Foreign Affairs Committee on May 13th, 2010

[The Chair, Conservative, Dean Allison]

I want to get started. We welcome you to meeting number 18 of the Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs and International Development as we discuss Bill C-300, An Act respecting Corporate Accountability for the Activities of Mining, Oil or Gas in Developing Countries.

I want to make sure that everything is working.

Professor Steiner, can you hear us okay?

[Professor Richard Steiner, Professor and Conservation Specialist, International Union for the Conservation of Nature, As an Individual]

I can hear you just fine. I hope you can hear me as well.

[The Chair, Conservative, Dean Allison]

Excellent, and we can hear you, so thank you very much.

We're going to start with Steven Schnoor for his opening remarks.

Steven, you'll have 10 minutes.

Professor Steiner, we'll go back to you for 10 minutes, and then we'll try to get in a couple of rounds of questions and answers.

Richard Steiner is a professor and conservation specialist at the International Union for the Conservation of Nature and is coming to us from Anchorage.

We'll welcome you in just a second, sir. We're going to start with Mr. Schnoor.

Mr. Schnoor, the floor is yours. You have 10 minutes. After we've heard from both witnesses, we'll go to members around the table who will ask questions and have some comments.

[Steven Schnoor, As an Individual]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I'm a Ph.D. student from Toronto. I'm here because I believe we have a very serious and systemic problem. I also believe that Bill C-300 is a step towards addressing this problem.

For the past five years I've been researching activities surrounding Canadian mining companies operating abroad, with a specific interest in Central America. I've travelled to Guatemala and Honduras several times over the years, and I have found that people there are being seriously harmed by the activities of Canadian mining companies operating in their regions. This is engendering anger towards Canada and Canadians.

I have also produced documentaries to raise awareness about this problem and to represent the views of marginalized communities whose voices are not often heard, many of whom are very upset about the negative impacts they say they've felt as a result of the activities of Canadian mining companies operating near their homes.

My interest in this area began just over five years ago, when I found myself on the receiving end of rage. I was volunteering in Guatemala with a very small Canadian environmental NGO that establishes clean water projects in the developing world.

While there, three other Canadians and I were mistakenly presumed to be secretly working for a Canadian mining company. They thought we were pretending to be working for NGOs as a means of accessing their land to explore for possible mineral deposits. They were incredibly angry.

On this particular day, a local farmer had been killed in a protest against the Canadian-owned Marlin mine. In their eyes, we were representatives of a Canadian mining company. We were blamed for the death of this farmer and for forcing mining upon them. We almost became the target of an angry mob in a country where vigilante justice unfortunately still exists. Our lives were in danger and we were very lucky to escape. I am happy to provide further details if you're interested.

The following day, I contacted the Canadian embassy in Guatemala City to report that my colleagues and I were almost killed by virtue of being mistaken for representatives of a Canadian mining company. I asked what Canadian mining companies could possibly be doing in the region to cause such outrage.

I was told in no uncertain terms that Canadian mining companies have actually done no harm whatsoever; rather, they've been the target of misinformation campaigns initiated by radical left-wing activist environmental NGOs that brainwashed the poor, ignorant, illiterate campesinos into thinking that the Canadian mines will give them AIDS and unleash a monster from the lake.

This surprised me. I stated that I heard nothing about AIDS from the Guatemalans with whom I had spoken, and I certainly heard nothing about a monster coming out of the lake. What I had heard from local Guatemalans was that a Canadian open-pit gold mine was being constructed in the western highlands of the country. This is the Marlin mine, now owned by Goldcorp. People were outraged by the fact that they had not been previously consulted, as legally required.

I'd also heard that the Canadian company constructing this mine—it was Glamis Gold, which is now Goldcorp—had the same type of mine operating in neighbouring Honduras, the San Martin mine in Siria Valley, Honduras. I'd been told that since that mine opened, people reported dramatic changes in the region where the mine was operating. Due to the incredibly water-intensive mining process, rivers and wells had completely dried up. This devastated the primary economy of the region of 40,000 people, agriculture, and it caused a flood of young people to leave the region and to find work in the U.S.

