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.