Thank you, Mr. Chair.
We enjoy the participation of the witnesses and appreciate all of your contributions. We are having a discussion of this. It's a discussion that's going on around the world on these important matters of CSR. But I think it's important to state, for some of our international participants, that we have a process in Canada. We've been in part of these discussions. We've had an extensive round-table consultation with stakeholders--people from the industry, as well as NGOs and other interested parties. We've put in place a mechanism that should contribute positive outcomes. Some of us would like to see that process have a chance to have an impact.
I have some concerns about what has been expressed in terms of Canada projecting our influence onto other countries. We are actually known more as a nation that works cautiously and in collaboration with international partners.
As a member of the defence committee, I was in Afghanistan about a year ago, and one of the other members of this committee was there with us. Our approach in Afghanistan is quite different from some of our international partners. We dialogue with the local officials in Kandahar: we don't tell them what we'd choose as projects to help them economically; we work with them to decide what would help them.
But when you talk about complicated issues--we're worried about frivolous or vexatious concerns--I think there's a better way to describe them, because they're very serious allegations. An example was raised about police actions in Papua New Guinea. You alleged human rights abuses that were corporate-related, but you went on at great length about the police involved in burning houses, rapes, and all kinds of misconduct. That is alleged to be corporate-related.
For Canada to project and go in to sort out failures of governance capacity and authorities in other nations is quite a significant challenge. We need to think this through carefully. I'm don't know if people imagine that we just go in and tell another nation that frankly their governance capacity just isn't there and they are doing it all wrong, and therefore we're going to send in--I don't know, armed forces? What do you have in mind here?
I think we do have a responsibility to act, and that's what the discussion is about. But allegations that are very serious could withhold funding from Canadian companies that do not have a chance to defend themselves and are basically guilty by accusation. That could have very serious ramifications.
I'm not sure who to direct that question to, but I think it warrants some discussion here. I'd be interested in hearing how either side wants to respond to that.