People also told me that the water that had not dried up had become heavily polluted with cyanide and heavy metals. They blamed this for a rash of health problems, which they attributed to the new pollution since the inception of the mine. This included a dramatic increase in the rate of miscarriages both in people and in livestock.

People also feared the serious long-term consequences of ingesting water intoxified by heavy metals over an extended period of time. That includes cancer and liver disease. Many of these people, I should note, lacked access to adequate medical services and the means to buy purified water.

When I told the woman at the embassy about these concerns, I was told that it was all completely untrue. She told me that she had just returned from the region and had seen the mine with her very own eyes, and she could confirm that it was all perfectly fine. I inquired about the concerns regarding cyanide, which she dismissed by assuring me that cyanide really isn't that that harmful. She even said that it's found naturally in almonds.

When I hung up the phone, I felt more troubled than before I had called, because the problem now seemed to be bigger than the very serious allegations against a Canadian mining company. The problem seemed to include a Canadian government position that entirely supported Canadian industry while delegitimizing the concerns of affected communities.

The next year I returned to the region with video equipment to document what would transpire, to document the conditions in the Siria Valley in Honduras. What I saw was a far cry from what the Canadian embassy had told me. Everything was not at all fine. I encountered compelling evidence for virtually every concern that I'd heard raised by local Guatemalans. In fact, many of these concerns have subsequently been documented by world-renowned scientific authorities, including environmental engineer and hydrogeologist Professor Paul Younger from Newcastle University in the U.K.

As a Canadian citizen, I must tell you, I am deeply disturbed that the Canadian embassy was virtually indistinguishable from the PR outlet of a mining company. I began to understand why people in the region, whom I had met, often bitterly referred to the Canadian government as little more than an advocate for Canadian mining companies in the region that seemed to care very little about the well-being and legitimate concerns of the affected communities. “If they do care,” I was repeatedly asked, “why don't they do anything to address these serious problems?”

A documentary film of mine that is critical of Canadian mining was subsequently the target of a misinformation campaign from this very embassy. In January 2007, I filmed the forced evictions of five indigenous Mayan Q'eqchi communities from their ancestral lands in El Estor, in the eastern part of Guatemala.

The forcible evictions were carried out by hundreds of state police and military at the behest of Canadian mining company Skye Resources, which has since been purchased by Canadian mining company HudBay Minerals. Mining company employees took chainsaws and torches to people's homes while women and children stood by watching. In my written brief, I have further details about these evictions.

Skye Resources claimed that they maintained a peaceful atmosphere during this action. They deny any responsibility for any violence that may have ensued over the two-day evictions.

My video served to show that the evictions were anything but peaceful. It's now played at film festivals around the world and to date has been viewed online by over 150,000 people.

Shortly after the video began circulating online, the Canadian Ambassador to Guatemala at the time, Kenneth Cook, began spreading misinformation about it. Ambassador Cook stated that the video lacks credibility because the impoverished Mayan Q'eqchi woman in the video who complains about the forced evictions was actually an actress whom I had paid to perform in this manner, and furthermore, the photographs that I show in the video—some showing people's homes being burned to the ground and people in abject despair as they witness this destruction—were not at all from the evictions, as I claimed them to be, but rather, they were old photos from the internal conflict, which ended in 1996. He claimed that he had seen them many times over the years in many different contexts.

These allegations are very serious and they are entirely and unequivocally false. They portray me as a manipulative propagandist. They defend the mining company's position and they discredit the long-standing land claims, development, and human rights needs of the impoverished local Mayan Q'eqchi people. I am deeply concerned that his actions may be an example of a government that privileges the Canadian extractive industries operating abroad over concerns and well-being of local communities.

I should tell you that I'm currently suing the former ambassador for defamation. I should also tell you that I did not originally intend to sue. It was only after the embassy and the government failed—

[Peter Goldring, Conservative, Edmonton East, AB]

On a point of order, Mr. Chair, I have difficulty in...and would like to have an understanding here that this matter is obviously before the courts. We now are listening to this matter here today in the absence of any other substantiation from the numerous other companies that are involved. I really think it behooves the committee here to understand that this is before the courts right now, and perhaps it's inappropriate for us to have this discussion.

