Foreign Affairs Committee on June 3rd, 2010

[Sarah Knuckey]

I'd just like to make a short comment. I'd like to stress that, at least in our case, we're talking about gang rapes, beatings--including some that appear to rise to the level of torture--and killings. Some of what I've heard here today seems to imply that we should leave these crimes unpunished or that we should negotiate a solution. Perpetrators of crimes like these need to be brought to account, and if the host country or the corporation allegedly involved doesn't investigate, then clearly Canada, as the home country, should step in.

[John Rafferty, NDP, Thunder Bay—Rainy River, ON]

Okay.

Mr. Nash.

[Gary Nash]

I would like to make just one point. One of the problems we find in developing countries is the lack of knowledge of many of the indigenous and other communities that are in the remote areas. I just came back from Peru. There were shootings. There were 34 people killed because an oil company tried to go into an area where the aboriginal people did not want it to go.

When I was in the government, I established an aboriginal division. I was in the government for four years, which was enough. One of the things that we have done in Canada is to set up a division to educate communities, even in Canada, on what exploration is all about and what mining is all about. There is a big gap out there that also needs to be filled.

[John Rafferty, NDP, Thunder Bay—Rainy River, ON]

Mr. Nash, let me stay with you for a question.

If Bill C-300 is a bad bill, but some kind of CSR strategy is important, as you indicated in your remarks, how should we pursue a CSR strategy without this bill?

[Gary Nash]

Without this bill, as I mentioned in my paper, there is a host of issues that have not been properly analyzed. Even the round table identified a host of issues that need further analysis.

Let me just make the point that in my view we don't have sufficient understanding of what some of the consequences are. Even here today, there were points raised that need some consideration. Are the standards too high? I don't know the answer to that, to be quite frank, but if the companies are complaining, tell us exactly where these standards are too high and why they are too high.

I don't know the answer to that, but all I'm saying is that before we move too far forward, we need a bit more analysis. I'm not saying forever, but it's very clear from the round table that there are major gaps in our understanding. If you want to get the bill right, or if you want to do the right thing, then let's make sure we are on the right track. I don't believe we are with this bill.

[John Rafferty, NDP, Thunder Bay—Rainy River, ON]

Do I have time for one more question, Chair?

Mr. Stewart-Patterson, how should this bill be amended to suit your needs? I'm thinking, what about changing the counsellor--

[David Stewart-Patterson]

I'll give you a quick answer: kill it.

[John Rafferty, NDP, Thunder Bay—Rainy River, ON]

Well, let's assume that the bill is going to go forth, and if you could--

[David Stewart-Patterson]

Well, you seem very good at assuming funding; I'm not sure that's a good assumption either.

[John Rafferty, NDP, Thunder Bay—Rainy River, ON]

I think Ms. Simons was assuming the funding, not me. But what about changing a counsellor to an ombudsman, for example? Or are there things that can be done to this bill to make it acceptable?

[David Stewart-Patterson]

No. I think the bill suffers from a fundamental flaw, which can't be fixed by amendment. Frankly, I think it comes back to some of the issues that have been raised both by Professor Simons and by our colleagues from Harvard here.

Essentially, in the examples they were talking about, their issue wasn't so much with whether a company was behaving in a socially responsible way but was more about whether the government of the country involved was maintaining rule of law. We just heard some suggestions from Ms. Knuckey. The government has an obligation to investigate, and where the government has no capacity, the company has to take on a state responsibility.

I read that as saying that we want a bill passed by the Canadian Parliament to tell Canadian companies to judge for themselves whether to override the sovereign power of another state, to judge for themselves whether they're operating in a failed state and therefore take on state roles like investigation and punishment.

I find that an astonishing principle for the Government of Canada to want to uphold. I would be very surprised if your party would stand up for the notion that companies should override the authority of sovereign governments.

[John Rafferty, NDP, Thunder Bay—Rainy River, ON]

I wonder if we have time for a very quick response to those comments, maybe from the Harvard group.

