Foreign Affairs Committee on Oct. 27th, 2009

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

Good morning, colleagues.

This is meeting number 35 of the Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs and International Development, Tuesday October 27, 2009.

I'm just going to remind our colleagues that we're going to break a little early today to hold a brief steering committee meeting that will answer some of the questions we had in our last meeting, and that'll be just across the hallway. That's not for the entire committee, but it is for the steering committee. But the committee then will be adjourned early today.

Our orders of the day include a return to our committee study of Bill C-300, An Act respecting Corporate Accountability for the Activities of Mining, Oil or Gas in Developing Countries. Witnesses are in attendance this morning from 9 o'clock to 9:45.

We welcome back Alex Neve, secretary general of Amnesty International. Welcome to our committee again. And sharing the panel we have, from the Canadian Catholic Organization for Development and Peace, Michael Casey, the executive director, and Ryan Worms, the education and research officer.

We'll proceed right into your comments and then we'll go into our rounds of questioning. We look forward to what you have to say.

Mr. Casey.

[Michael Casey, Executive Director, Canadian Catholic Organization for Development and Peace]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.

I'm just taking advantage here of a computer failure on the part of my colleague, who graciously offered us the opening slot to speak while he prepares his notes by hand from memory.

Development and Peace is the official international development agency of the Catholic church in Canada. We were founded in 1967 by the Catholic bishops, and we have two mandates. One is to support projects to fight poverty in countries of the south. The other is to promote awareness of development issues among the Canadian population. We're a membership-based organization, and we have approximately 13,000 members from coast to coast across Canada. We are currently active in 33 countries abroad, with approximately 200 partnerships in all the major continental regions: Latin America, Africa, Asia, and the Middle East.

I want to speak today about our education and public engagement campaign that focused on extractive industries, and particularly in support of Bill C-300.

Every year we conduct a thematic campaign related to particular development issues. We follow several key principles that are part of the values of the organization, looking to guide the awareness of the public in this campaign on resource extraction and management. The principles behind this campaign include a recognition of the sacredness of the earth, the need to share resources in a peaceful and sustainable manner that benefits the common good and respects the human rights of all, and the right of people to have control over decisions that affect their lives and communities.

We've intervened on this concern on a number of previous occasions. Over the past several years we've maintained a focus on the actions of Canadian mining companies in the global south and the need for mining companies to carry out their operations in a socially and environmentally responsible manner. In order to ensure that Canadian mining companies respect Canada's commitment to international standards for human rights and environmental law, we strongly believe that Bill C-300 should be adopted. Although this bill does not contain all the measures that were recommended by the final report of the national round tables in March 2007, it is the strongest answer to date that has been proposed to solve the problems that the process was attempting to address. We feel that this is a good and necessary step in the right direction.

As you are all aware from previous testimony, Canada is a major player in the international extractive industry, with significant investments abroad. The Toronto Stock Exchange is the most active mining exchange in the world. In 2008, 60% of the world's mining and exploration companies were listed in Canada.

Most of the Canadian mining companies behave responsibly. Those companies not only drive prosperity here at home; they also provide jobs, opportunities, and other benefits in local communities abroad. Unfortunately, some other companies give little or no importance to the impact of their operations on the living conditions of people in the south. There are documented cases of egregious disregard by Canadian companies operating in many countries, and these have been presented in previous testimony to this committee, notably on May 25 by the Honourable John McKay, and on October 8 by Mining Watch Canada.

Development and Peace is not against mining or the extractive industries, but we are calling for these industries to be held to account. There should be some avenue of recourse--an open, democratic, and just means--for those companies that do not meet a certain and necessary standard of behaviour, having been given ample opportunity to do so, to accept certain consequences. We believe that the inherently higher risk, danger, and pollution of this industry must be accompanied by a higher standard of care, responsibility, accountability, and a necessary presence in the legislative framework of this country.

I'm here today to speak for our members and represent the voices of many of our partners in developing countries who would be in favour of this bill. It is not just Canadians who are calling for more legislation and legal mechanisms that ensure mining companies are held accountable for their actions in the global south. The issue of responsibility of Canadian companies in extractive operations is something that is consistently raised by our partners in the countries where we work. I'll give you a couple of examples.