[The Chair, Conservative, Dean Allison]

That's not a point of order.

Mr. Schnoor, could you continue?

[Steven Schnoor]

Thank you.

I'll just conclude on that point by telling you that I never intended, originally, to sue. It was only after the embassy and the government failed to address any concerns that I decided a defamation lawsuit may be the best way to defend the truth of my video and my reputation, but I will leave it at that.

Now, Bill C-300 may help to address this type of problem, as it would allow the Canadian government to withhold embassy support from companies that have been found to have breached human rights and other norms. It could also ensure that the Canadian embassy is not in the awkward position of promoting and defending the interests of mining companies that may breach human rights standards.

Now, as a Canadian citizen, I'm also deeply troubled by how our nation's reputation is being tarnished as a result of the practice of Canadian mining companies operating abroad. In fact, I have a small anecdote for you.

A few years ago while working in Guatemala, I lost my hat. A travel companion of mine gave me his hat, but it had a Canadian flag embroidered on the back. I found this to be a problem. I felt unsafe wearing the Canadian maple leaf and I can tell you that I went out and purchased a black permanent marker and blacked out my own flag. I did this for my own safety.

The current approach that both industry and the Canadian government have proposed, instead of measures like Bill C-300, strikes me as entirely inadequate: CSR policy is in voluntary mechanisms with no measures to ensure compliance. Such voluntary mechanisms strike me as little more than a smokescreen that distracts from better mechanisms that would ensure true accountability.

I want to stress here that I am not anti-mining. I am certainly not anti-development, but I am anti-exploitation, and I'm definitely anti-exploitation that masquerades as development. I am pro-accountability. The conduct of Canadian mining companies and embassies abroad is hurting people and it's hurting our reputation and it's unacceptable.

I also think that Canadians are gradually waking up to this issue. Some of the harm caused abroad is so outrageous, so unacceptable to the average Canadian, that I firmly believe that if they were to consider that our elected representatives opposed accountability mechanisms like Bill C-300, at the obvious behest of the powerful mining lobby in this country, they would rightly be rather upset.

Bill C-300 will not destroy our economy. It will not destroy our mining industry. Bill C-300 will not cause every mining company to pull up stakes and leave the country. I think we should respect the intelligence of the average Canadian and stop parroting this rhetoric and do the right thing.

As I conclude, I doubt that there is anyone in this room right now who would be comfortable with the conditions that we are exporting abroad, that we're imposing upon people who generally live in poor countries with weak governance. These states are often corrupt. They lack any will to protect the interests of those who are most vulnerable and disenfranchised among them. Canadians expect binding standards and accountability mechanisms for companies that operate in Canada. We should not expect less for people living abroad.

Before I end, I would like to conclude with one more example of why I believe we need accountability mechanisms to hold Canadian companies responsible for their actions perpetrated abroad.

On September 27, 2009, near El Estor, Guatemala, Adolfo Ich Chamán, a schoolteacher and community leader who often spoke out against HudBay's Fenix mine, was beaten, macheted, and shot to death, allegedly by security forces employed by HudBay Minerals, right near where I made my documentary. Witnesses have attested that Mynor Padilla, HudBay's head of security, was amongst the men who killed him.

To date, there has been no investigation. There have been no arrests and no charges, and there has been no accountability. This is not surprising. The UN has recently reported that the impunity rate for murders in Guatemala is 98%. If Canada does not do anything, there will never be accountability for such murders. We may not even find out what actually happened.

Canadian accountability mechanisms are badly needed. Bill C-300 is a step in the right direction.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Dean Allison]

Thank you, Mr. Schnoor.

We're now going to move over to Professor Steiner.

The floor is yours, sir, for 10 minutes.

[Prof. Richard Steiner]

Good morning, Mr. Chair and honourable members.

I'm Richard Steiner. I've been a professor at the University of Alaska for about 30 years. I'm a conservation biologist and a member of the International Union for the Conservation of Nature's Social and Environmental Accountability of the Private Sector Working Group--that's a mouthful.