[Chris Albin-Lackey]

Well, on this last point, no one is talking about the Canadian government overriding the sovereign responsibility of any country. The idea is--

[David Stewart-Patterson]

You're going to get companies to do it--

[Chris Albin-Lackey]

No. If we're talking about company employees and security guards and state security forces--those who are deployed to protect the company--committing serious abuses, the idea is not that a Canadian company should build a prison and throw into it all those who are guilty of these abuses. The idea is that Canada's corporate citizens ought to be held to account for the behaviour of their own employees and the security forces they rely on for protection. They can't simply say that they don't know what they're doing or that they don't have any capacity to investigate it.

All this bill says--all anyone at this table is arguing--is that you can't advance the argument that a company working overseas can employ an armed private security force and then simply throw up its hands and say there's nothing it can do when abuses are committed by those forces.

I also wanted to respond very quickly to one of Mr. Nash's points, the idea that maybe these standards are too high and there needs to be more consultation about where they should be.

I wonder if you could find a major Canadian company operating overseas that doesn't claim that it already adheres to every single standard set down in this bill--not that it would like to or that it tries to, but that it actually does and that it succeeds in doing so. Why, then, are these standards so vague or impossible to live up to in the context of this legislation if, in the context of their PR and the things they say to their shareholders, it seems very clear and easy to say that they're already meeting all of these things anyway?

[John Rafferty, NDP, Thunder Bay—Rainy River, ON]

Mr. Chair, do we have time to hear from Mr. Nash?

[The Chair, Conservative, Dean Allison]

No, we don't. You're way over time. We don't see you that often, John, so I wanted to give you some time.

[John Rafferty, NDP, Thunder Bay—Rainy River, ON]

Thank you, Chair.

[The Chair, Conservative, Dean Allison]

Mr. Van Kesteren, we're going to drop the time to five minutes as we start our second round.

The floor is yours, sir.

[Dave Van Kesteren, Conservative, Chatham-Kent—Essex, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thanks to all of you for coming here.

You know, we all watch the Law and Orders and those sorts of things, and every once in a while--usually inevitably--at the end of the program, something happens and a criminal gets off on a technicality. You're left to wonder how that could ever happen. Well, it's because of the law of unintended consequences when a law is put in place.

I think you alluded to that, too.

I want to go back a bit; this is just a little history lesson, although I don't claim to be an expert in this field. I remember the Sudan--I want to think about that for a second--back in the eighties, prior to that. Ethiopia at that time was under the sphere of the Soviet Union. They were exporting the revolution, and that just got taken...

Glen probably knows this a little better than I do, but the Sudan, which was a backward African country that tribal.... It just turned into a hellhole, quite frankly. So now the Russians are gone and they're left with this mess. Into that we saw a company--Talisman--set up and try to do business in that kind of unstable environment.

We know the history and what happened since. Talisman is gone and the Chinese are there.

Ms. Simons, I'm wondering, have you followed up on the Chinese lately? Have you followed up to see just how they're doing as far as some of those human rights and...?

[Dr. Penelope Simons]

I'm not saying the situation is any better. The war is over in that area of Sudan. We're not talking about Darfur, we're talking about the upper western Nile area. The Chinese were already there when Talisman was there.

[Dave Van Kesteren, Conservative, Chatham-Kent—Essex, ON]

But was the situation better?

[Dr. Penelope Simons]

When Talisman was there? No, the situation was not better. They were in the midst of war, and the human rights situation actually deteriorated when Talisman was there.

[Dave Van Kesteren, Conservative, Chatham-Kent—Essex, ON]

But has the situation...?

Have you been back? Have you gone to investigate what's happening?

I'm not trying to trap you or anything. I'm just--

[Dr. Penelope Simons]

I haven't, but somebody else who was on the Harker mission, Georgette Gagnon, went back, with John Ryle, the following year. As well, numerous reports have come out, and Human Rights Watch and other groups have talked about it.

I still think the argument is spurious that just because... If Talisman had stayed, do you think the situation would be any better now? I don't think so. What they were doing in terms of their philanthropy was helping the government's counter-insurgency program.

So I don't think there's a lot of merit in that argument.