In 2008, in Cerro de Pasco, a mining centre in the Peruvian highlands, where Development and Peace has been working for almost 25 years, a local group downloaded our materials for our action campaign, translated them into Spanish, printed them, and received more than 3,500 signatures on the action cards, as well as organizing street theatre, public seminars, and advocacy activities on the mining activities in their community.

The same year, 4,400 residents of Canatuan, a community in the southern Philippines affected by the activities of the Canadian mining company TVI, signed our postcards and urged us to continue to lobby our government to appoint an ombudsperson to monitor the activities of Canadian mining companies operating abroad.

In Honduras, the Entre Mares mine, a subsidiary of Goldcorp, has been using cyanide to extract gold from the mine. This process is less expensive for the company, but the local population pays the real price. This process has caused 14 streams and rivers to dry up, contaminating surrounding lands, and has led to increased disease among the inhabitants and their livestock.

Our partner, Caritas Tegucigalpa, has provided us with testimony regarding the state of the local environment and the health of the people in the communities surrounding the mine. The mine uses 80 million tonnes of water per year, enough to meet the needs of 20,000 inhabitants, or over half the local population. After having rung up significant profits when the price of gold was at its height in 2008, Entre Mares is now preparing to shut down the mine. Caritas Tegucigalpa is asking Entre Mares to decontaminate the water, reforest the land. It must pay the fines, taxes, and other money due to national and local governments that have accumulated over the years. The company will also have to ensure that people who were displaced have titles proving they own their new land.

Caritas Tegucigalpa and Development and Peace are convinced the company has the means to close the mine responsibly, but will it be willing to do so? If a Canadian legal framework on the social responsibility of mining companies had been in place, it would have been possible to protect the rights of the people of the Siria Valley and to prevent these human and environmental tragedies from being repeated.

I have a quotation here from His Eminence Cardinal Oscar Andrés Rodríguez Maradiaga, who is the archbishop of the archdiocese of Tegucigalpa, in Honduras, and president of Caritas Internationalis. His quote:

The increasingly frequent conflicts in different parts of the world between mining companies and affected communities, as well as the growing efforts of civil society organizations to demand stricter regulation, more rigorous monitoring, more responsible and transparent practices, are a sign that we can no longer continue to adhere solely to the logic of the business market that operates on the principle of the less invested, the greater the profits. We must move towards a vision of Corporate Social Responsibility, which cannot be reduced to corporate voluntarism alone but must be complemented by a social responsibility regulated by the state and international organizations. Such a redefinition is urgent, as the depletion of natural resources has been substantially accelerated partly because of the growing demand for precious minerals.

The passage of Bill C-300 into law would be a step in this necessary direction.

I want to speak for a minute about our campaign. Many of you members have likely received our cards or perhaps a visit by members of Development and Peace on this issue of corporate social responsibility. Over 500,000 Canadian citizens have demonstrated support for this bill by signing our action cards and letters as part of our public engagement campaign. These cards have all been delivered to the government. Over 120 meetings with MPs in their local ridings have been organized by members of Development and Peace across the country to discuss this issue. Citizens in all your ridings are concerned about this issue and would like to see the government respond adequately to the recommendations on the round table process on corporate social responsibility. This bill is the response they are looking for.

Our presentation today is the culmination of years of work and support from members of Development and Peace and those who have signed these cards. On May 12 of this year, Development and Peace delivered 38 boxes with action postcards addressed to Prime Minister Harper and signed through our recent campaign in 2008-09. Our supporters called on the Prime Minister to implement legal mechanisms to hold Canadian mining companies accountable for their actions in developing countries.

This last delivery of cards brings the total number of cards and letters delivered by us to the Government of Canada to more than half a million over the course of our three-year campaign. We began in 2006 and continued through 2009, each year accumulating between 150,000 and 200,000 cards.

With the last submission of cards, we asked that the Prime Minister create an independent ombudsperson office, appointed by Parliament, that can receive complaints about the activities of Canadian mining companies, investigate complaints, make recommendations in an effective manner, and operate in a transparent manner.

However, the hope that the round tables generated turned to disappointment as a result of the lack of response on the part of government to this collaborative, consensus-based report. Development and Peace decided to extend its education campaign on mining for one additional year to push that these recommendations be put into place. While we now have a response from the government, a corporate social responsibility strategy, we feel that it is not sufficient to adequately balance the opinions of all the parties involved. The passage of Bill C-300 would be a necessary step in the follow-up to this process.

