reputation of Canadian companies abroad with respect to their human rights and environmental practices and in fact giving them competitive advantage. I must say that this is something about which I feel quite strongly, because it is the result of some years of research that led to a book I co-authored with Michael Kerr and Chip Pitts on corporate social responsibility.

The drivers of corporate social responsibility are not simply the NGO groups, like those represented by Catherine, that seek to hold corporations accountable. It's also the fact that all the dimensions of Bill C-300 are risk factors for corporations that affect their own picture as investment vehicles. So the ability of this legislation to provide something like distant early warning of risks Canadian companies face is a way of building a reputation for Canadian companies abroad and their competitive advantage.

The second main question that has been raised is related to the first one, and that is whether Canadian companies will face high transaction costs. Will they face an awful lot of trouble associated with the complaints procedure? Will they be subject to tiresome and costly attacks on their reputations? Indeed, will that lead them to perhaps leave the country rather than stay in the country if they are facing such transaction costs? Will they pick up their stakes and move elsewhere? The answer we came to on that question was equally clear but somewhat nuanced, and it is as follows: no, that should not be the result of this legislation. In fact, if anything, the legislation will provide a context within which credible and legitimate airing of public concerns can take place, bearing in mind that Canadian mining companies are already subject to precisely this kind of scrutiny from abroad.

There is such a thing as a court of public opinion internationally. As you know, that court of public opinion internationally has translated into, for example, the Norwegian pension fund withdrawing its investments from Barrick Gold. If there's a credible, transparent, and legitimate process that allows Canadian companies to address concerns, if anything it should allow them to cut their costs and diminish the possible negative impacts of the assessments that are taking place in any event. However, and this is the nuance, it is possible that some companies are unwilling to invest in the process of addressing public concerns. They may indeed seek to escape from scrutiny by moving to other jurisdictions. The question, I suppose, for members of Parliament is, should legislation be framed to address the worst performers? That's the group that would be an issue.

I'll touch briefly upon two final questions. One is extraterritoriality and the other is the problem of sanction.

In simple terms, this is not extraterritorial legislation. It is legislation that applies to the instrumentalities of the Canadian government. It's a matter of keeping the Canadian government itself accountable for the use of public moneys through the Export Development Corporation and the Canada Pension Plan. Yes, there is the ability to gather information abroad, but that is something the Canadian government does all the time through its embassies and consulates. We see no dimension of this that extends past the point of international law. It's something we can get into in greater detail.

Finally, on the question of sanctions, is this punitive legislation? Is this legislation that would subject Canadian companies to the stick rather than the carrot and as a consequence face them with an inability to improve their performance? The answer to that is no. This legislation has to be seen in the context of all the measures that are being taken by the Canadian government, including, of course, the measures now announced with respect to the counsellor. We have the carrot in place.

The national round table made clear--and my colleague, Mr. Peeling, who will be speaking later, signed off on that document--that we also needed a way of ensuring that Canadian moneys were being spent responsibly and accountably when Canadian companies were failing to act upon the principles and issues. This is not a sanction; this is a matter of finding by ministers, who then turn it over to the Export Development Corporation and the Canada Pension Plan and ask them to implement their standards.

In conclusion, I'm proud as a Canadian citizen that Parliament is considering this legislation. We have an opportunity here to make a real contribution to international discussion. Following this discussion, I was contacted yesterday by a group from Argentina who have been following this debate. I know that groups from around the world are following this debate. The eyes of the world, in a manner of speaking, are on this committee. I very much hope that you will see your way clear to making this legislation a reality.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

Thank you very much, Mr. Janda.

We'll move into our first round of questioning.

Mr. Rae.

[Bob Rae, Liberal, Toronto Centre, ON]

I have just a couple of questions.

Let me first of all say to both Dr. Coumans and Mr. Janda how much I appreciate the detail of the briefs and the great care and attention that has gone into them to answer I think some of the concerns that certainly have been raised. After 10 o'clock, we'll hear from those who are raising even more and other concerns.

The one question I had that I wanted to give you a chance to respond to is this. There are countries where the rule of law does not apply, where there is a serious gap in terms of regulatory capacity. There are others where that's not the case.

We talk about Argentina, we talk about Chile, and we talk about many countries in Latin America where there are extensive mining activities under way, and where there's an extensive amount of exploration under way and a lot of activity. I think those countries would rather deeply resent the notion that there's a huge governance gap in Chile, say, which is a functioning democracy with a social democratic government that takes some pride in what it's been able to achieve. It doesn't regard itself as a failing state or an area where there's no governance or jurisdiction.

