Subcommittee on International Human Rights Committee on Nov. 1st, 2012

[The Chair, Conservative, Scott Reid]

Your time is not up. There was an audio problem. You still have time.

[Cliff Davis]

Okay.

At any rate, we do a tremendous amount of good within the country, and we're very proud of it. I think you as members of Parliament actually should be very proud that you have a Canadian company in there establishing strong international standards.

[Irwin Cotler, Liberal, Mount Royal, QC]

Mr. Davis, I would be very proud if I knew that amongst the many visits that you have acknowledged you make to that country you have brought up the issue of human rights violations by the government—since you are there, and have the benefit of being there. Do you not consider that you have a responsibility to raise these issues of human rights violations?

[Cliff Davis]

First of all, that's not in my purview as president and CEO of the company, and that is certainly not my objective.

If you'd like to come to the country, I invite any one of you to the country. We'd be happy to sponsor you.

[Irwin Cotler, Liberal, Mount Royal, QC]

You're still not answering the question. Do you engage with the Eritrean government on their human rights violations, yes or no?

[Cliff Davis]

I don't know what else I can say. We provide a very good environment for our people.

[Irwin Cotler, Liberal, Mount Royal, QC]

I don't think you're answering the question, Mr. Davis, so....

I'm asking a specific question: have you ever brought up the human rights violations by the Eritrean government?

[Cliff Davis]

Well, first of all, I don't acknowledge the premise, because that's a premise that is asserted by people outside of certainly our mine site, and there are no human rights violations on our mine site.

[Irwin Cotler, Liberal, Mount Royal, QC]

That's not my question, Mr. Davis, and you know that.

[The Chair, Conservative, Scott Reid]

I allowed this one to go a little overtime.

We now go to Ms. Grewal.

[Nina Grewal, Conservative, Fleetwood—Port Kells, BC]

Thank you, Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Davis. I am grateful to hear of the ways BMSC has gone the extra mile to address human rights obligations within the subcontractor mentioned. However, in regard to this subcontractor, can you give us more information on who they are and who they represent? Could you elaborate a little bit more on what you said was a requirement by the government that they be involved in certain projects?

[Cliff Davis]

Certainly: the name of the subcontractor is Segen Construction.

As to who owns them, we believe they are similar to a crown corporation. It's government-owned, in some manner, so it's a state corporation and not a private subcontractor.

The other part of your question was...?

I am not experienced at writing these notes here.

[Nina Grewal, Conservative, Fleetwood—Port Kells, BC]

I'm wondering about the requirement by the government that they be involved in certain projects. Is there a requirement by any government here?

[Cliff Davis]

Yes. When we initially started looking for contractors, and when our contractor was looking for subcontractors, we were advised of the appropriate subcontractor to use.

I will give you an example. When we started the copper phase, it was late 2011. We commenced the copper phase with our own people and staff. We were advised to stop that action because we didn't have the requisite licensing, and the government required us to use that subcontractor.

[Nina Grewal, Conservative, Fleetwood—Port Kells, BC]

The UN monitoring group concerning Somalia and Eritrea has recommended that the Government of Eritrea voluntarily participate in an international framework for the management of natural resource revenues, such as the extractive industries transparency initiative, which would commit the Eritrean authorities and its private sector partners to a set of principles, including the regular publication of all mining payments by companies to governments, and all material revenues received by governments from mining companies, to a wide audience in a publicly accessible, comprehensive, and comprehensible manner.

As president and CEO of a mining company operating in Eritrea, how likely do you think it is that the Eritrean government would voluntarily participate in an international framework such as this?

[Cliff Davis]

It's not really my position to comment on what their policy might be.

As to whether they will sometime in the future, I certainly can't be certain. They have said they don't wish to. That's my understanding.

But in saying that, they are also aware that we are already providing that information. I don't know if that has any influence on their decision.

[Nina Grewal, Conservative, Fleetwood—Port Kells, BC]

Mr. Chair, do I have some more time left?

[The Chair, Conservative, Scott Reid]

You do. You have two and a half minutes.

[Nina Grewal, Conservative, Fleetwood—Port Kells, BC]

I will pass it on to my colleague Mr. Sweet.

[David Sweet, Conservative, Ancaster—Dundas—Flamborough—Westdale, ON]

Thank you very much.

Mr. Davis, to follow up on Mr. Cotler's line of questioning, I think what Mr. Cotler was trying to say, in simple terms, was that Nevsun is benefiting substantially from their presence in Eritrea. Your point is taken that your presence there is benefiting individuals in Eritrea as well—those who are able to somehow qualify for working at the mine. But as a corporate citizen making profits in an area, do you feel any obligation—having the ability to be there on the ground—to bring the Government of Eritrea's attention to the vast amount of human rights violations; and, coming from a country like Canada, that you would bring that up, and make it clear that this is not something that your corporation would approve of?

[Cliff Davis]

Let me get back to...and I'm sorry if I was perceived to be in any way disrespectful to Mr. Cotler.

I guess we have engaged over time with them. We insisted, for instance, in the use of Segen, that the subcontractor's employees, anybody who was on our site, had to be free of national service, had to be working of their own free will. We set up those systems back in 2008. That was a requirement that we made of them. That was us, I guess, instilling that requirement. Naturally, we can't instill that throughout the country, but we can with respect to what we control.

They, I am certain, are aware of allegations. We do not have the ability or capacity to assess those allegations.

[David Sweet, Conservative, Ancaster—Dundas—Flamborough—Westdale, ON]

I think, given the fact that the UN is involved and every other nation is involved, that we go beyond allegations in this regard. Suffice it to say, then, you're keeping your own house in order, but you don't feel any obligation to go beyond that to try to make some positive influence on the Eritrean government in regard to their treatment of their own citizens.

[Cliff Davis]

I think we are—I suppose indirectly, as we can't force anything on anybody—providing a tremendous example of how successful operations can run without human rights violations.

[The Chair, Conservative, Scott Reid]

That uses up the time available for this round.

We go now to Madame Péclet.

[Ève Péclet, NDP, La Pointe-de-l'Île, QC]

I'm going to be sharing my time with my colleague.

First I have one question, and I'm going to be asking it in French, if it's okay.

Recently, Barrick Gold was accused of complicity in human rights violations in West Papua, a province of Indonesia. In reply to those accusations, Barrick Gold invited Human Rights Watch to visit its site in order to check on its activities and actually to make recommendations to the company on human rights violations.

Would Nevsun allow an independent organization to visit the Bisha site in order to conduct a similar study in Eritrea?