I've worked extensively around the world on extractive industry issues and environmental social issues, including, in the past few years, in northern British Columbia with the local people there. I have a deep admiration for Canada: the people, the environment, and the government.

I returned yesterday from a week and a half down in the Gulf of Mexico where I was working on the Deepwater Horizon oil spill and doing a rapid assessment of that event. I find that a tragic and poignant example of what can happen when an extractive industry company does not receive adequate oversight by government and then essentially is left to self-police. I think that's just a very recent example of what can happen.

I strongly support Bill C-300. I think you should all be very proud that it has been formulated and introduced. I respectfully recommend that it be forwarded to the floor and passed.

It has a very straightforward, noble intention to ensure that mining, oil, and gas companies from Canada act in a manner consistent with international environmental practices and with Canada's commitments to international human rights standards. Most companies say they do this anyway, so I'm curious as to how they could oppose a bill that would simply help ensure that this is the case.

The truth of the matter is that many don't live up to these standards, and I think you've heard the eloquent testimony of Mr. Schnoor before me. That's the unfortunate truth. This is true of U.S. companies and companies throughout the world--not simply Canadian companies.

Of the several thousand Canadian mining projects around the world, several are extremely problematic. You've heard of a few in Guatemala from Mr. Schnoor. There are many in Mexico, Peru, Panama, the Philippines, India, Tibet, South Africa, Tanzania, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo. We can list them all and talk about the issues with all of them.

The three I'm most familiar with, in working around the world, are: the Porgera mine in the western highlands of Papua New Guinea; the new Nautilus deep-sea mining project by a Canadian conglomerate offshore in the Bismarck and Solomon Seas off Papua New Guinea; and Pacific Rim's El Dorado project in El Salvador.

The Porgera project—and this is Barrick Gold, the largest gold mining company in the world, based in Toronto—is simply one of the worst environmental and human rights atrocities I have ever witnessed. I was brought there by the Porgera Alliance two years ago to look at what was going on, meet with people, and recommend what needed to happen.

There have been many extrajudicial killings that local people relate directly to the security forces hired by the mine. Many locals were displaced from the mining site to build the mine in the first place.

They've destroyed hundreds of miles of the Porgera, Lagaip, and Strickland rivers, with millions of tonnes of waste a year disposed of in what is euphemistically known as “riverine tailings disposal”--just dumping the waste from the mine into the local rivers. There are several metres of sediment and toxic tailings on the bottoms of many of these rivers.

This is a company that purports to support best environmental practices and social and labour practices. Obviously, it doesn't.

The Nautilus project is the first ever deep-sea mining project in human history. It has not been developed with free, prior, and informed consent. There is an inadequate environmental impact statement, which I was asked to review on behalf of the local people. Again, this in Papua New Guinea. I feel that there's a very seriously co-opted government process that Nautilus has engaged in there; they've resisted the notion of a legitimate citizen's advisory council to engage citizens on a more equal footing in Papua New Guinea.

Finally, the other project I'm most aware of by a Canadian company is the Pacific Rim El Dorado project. I was brought to El Salvador on behalf of the International Union for the Conservation of Nature for a fact-finding mission this past January. There had been several extrajudicial killings that the local people relate directly to the influence of Pacific Rim, a Canadian- and U.S.-based company.

Several local people who were opposed to the mine were murdered just last year. Locals feel that Pacific Rim is behind all of this in one way or another and that they are financing local officials on a campaign of intimidation and violence towards to the opponents of the mine. I think Pacific Rim likely violated OECD guidelines for multinational businesses in regard to combatting bribery, and many other provisions.

It's important that neither the United States nor the Canadian governments have done their due diligence in providing compliance reviews with the OECD guidelines they have ascribed to. These guidelines are great, but they're only as good as the governments' and the industries' reviews in compliance with them.

Finally, on the Pacific Rim project in El Salvador, there is such public resistance to it that the new president of El Salvador, Mauricio Funes, has called for a ban on all metal mining in the country. This is what can happen if a company, from whatever country, does not behave truthfully and honestly by the international best practice standards that they say they are ascribing to.