We acknowledge that the CSR strategy constitutes the first steps in the implementation of the round table recommendations. It means that the government acknowledges the need for improvement in the behaviour of some extractive companies working abroad in developing companies. This is a good thing, but it is not enough. Bill C-300 would fill an important gap between what was recommended by the round table report and the government's response.

The Canadian government's response lacks teeth because it proposes voluntary action. It displaces the responsibility for irresponsible behaviour from mining companies to the governments of developing countries. In addition, the government's CSR strategy does not include strong sanctions for companies with damaging practices. Most importantly, there is no ombudsperson in the government's CSR strategy, as was recommended by the round tables; rather, there is a corporate social responsibility counsellor with limited functions, including hearing disputes and suggesting mediation if there is consent from all the parties. The position would be appointed by the Prime Minister's Office instead of by the Parliament of Canada.

There is no provision for an ombudsperson in Bill C-300, as private member's bills are not enabled to propose budgetary changes such as the creation of new positions. Development and Peace strongly urges the passage of this bill and strongly recommends that the government create a position of ombudsperson subsequent to the passage of the law, as was suggested by the round table report.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

Mr. Casey, we're at 13 minutes now. Can you conclude?

[Michael Casey]

I have one last comment.

The passage of Bill C-300 is a necessary step to ensure that Canadian companies respect environmental and human rights. This bill, as law, would make Canada a leader in corporate social responsibility in an era where the status quo is not sustainable. Its adoption would reflect not only the concerns of hundreds of thousands of Canadian citizens and the voices of those in developing countries affected by the operations of Canadian companies, but also the opinion and direction of the highest representatives of the Catholic Church in these countries. It would send a strong and timely message of leadership to the other leaders of the G8 and G20 in the months prior to Canada hosting this important meeting: that Canada has the means and the will to positively influence and lead behaviour in the industry.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

Thank you, Mr. Casey.

Mr. Neve, we'll see how good your memory is.

[Alex Neve, Secretary General, Amnesty International]

Thank you very much.

Yes, it's been a happy morning, having my computer fail me, but I'm very pleased to be here with you. I welcome the opportunity to share Amnesty International's views and recommendations with respect to Bill C-300.

Certainly for many decades the crucial global struggle to better safeguard and protect the human rights of women, men, and young people around the world has been very much focused on governments, both in the sense of governments being the ones who violate human rights and in the sense of governments being the ones who have to take action to protect human rights. However, in the past 10 to 15 years, there has been a multitude of ways in which the international system has recognized that it's vital to move beyond that sole focus on governments and to look at the various ways in which a range of non-state actors, certainly including companies, impact in very significant ways on human rights.

That's certainly very true when it comes to companies. On both sides of the coin, if they act responsibly, companies can in many important ways help promote and safeguard human rights and can strengthen human rights culture in the countries in which they operate; but when companies act in an irresponsible manner, we know only too well that their activities can and do, both directly and indirectly, cause or, at the very least, very significantly contribute to grave human rights violations.

Over the past decade, therefore, much has been done, a great deal of it in the broader context of trying to advance notions of corporate social responsibility. This takes us also into the realms of environmental protection and labour rights, for instance. To look at this issue of how to better ensure that we're getting the former company activities that will help promote human rights and avoiding the latter company activities that will cause or contribute to human rights violations, companies themselves have taken individual action, governments have launched some initiatives, and at the international level, initiatives like the UN Secretary General's Global Compact, work being done within the UN Human Rights Council, at the International Finance Corporation and other settings, things are being done as well.

What virtually all of those initiatives have in common are two significant shortcomings.

The first is that the human rights aspect of the various standards and principles that are being developed and adopted are, at best, vague, certainly almost always very general, and frequently even non-existent. For instance, the International Finance Corporation's performance standards, which are central to the government's new CSR strategy, are silent when it comes to human rights.

The second is that there is virtually nothing mandatory or obligatory about the expectation that companies will conform to these standards. The approach taken, rather, is to hope that companies will voluntarily choose to do so. As such, monitoring and enforcement mechanisms, where they exist, are generally weak and have no power to order or require companies to comply, but rather have power to suggest or advise.