The question I have is with respect to the issue of territoriality. Let's take a company that is doing business in Chile, which has environmental laws, licences, and a whole governmental practice and process. As I understand the legislation as it's proposed, it basically says that's okay, but we don't care about that, and the Canadian minister has an obligation to hear complaints, make a finding, and, upon making a finding, pass on that finding to the Export Development Corporation and the Canada Pension Plan.

Is there a concern that a Canadian company would say, look, we do business in these countries, we have a reasonable record, and they are satisfied with the record, so what more should we be concerned about? Or is the answer that this is not necessarily about whether they comply with Colombian law, Chilean law, or Argentinian law? Is it a question of whether they meet the standard that we have decided, as Canadians, we want to set for our companies and that is independent of anything the country where the activity is taking place might conclude?

The companies have argued that this is a kind of double jeopardy. Do you agree with that? What would be your response to that?

[Richard Janda]

You've raised a very important question, Mr. Rae. My short answer is that I don't agree with the position that this is double jeopardy.

Let's unwrap it a little bit. First of all, we're talking about international standards that are well recognized that would be applied through the legislation, standards to which Canadian companies are already—

[Bob Rae, Liberal, Toronto Centre, ON]

What are the timelines the ministry would have? What is it, two years or a year to develop?

[Richard Janda]

Well, it's a year, but these are standards.... By the way, as you know, the national round table made the recommendation that these standards be the ones used because they were well known and well recognized--

[Bob Rae, Liberal, Toronto Centre, ON]

Right.

[Richard Janda]

They provide a framework that other countries are operating under.

Let's take the example of Argentina. It's a good one. I was just on the phone yesterday with CEDHA, which you may know is an environmental and human rights group that was set up by the former environment minister of Argentina. Why would they welcome this legislation if they believe in the internal environmental process in Argentina? The answer is rather straightforward. First of all, they would hope that Canadian officials, when looking at the performance of Canadian mining companies abroad, would take account of whatever is happening in Argentina. There's nothing that tells the minister, do your own environmental assessment, or do your own hearing on what's happening with the mine. It says, take complaints and inform yourself. Informing yourself could mean, obviously, taking account of the process that is working in those countries.

What's the leverage that CEDHA sees as provided by this legislation? Well, it's at least twofold. First, they can say to a Swiss company or to a Belgian company, look at the standards that Canadian companies are subject to; you should be subject to those standards as well. Second, they can say to their environment ministry, Canadian companies have undertaken to abide by these standards; these are internationally recognized standards, so enforce them.

So this is not about substituting Canadian enforcement capacity for Argentinian enforcement capacity. It is actually, I think, about providing some appropriate assistance to those who are trying to hold mining companies accountable for the operations they're undertaking.

I would simply say that if one looks, just as a jurist, at the legislation, there isn't anything in the legislation that suggests double jeopardy, that suggests that if, after an Argentinian environmental assessment, you have been found to be conducting your operations fully in compliance with local laws, you have to have a second hearing in Canada on the same issue. That's not the way the complaints process works. If anything, the complaint would be rejected as frivolous and vexatious.

[Bob Rae, Liberal, Toronto Centre, ON]

With respect to the process that you anticipate for a ministerial finding, I expressed some concern when John McKay was testifying, saying that this will immediately become a very litigious process and asking what the criteria will be by which a minister would make a finding. Because the consequences of such a finding are quite dramatic in terms of the potential impact on a company, there's a lot at stake here. We can assume that this will be in the Federal Court, then in the Federal Court of Appeal, etc.

Do you agree with the assumption of mine that this is what will happen, or am I just being...?

[Richard Janda]

I understand the concern, and I think it's appropriate to do due diligence on legislation of this kind. But with all respect, I don't think that's the character of the legislation.

We have reason to say that it's not the character of the legislation because there are parallel processes. For example, under the International Finance Corporation there is an ombudsman process, and we know what it looks like. When the national round table came up with its recommendation for an ombudsman process, it wasn't to produce something litigious; it was to produce something quite different, which was the ability to canvass complaints and to have a back-and-forth. This is not about going to court; it is not about getting fines or imprisonment. It is about the ability to air concerns. If the minister, and perhaps it could be the counsellor who takes on this function, is doing the job in a sophisticated way, it provides an opportunity for the company to explain itself, to adjust its practices. That's what an ombudsman-like function involves.