That could be a detriment and a disadvantage to all other companies, including Canadian companies, that wish to operate in these countries, so there's a strong positive benefit in Bill C-300.

All of these Canadian mining projects that we've referenced have profoundly negative elements: human rights abuses; poor labour practices; forced displacement of local people; violence and murder of local people, whether sponsored directly or indirectly; corruption and bribery of local officials; serious and long-lasting environmental damage; and betrayal of promises of sustainable development in local welfare.

To be honest, many of these projects have lost their social licence to operate and, as Mr. Schnoor mentioned, it really tarnishes the image of Canada in many of these places. The fact of the matter is that host governments in developing countries simply lack the technical and financial capability to provide adequate oversight to these projects; therefore, they allow the companies to run the show. That is not an effective way of doing business.

Canada is better than this. We are all better than this. There are many CSR standards throughout the world. There are the World Bank policies and the OECD policies, to which every OECD country ascribes. The U.S. Ex-Im Bank uses IFC guidelines right now. JBIC, the Nippon Export Investment Insurance organization, has their guidelines. All the multilateral development banks have them...the Equator Principles. And all the extractive industry companies themselves have CSR guidelines.

The sad fact of the matter is that they're not working. Without this additional step that Bill C-300 would provide for the government independently to get involved in providing review and compliance certification, we're not going to get there. Actions speak louder than words. People see the slick, glossy websites of companies that say how wonderful they are, but when it comes right down to it, they see it's not working. There is a number of comparisons of overseas private investment corporations in the United States and Bill C-300...I can go through it at some point, if you'd like.

But the bottom line here is that Canada can provide leadership in enhancing and improving corporate social responsibility with this bill. It's exciting. A number of people in the international community are following this debate. They look forward to Canada's leadership.

It's a great step forward. It evens the playing field for all Canadian corporations. It gives a competitive advantage to those companies that are already ascribing to these standards, and very well, and those that aren't are cutting costs. They have an advantage now. This will even that playing field. It will raise the bar for the U.S. companies working in these places. I think that's a good thing.

It will also raise the bar for host governments. It will give them a better idea of what is meant by international best practice and help raise their compliance review.

It's a clear and precise bill. It's very prudent. It's modest. It's not overreaching by any stretch of the imagination. If this bill had been enacted and a law had been in place, the Porgera atrocity in Papua New Guinea would never have occurred, plain and simple. And in Pacific Rim's case, you might not have an effort by the Government of El Salvador to ban all metal mining in the country if this law were in place and if Pacific Rim had put in some effective mitigations to the problems seen there.

There are several amendments that you could consider, but I think that effectively Bill C-300 is very straightforward, and I would respectfully urge you to pass it along. That's all I have for right now. I would be delighted to entertain questions.

[The Chair, Conservative, Dean Allison]

Thank you, Mr. Steiner. We'll do just that then.

I'm going to start with the sponsor of the bill, Mr. McKay.

You have seven minutes.

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

Thank you, Chair.

Thanks to Professor Steiner and Steven Schnoor.

My question is of a largely general nature and it deals with the unwillingness both of government officials and of mining officials to believe the testimony you put forward here today.

Both of you have been direct witnesses on the ground, have seen things, have talked to people, and have made tests, and yet your reports will be disbelieved. My friends across the way will find it almost incredible and, in fact, they'll attack your personal credibility.

It doesn't seem to matter that we have report after report of these items. They are dismissed or ignored. We have you producing documentaries and, instead of dealing with the facts on the documentary as a documentary, your personal reputation is attacked, as is yours, Professor Steiner.

The list of allegations of human rights abuses and environmental damage goes on and on and on. We know darn well that a lot of these countries have very weak governance systems, and yet there is just a flat out unwillingness to confront these facts in our own Canadian psyche. In fact, if either one of you said what you've just said outside of this room without parliamentary privilege, you can absolutely be guaranteed that you'd be served with a lawsuit tomorrow.

And there is no place--no place--that these folks can go to complain. If they complain in their own country, they're dismissed. If they come here, the courts say, well, that's none of our business, that's outside of our country.