In the broader human rights system, we've long learned that hopeful promises and voluntary commitments are not enough. It doesn't deliver the goods when it comes to protecting human rights. We, of course, want people, governments, to volunteer, but that doesn't get us to that end point of strong human rights protection. We know that only too well by looking at the international system. It's no different, and there's no reason it would be any different, when it comes to companies.

Much is at stake here. Company security forces, if not held to careful standards, can and do operate in ways--for instance, to dispel protests by indigenous communities in and around their operations--that lead to injuries and even the killing of protesters--the right to life at stake. Any irresponsible approach taken to how mining companies deal with their tailings and industrial waste may contaminate the local area and lead to serious violations of the right to health. Inappropriate use of company infrastructure by local security forces or failure to carefully monitor how company royalties are used by a government may simply exacerbate terrible wars and conflicts in regions where companies operate, again leading to civilian casualties.

So much is at stake, and clearly more is needed. That is why Amnesty International has so actively participated in all recent efforts to review and strengthen Canadian law, policy, and practice going back to 2005 when your subcommittee conducted its study. Certainly in 2006 we were an active participant in all cities that the round table process visited. We welcomed and endorsed the report prepared by the advisory group to that process and then, like many, waited anxiously for two years to see what the government's response would be.

While we do recognize and acknowledge that the government's new CSR strategy is a step forward, we are fundamentally disappointed with it with respect to the two key challenges I just mentioned earlier.

The first is the issue of standards. The new CSR strategy essentially takes up existing standards, the International Finance Corporation's standards, for instance, that I referred to earlier and a number of others that, combined, really give no more than scant or selective attention to human rights. The round table recommendation had called for new standards, very explicitly incorporating Canada's international human rights obligations.

The other concern is on the level of enforcement. The CSR strategy, of course, doesn't take up the call for strong, meaningful oversight and enforcement; gone is the idea of an ombudsman; gone is the idea of a tripartite compliance review committee. Instead, we have a CSR counsellor whose powers are really to advise and guide, and only to investigate if all are in agreement and with no real powers to sanction.

Bill C-300 offers Parliament an opportunity to move ahead on the human rights front, and as I say, it's very much needed. As such, Amnesty International certainly welcomes this initiative and calls on Parliament ultimately to pass it. There are ways in which we might have urged for it to be stronger, but we think it is the right step forward.

It's the right step forward when it comes to standards. It is so important that Bill C-300 calls for the development of international human rights standards, for instance, based on treaties that have been ratified by Canada, based on customary law. This is a crucial dimension that we think absolutely has to be key to any initiative in this area. We think that Bill C-300 moves us forward in a meaningful way when it comes to enforcement as well. The power and responsibility given to ministers to launch investigations when there are concerns about a company possibly falling short of these new standards and the associated possibility of that having implications for eligibility for EDC financing, for assistance from government diplomats and trade officers, and even of being a possible target for CPP investing, is all crucial.

So why not? What are the possible objections to a new approach that puts Canada's human rights obligations front and centre and endeavours to ensure there will be compliance with those standards? Most often what we hear is a fear that requiring Canadian companies to live up to what are sometimes described as cumbersome human rights obligations puts Canadian companies at a competitive disadvantage. Companies from other countries, goes the argument, don't have to live up to those obligations; forcing Canadian companies to do so costs money and means they can't compete.

In Amnesty's view, that is both overstated and shortsighted and it is ultimately irrelevant. It is overstated in that it is hard to imagine how putting in place measures to ensure that company personnel don't mistreat or even summarily kill protesters, or safeguards to avoid the possibility of company infrastructure being misused by government security forces to mount sorties in the region that would lead to civilian casualties is somehow so onerous and costly as to tip the balance between profit and loss.

Further, it overlooks and ignores the many ways that regard for human rights actually boosts a company's position, improves its reputation, ensures that there's a good relationship with the local population, and helps ensure stronger rule of law, all of which is beneficial in many ways to company operations and means that it is less likely that company will ultimately be a target, for instance, for boycotts or protests.

This argument is shortsighted in that it assumes that CSR improvements would somehow begin and end with Canada, that no other country is doing similar things or is likely to follow suit. Canada shouldn't shirk leadership but rather rise to it. We also should not assume that leadership is lonely at this point. Many countries are moving forward on this front. Canada can't be, shouldn't be, at the end of the line. We must be among the leaders and work persistently, bilaterally and multilaterally, to press others to adopt stronger laws and policies.

