Foreign Affairs Committee on Dec. 3rd, 2009

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

Thank you, Mr. Gascon.

Mr. Obhrai, on a point of order.

[Deepak Obhrai, Conservative, Calgary East, AB]

Thank you.

I understand the NDP requires the questioning, but they've just put a concurrence motion in the House that requires us to be in our seats by 10:30 without the bells, so I would say if you want to go to committee business, we do that right now.

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

I'll double-check with ours. We've got to double-check because we know you: you tend to want to cancel everything now.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

I take that as a point. I haven't received such.... There may be something on my BlackBerry, but my view is that we have committee until there are bells, so I'm governed by that. There may be things that change.

Mr. Dewar, please.

[Paul Dewar, NDP, Ottawa Centre, ON]

It wasn't a point of order, Chair.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

Yes, it was. He called on a point of order, just on procedure.

[An hon. member]

There are no bells. There's no point of order.

[An hon. member]

On this side, we need to be in the House by 10:30.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

I'll leave that up to you.

Mr. Dewar.

[Paul Dewar, NDP, Ottawa Centre, ON]

I'm not hearing any bells.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

I'm not either.

[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?

[Toby A.A Heaps]

Thank you, Mr. Dewar.

First of all, I've heard a couple of things here this morning that were almost laughable. One was the prospect that we could have billions of complaints. If you look at the IFC CAO, it has been in existence for nearly a decade and it's had a total of 110 complaints, which is about 10 per year.

[Paul Dewar, NDP, Ottawa Centre, ON]

Could you explain what those acronyms are, please?

[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]

Mr. Blackburn raised a point. I want to be fair and give him an opportunity to clarify.

[Robert Blackburn]

Thank you. I was going to ask to clarify.

I disagree with my colleague. I don't laugh at him. I certainly didn't talk about divestment. I talked about not becoming involved in a project in the first place that was subject to controversy and investigation. That's all.

[Paul Dewar, NDP, Ottawa Centre, ON]

Maybe I'll just segue into this. I wanted to ask you something.

With all due respect, the issue of consultation is a bit of a red herring, and we've heard it many times here. It's not that you shouldn't be consulted. It's that there was a process before this bill was contemplated. In fact, Mr. McKay brought forward his bill when we were waiting for Godot. Godot still hasn't come, in our opinion.

We need to have an understanding of the process, because it was a process, as Mr. Rae mentioned, of this committee. It goes back to a former member of Parliament from the riding I represent, starting with Mr. Broadbent, to bring together what were seen as disparate groups. I think most of us lauded the fact that we were bringing together those who were involved in industry with those in civil society. A lot of people were welcoming that, and that was a consultation, wouldn't you agree?

[Robert Blackburn]

Certainly it was a consultation, and I think it was a good one. It was marked by cooperation between business and NGOs. On this bill, I don't think there's been that level of cooperation. It seems to me that for one reason or another, there's a kind of polarization that's gone on between the NGO community, if you want, and the business community, which is--and Corporate Knights may be an exception to this--pretty strongly opposed.

I didn't raise the issue of consultation. I was simply responding to a question.

[Paul Dewar, NDP, Ottawa Centre, ON]

I know that. I'm just trying to clarify it for the record.

For the record, you did not raise that.

[Robert Blackburn]

No, I didn't.

[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?

[Robert Blackburn]

To the extent that it exists in the existing government policy, yes, but not in the framework of this bill with its legal framework and--

[Paul Dewar, NDP, Ottawa Centre, ON]

No, what I'm saying is, instead of the minister, an ombudsman.

[Robert Blackburn]

Yes, an ombudsman having a practical process that didn't involve a sequence of legal appeals and sanctions but as a common-sense approach. Sure.