There is no legislation that responds in any way to these complaints. So respond to the issue of the denial, the denial of the facts, of what you give testimony to.

Maybe I'll start with Mr. Schnoor.

[Steven Schnoor]

I agree completely. I find that extremely disconcerting. It's not only a denial of people like me and like Professor Steiner, who bring forth evidence that problematizes the operations of Canadian mining companies.

As I referred to earlier, what initially disturbed me was the enthusiasm with which the embassy, at least in my case in my experience in Guatemala City, went out of its way to delegitimize the local opposition, to make it illegitimate. The reason I find that most alarming is that resistance will not go away if you deny it. That resistance will not go away if you ignore it or delegitimize it.

I'll give you one small example. In the region around the Marlin mine, local communities began to assemble and hold community consultas, open consultations, asking, “Do we want these activities in our region?” Overwhelmingly, the response has been no. I have been the international observer for some of them, and it has been quite emotionally overwhelming to see hundreds of people turn out to say, “We do not want mining”.

What is our embassy's position on these? It is that these consultas are not legitimate because they are organized by activists, NGOs, who are manipulating the campesinos into rejecting mining. This is completely untrue, from what I've experienced, and yet there is this staunch willingness to deny, to invent any mechanism such that we don't have to pay attention to the will on the ground.

What's that going to result in? Do you think the people who get together, the thousands of people who get together and say “we don't want this”, will go away, that they will accept the Canadian government's position that they're just puppets of NGOs? They won't go away.

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

Let me get Professor Steiner in on this question.

Professor Steiner, what is your reaction to that?

[Prof. Richard Steiner]

My reaction would be that the committee, the government, and the people do not have to take Mr. Schnoor's word and my word for it. The whole purpose of Bill C-300 is to impose another independent level of review by your two ministers to either confirm or deny what these complaints are all about. That's the point of Bill C-300. Don't take my word for it. If they receive a legitimate, non-trivial complaint, let your Ministers of Foreign Affairs and International Trade investigate to see if there is substantial evidence to support or refute it. On the projects I've just been talking about in Porgera and Pacific Rim, there is little question, and I suspect that is the case with Mr. Schnoor's discussion in Guatemala as well.

That's the whole point of Bill C-300. You have complaints. This is a mechanism whereby people can file complaints. I would hope that if Bill C-300 were to be passed.... One amendment that I would suggest to it is look at all companies, not just extractive industry companies. That's the sole advantage in OPIC's revisions to the environmental handbook here in the United States. One of the things OPIC has over Bill C-300 is that it will apply to all companies; however, it's project specific, and Bill C-300 applies to the company regardless of whether it is the specific project that is of concern.

I would just want to say, “Don't take our word for it”.

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

Thank you.

I just want you to comment further on all of these guidelines that exist out there--the Equator Principles and those of the IFC and OECD and a whole bunch of other organizations--to which all of these companies put their hands over their hearts and talk about how wonderfully obsessed they are with corporate social responsibility principles. They produce wonderful general annual reports with happy little people doing happy little things, and yet these allegations that you speak to, for which you will be roundly criticized, are brushed under the table.

Tell me, what would Bill C-300 actually bring to the dance that would move us off this endless allegation stuff?

Professor Steiner.

[Prof. Richard Steiner]

First of all, actions speak louder than words, as you have alluded. There are all these CSR guidelines and all the companies say that they ascribe to international best practices and so on.

If that is true, then why would they oppose this independent Bill C-300 to simply affirm that this is so? Obviously, to the extent that a company or a government member is opposing this very prudent, reasonable, modest piece of legislation, it simply indicates their lack of confidence that this is indeed the case, that companies are indeed being honest and forthright about their compliance with CSR standards. If they felt there was no problem, then Bill C-300 would almost be irrelevant to them.

There are many of these, and the proof is in the pudding, as they say down in the south of the U.S. It's the extent to which the government provides oversight. As I said, Canada and the United States are both OECD members. They both signed on to the OECD guidelines, yet the atrocities continue. Porgera and Papua New Guinea and Pacific Rim never would have occurred had the governments really been truly doing their jobs and providing oversight.