Lastly, as I said, this argument is irrelevant, as Parliament must ultimately recognize that Canada's international human rights obligations are on the line here. Human rights obligations do not only mean that government officials and agencies themselves must refrain from human rights violations. More is at stake. Governments are obliged to ensure that individuals, including individuals abroad, are protected from abuses at the hands of those over whom the government has some jurisdiction and authority. That is certainly the case with companies, which, after all, are incorporated under and regulated by federal and provincial laws and regularly benefit from various forms of government assistance and support. The government is obliged to act here.

Amnesty therefore very much believes Bill C-300 should be supported. It conveys the very important message that business can be good for human rights, but also that human rights can be good for business.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

Thank you, Mr. Neve.

Mr. McKay, seven minutes.

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

Thank you, Chair.

Before I ask the witnesses a question, I have to register an objection to this format, Chair.

We have EDC representatives sitting in the room here. For some bizarre reason--this was last week and now this week--you choose to not put the two together. There should be a conversation between those who are in favour of Bill C-300 and those who are against it.

I'm a guest to this committee, but I do want to lodge that objection. There should be a reasonable debate. Otherwise, we just end up talking--

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

Actually, when our committee met, that suggestion was brought forward--

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

I don't sit on this committee. It's just--

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

--and the suggestion was turned down.

Anyway, go ahead, Mr. McKay.

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

Thank you.

First of all, I want to express my sincere thanks to both Amnesty and Development and Peace for their enormous support in moving Bill C-300 to this stage and hopefully beyond.

Sometimes we sit here inside of some kind of objectivity bubble and talk about human rights. We talk about all kinds of initiatives at the UN and various other places. We don't actually get a feeling for what this is like on the ground.

Last week I talked to a man from Guatemala who had seven bullet holes in him, apparently courtesy of--I won't get into the facts--a Canadian mining company.

Again last week I talked to the former environment minister for Argentina, who talked about the ugly face of Canadians in Argentina and how it's actually destroying our reputation with that country.

I'd like you, Mr. Casey, but also Mr. Neve, to give Canadians examples of where mining operations in particular have gone wrong, whether it's Guatemala, Honduras, Papua New Guinea, Argentina, or Chile, where it is your personal experience, or the experience of your organizations, to give witness to those things.

The second question, if you can answer it, is to make the linkage between those particular companies, those particular issues, and Canadian financial support of those companies.

I wonder if you could possibly start, Mr. Casey.

[Michael Casey]

In terms of examples, I had mentioned a couple in our presentation. We have done extensive work in Honduras in particular, working with our partner there in documenting the effects of the activities of the Entre Mares mine. We had research done to demonstrate the level of toxicity that was in the water and the displacement of the people. We have prepared a document on that.

We worked with our colleagues from the United Kingdom, CAFOD, an organization similar to Development and Peace, who were using at the time, a year ago, the same theme. We developed a case study presentation on the effects of the San Martin mine in the Siria Valley. If you want some documentation, that is available.

Ryan can speak to that, if you'd like a few more details on that specific example.

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

Let Mr. Neve go first, and then I'll have a follow-up question.

[Alex Neve]

It's sad that the global tour, in answer to your question, is getting larger and larger. As the world becomes smaller, as we become more and more aware of these issues, as organizations like our two organizations and others start to look more closely at these cases, we are starting to see more and more instances where companies, domestic and foreign, large and small, are very much in the midst of situations in which armed conflict and human rights abuses are taking a heavy civilian toll.

Amnesty's work in this area has ranged far and wide. I remember when Talisman Energy was present in Sudan. I remember our concerns about the operations of Ivanhoe Mines in Burma, and Anvil Mining in the Democratic Republic of Congo. Recently, we have been looking at a number of situations in Central and South America. There is a possibility that security forces employed by HudBay Minerals might have been associated with civilian killings Guatemala, and there are questions about Goldcorp's Guatemala operations.

In a lot of these instances the allegations remain unclarified. It has not been possible to get clear about where the responsibility lies. But there is no question that in these operations we hear of contested claims to land, concerns that indigenous peoples aren't being adequately consulted, and other things. This foments unrest in the area. Companies that don't have a solid human rights approach to these situations can find themselves confronting serious human rights challenges.

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

Do you know whether any one of these companies about which you are concerned receives support from either EDC or CPP?