Of course, this legislation can't create an ombudsman, we know, for reasons concerning the limits on private members' bills. But this is a close approximation of that kind of process, placed within a ministry.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

Thank you, Mr. Janda.

We'll move now to the Bloc Québécois.

Ms. Deschamps, you have seven minutes.

[Johanne Deschamps, Bloc, Laurentides—Labelle, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Welcome to all of our witnesses. Thank you for your testimony, which has served to amplify our understanding of this subject.

Mr. Janda, Ms. Coumans, were either of you involved in the extensive consultation process—the round tables—which were held over almost two years?

[Richard Janda]

Before handing over to my colleague, I should say that I held observer status at the round tables, but that was the extent of my involvement.

[Catherine Coumans]

I was one of the members of the advisory group, so I helped shape the context of the round tables; I participated in all of the round tables and was very much involved in the drafting of the final report, which we signed on to.

In that context, I would like to say that one of the things we did in the round tables was create a complaints mechanism that would have heard complaints in Canada about practices overseas, including in countries such as Argentina and Chile. We had members of industry associations on the round tables, and they signed off on that complaints mechanism. I want to make that point.

[Johanne Deschamps, Bloc, Laurentides—Labelle, QC]

People from a whole range of backgrounds were involved in these round tables: representatives from NGOs; experts; and the mining and extractive industry. A huge consultation. Consensus was reached on the recommendations contained in the report that was tabled.

To my mind, Bill C-300 constitutes a step in the right direction, a sound idea from a member of Parliament. As parliamentarians, we are empowered to table a private members' bill in an effort to put pressure on the government.

However, Ms. Coumans, you have already pointed out that the bill does not have enough teeth. Is it sufficiently in keeping with the recommendations included in the report issued by the round table?

[Catherine Coumans]

Let me answer that question this way. If the government had actually honoured and respected the consensus recommendations that came out of the round table process, I would be very comfortable in going forward in a process that reflected those recommendations and said, let's wait with something regulatory or something legislated; let's let this have a chance to work.

The government's response did not honour or respect the consensus recommendations that were reached. In fact, it's really our opinion that the government's response reflects two years of lobbying by industry, and things that we could not reach consensus on during the round table recommendations—things that industry asked for but that they did not get consensus on—are things that came into the government's response.

What we as civil society now very much feel needs to happen is to go back to the original document that started this process, which was a 2005 report from this committee. That report very clearly recognized the problem and said that there needs to be legislation and legal reform in Canada. This addresses the two things that John Ruggie has so clearly identified as lacking globally, which are the options for sanction and for remedy. All of us in Canada, if we are hurt or harmed by a corporation in Canada, can go to the courts. We can have sanction; we can have remedy. That's not the case for so many people around the world where our companies are operating.

We're so disappointed with the government's response that we have gone back to say that this is not going to work. There's too much power within this industry to influence government processes such as the one we became involved in in good faith. What we really need is a chance to give the option for sanction and remedy to people around the world.

[Johanne Deschamps, Bloc, Laurentides—Labelle, QC]

I will let you answer, but I just want to ask another question in case I run out of time.

What is it about this bill that, to your mind, scares the mining industry?

[Richard Janda]

Firstly, Bill C-300 has not simply come out of nowhere. It is an attempt to implement the round table recommendations.

As I suspect the next witness will tell you, what frightens industry is the prospect of moving straightaway from a voluntary approach to a binding approach. They are afraid that the government will step in and legislate.

You need to look carefully at the exact wording of the round table recommendations. The message is clear: it is not simply that there should be a mechanism to allow for funding to be withdrawn when certain principles are violated, but, rather, that in such instances, funding must be withdrawn.

How can that be implemented? We need a framework. It appears that industry would rather see a discretionary approach, a non-transparent process. However, my interpretation of the round table report is that a framework is required to implement this recommendation. The bill does not aim high: it speaks of a complaint process and the implementation of guidelines for federal government agencies. It is, nonetheless, in keeping with the round table recommendations, and industry is mistaken to say otherwise.

Allow me to make one final comment. As an observer, and as a citizen, I am deeply troubled to see industry participate in an extensive consultation process, to see it support the outcome, but then, at the first opportunity, to flip-flop and implement only what suits it, simply discarding the rest.

Why are groups such as Ms. Coumans outraged? Because they get involved in these round tables in good faith, they agree to compromises, and then industry simply walks away saying too bad! It is verging on scandalous.