Bill C-300, in my book, is excellent. It's far superior to the current OPIC guidelines being developed in the United States, for three particular reasons. One is that Bill C-300 applies universally, as we mentioned before, to all extractive industry companies, whether they have government support or not, and not just on a project-specific basis. That's a positive. That's a good idea.

Second, Bill C-300 requires an investigation and mandatory sanctions for non-compliance, such as withholding credit or insurance or whatever the government role in the company is, and embassy support, as we heard there, and loss of support by Export Development Canada. That is a very good idea.

Third, Bill C-300 requires the Ministers of Foreign Affairs and International Trade independently to develop and enforce these standards and to apply these standards, and it requires that they conduct an investigation for non-frivolous complaints. It's a very simple, straightforward mechanism of governance and jurisprudence, I think.

It would really shift the dynamic, and those companies that are behaving well overseas will appreciate that those that aren't and that are cutting costs and have “an advantage” right now by doing that will no longer have that advantage. So those companies that are -behaving well are going to have a competitive advantage through this.

[The Chair, Conservative, Dean Allison]

Thank you, Richard. We use that saying up here as well: the proof is in the pudding.

We're going to go to Madame Deschamps. She has seven minutes.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Before Bill C-300was introduced, there were major consultations all across Canada. There was a round table at which civil society organizations and experts participated, as did mining company people.

Steven, if I may—I do not know how to pronounce your surname—did you follow those consultations?

And Mr. Steiner, did you participate in any way?

[Prof. Richard Steiner]

Yes, I am aware of them, though not intimately. I was not a participant. But I believe that is the sort of derivation for the introduction of legislation.

We could sit around and talk all we want about corporate social responsibility with all our noble intentions, but again, it's what actions these companies put in place in their operations overseas. It's the choices that companies make operationally in these countries. It's staying away from certain areas that should not be developed with mines or oil and gas. And if they go into certain areas, it's making sure that it's done with free and prior informed consent, that they're transparent, open, honest, and as environmentally responsible as possible--and that's all.

We can have all the consultations and discussions and standards we want, but without this additional level of independent review and these mandatory sanctions, if a company is found to not be living up to its word, then we're not going to get there.

There is one last thing that I believe you could consider. If the ministers find a company to be out of compliance or out of step with the IFC guide, with the standards that are developed, the committee may consider giving them a probationary period of six months to a year or something like that, within which to mitigate and fix the problem in order to be back in compliance.

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

I have another question that will probably be dealt with by other witnesses in the second hour. Can you tell me about the Equator Principles?

[Steven Schnoor]

You're speaking to Mr. Steiner, I presume?

[The Chair, Conservative, Dean Allison]

Who wants to take that?

[Steven Schnoor]

If I may, I'll quickly respond to your first question.

One thing I find rather curious...let's not forget that the advisory group's report to the round table was written by an agreement between civil society and industry. If industry was at the table and signed on to the advisory report, it's somewhat curious that industry is now saying they want nothing to do with Bill C-300.

The only thing I would say about the Equator Principles or the IFC guidelines is given that they have such discretionary measures built into them in terms of how they are specifically applied, and given the fact, at least in Export Development Canada's case, that there's no transparency in terms of how these mechanisms are actually applied, I find it difficult to believe that this is actual accountability, because mechanisms can actually achieve accountable behaviour.

[The Chair, Conservative, Dean Allison]

Mr. Steiner, did you want to comment?

[Prof. Richard Steiner]

I concur with what Mr. Schnoor has said.

The discretionary aspect of these is concerning. To some extent, Bill C-300 allows discretionary review by the ministers, and there's no way to get around that. A lot of this will be a judgment call.

Once the ministers, acting independently on behalf of the people of Canada, look at the facts in a particular complaint—say for the Marlin mine in Guatemala, or Pacific Rim in El Salvador, or Porgera in Papua New Guinea—it will be their judgment call in independently using their discretionary abilities to make a judgment as to whether or not this company is or is not living up to the guidelines that the government...that they have developed.

There's always some discretionary aspect to this, but I think it's another level of independent rigour that you'd be applying.