[Alex Neve]

I don't remember all of the specifics. I am aware that some have. We could probably formulate some of that more specifically. Maybe my friend has some of that information.

Mr. Worms.

[Ryan Worms, Education and Research Officer, Canadian Catholic Organization for Development and Peace]

Thank you.

We don't know whether the businesses that we monitored or that our partners have talked to us about have received funding. It seems to me that, in previous testimony, you were given more concrete information, particularly on Barrick Gold Corporation and its mining operations in Argentina or Papua New Guinea.

The studies and testimonials we receive come in almost every day. As soon as we meet with partners, whether it be in Central America, Africa or Asia, who work on human rights, the rights of peasants and aboriginal communities, the Canadian mining companies are always denounced as a major problem.

We conducted a more in-depth study with our partner Caritas Tegucigalpa on a case in Honduras, and the findings made with the support of scientists from Great Britain and our partner CAFOD are really distressing: 14 water sources were completely dried up by the operation of that mine. We found levels of arsenic and cyanide in people's blood, which necessarily condemns them to a future of malformations and various types of cancer. The evidence is well substantiated.

All our partners in the south tell us that this is the problem they're facing. That's why Development and Peace has conducted a three-year campaign for a Canadian legal framework to control the activities of these businesses.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

Thank you very much.

Ms. Lalonde, you have seven minutes.

[Francine Lalonde, Bloc, La Pointe-de-l'Île, QC]

I'll give the floor to Ms. Deschamps.

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

Thank you. We'll probably be sharing our time, Mr. Chairman.

Good morning and welcome. Thanks as well for sharing your vast experience in the field with us.

We know that the government isn't too keen on the idea of passing Bill C-300. It will probably oppose it. The government often raises the same arguments in opposing this bill. They say the principles of the bill go beyond the report's recommendations and that it could harm the Canadian economy. Lastly, the argument most often heard is that the bill could undermine the activities of EDC, when the businesses could be or would be facing non-compliance allegations.

I'd like to know your opinion on those three points, please.

[Michael Casey]

Thank you. We heard the same objections in other testimony given in committee. As Mr. Neve said in his presentation, the impact of our requests to reinforce government oversight of mining companies is negligible. The important thing for us is to have an ombudsman to lend the bill more weight and to reinforce the regulations on the mines.

Ryan has done a lot of work on this issue, and he may have some comments.

[Ryan Worms]

When the roundtable process took place and the recommendations were made, there was very great hope in civil society and certain mining companies that this file would move forward. I would like to read you a quotation from Prime Minister Harper from the 2007 G8:

Implementation of the recommendations from this process will place Canada among the most active G8 countries in advancing international guidelines and principles on corporate social responsibility in this sector.

We really thought the government was going to follow the recommendations. We continued our campaign for two years, emphasizing that there should be an ombudsman, which we thought was the first step to take in order to receive and process complaints. The response we got was the appointment of an advisor who, as we've already explained, had very little or no decision-making or investigative power.

In view of this lack of response and application of the report's recommendations, we think that Bill C-300 at least provides a fair and transparent complaints mechanism because all the parties would be heard by the minister. You say this bill may perhaps go further than the standards recommended in the roundtable report. However, that's not what I think. The roundtable report already emphasized the deficiencies in international human rights standards; my colleague from Amnesty International moreover mentioned that. If we could include existing international rights standards in the social responsibility standards, that would be a major step forward.

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

Do you think this bill could harm the Canadian economy?

[Alex Neve]

No, I don't think it would at all.

I cannot think, off the top of my head, and I've heard no one point to an example of a company in Canada or anywhere around the world that has gone out of business because it has done the right thing when it comes to human rights. I think companies and those who raise this concern are, as I said in my remarks, being shortsighted in how they view this. Ultimately, a strong human rights record for any company, be it a mining company, a manufacturing company, or an information technology company, is only going to boost that company's record, reputation, and, ultimately, profitability in the end.

With respect to the specific point about EDC financing and whether this would somehow make it harder for EDC to provide support or assistance to some companies, ultimately our view would be that if those are companies that are causing or contributing to human rights violations, so be it. We don't want EDC or any other kind of government assistance or support going to companies of that sort. That shouldn't be viewed as a concern. That should actually be viewed as a strength and benefit of this new approach.