Evidence of meeting #72 for Subcommittee on International Human Rights in the 42nd Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was america.
A recording is available from Parliament.
1:50 p.m.
Liberal
Peter Fragiskatos Liberal London North Centre, ON
That's helpful in terms of narrowing the focus on something specific within the private sector, as far as where concerns currently lie.
In the handout here I read that spending by Canadian extractive firms in Latin America on local salaries, purchases from local businesses, local taxes and royalties, is vastly in excess of Canada's total worldwide development assistance spending.
Could you go into that, Mr. McMullen? We're talking about a real development contribution that's being made here.
1:50 p.m.
Director General, Trade Commissioner Service - Operations, Department of Foreign Affairs, Trade and Development
Right, and that's just math, and you pull these from the annual reports of the companies and so on. It illustrates that they are a huge multiplier for Canadian policy objectives in the region, whether that's for good or for bad. We would be wise, and it's a focus of our policy, to work with the Canadian mining companies, to use them as a lever and a very powerful tool to help in the ongoing development of effective institutions in Latin America that can provide security, can provide protection for human rights, as well as the economic benefits.
1:50 p.m.
Director General, Trade Commissioner Service - Operations, Department of Foreign Affairs, Trade and Development
As we mentioned earlier, there are 930 Canadian projects in Latin America alone and that's a huge number. It's very hard to go and look and see every single project on any kind of consistent, sustained basis. That is one of the challenges of our policy. We need to help the companies understand how they can do the right thing, even if we aren't necessarily directly watching them.
1:50 p.m.
Liberal
Peter Fragiskatos Liberal London North Centre, ON
I take your point on what you said before about resources and perhaps a need for greater resources in order to expand the important work that is being done.
I'll go to my last question on this. We're the only country in the world to have this type of an office. I think you mentioned, when Ms. Hardcastle posed a question to you, that we've been approached by other countries soliciting advice on how they can create similar efforts. Is that correct?
1:50 p.m.
Director General, Trade Commissioner Service - Operations, Department of Foreign Affairs, Trade and Development
Right. We've been approached by several countries—
1:50 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Michael Levitt
Mr. McMullen, if you can answer this in 30 seconds or less, that would be great because we have to squeeze one more question in.
1:50 p.m.
Director General, Trade Commissioner Service - Operations, Department of Foreign Affairs, Trade and Development
—about our sanction, about our publicly naming a company as not acting in good faith and why, and what they have to do to fix it, and how until they fix it they are not eligible for Canadian diplomatic support. That's a great curiosity to many countries.
1:50 p.m.
Conservative
David Anderson Conservative Cypress Hills—Grasslands, SK
Thank you, Mr. Chair, and thank you to our witnesses for being here today.
I just wanted to quote from a September 2015 letter from the Liberal Party to the CNCA where it said a Liberal government will set up an independent ombudsman office to advise Canadian companies, consider complaints made against them, and investigate those complaints where it's deemed warranted. What signal has this government sent to you that they're going to keep that promise?
1:50 p.m.
Director General, Trade Commissioner Service - Operations, Department of Foreign Affairs, Trade and Development
We are aware of that platform commitment.
1:55 p.m.
Director General, Trade Commissioner Service - Operations, Department of Foreign Affairs, Trade and Development
We have provided a range of advice to our minister on options to implement that recommendation. I know the minister is continuing to actively consult with stakeholders before making a decision.
1:55 p.m.
Conservative
David Anderson Conservative Cypress Hills—Grasslands, SK
So you're telling me you've had no signal back from them other than interest in you presenting options to them. Okay, thank you.
We continually hear from civil society organizations. They have the stats on the attacks and injuries and deaths around some of these projects, or whatever, but when we read your report today and some of the comments from Mr. Davidson, it seems as though you're fairly comfortable with the role that Canadian companies are playing in South America. I think you said only one company has been sanctioned. Could you try to square that circle for me?
There's a list of deaths and injuries around certain projects and the organizations blame the companies, but it seems you're saying that's not actually accurate. Could you help me out with that?
1:55 p.m.
Director General, Trade Commissioner Service - Operations, Department of Foreign Affairs, Trade and Development
Sure. Maybe I can answer by trying to give some numbers that will provide a sense of the issue from our perspective as people who are trying to have an impact in the field.
I mentioned 930 Canadian mining projects in Latin America. There was a well-publicized report by people from the Osgoode Hall Law School last year that named nine projects with incidents from 2014 or later. That's nine out of the 930 projects that we're aware of. Of those nine incidents, one was a project sold to the Chinese in 2010, three were mineworkers or subcontractors who were extorted by armed gangs, two were arrests and violence from police breaking up roadblocks and blockades, one is of arrests in the death of a police officer and conflict between union and non-union workers, and so on. In no specific case was a specific allegation made against a Canadian company, nor did the report state that the Canadian company caused the incidents in question. Instead, the report referred to very complex and difficult cases in these nine projects.
Our role is to try to get to the bottom of how the various interacting factors are contributing to that. It's not a villain-victim situation necessarily. It's a situation that's broken, and how do we fix it? The companies often might not recognize it, but they are the ones that are best equipped and have the most resources.
1:55 p.m.
Conservative
David Anderson Conservative Cypress Hills—Grasslands, SK
In that context, I'll ask Mr. Davidson a question.
You released a report this summer on a 2016 visit to Honduras. The response from the civil society organizations was fairly direct and clear. Do you have a comment about the response to your report?
They basically said that you were wrong, that you had a fundamental lack of understanding in many areas, that there was a real problem with naming some of the organizations, and that you minimized the danger faced by human rights defenders in Honduras. Could you give us your response to their charges against your report?
1:55 p.m.
Extractive Sector Corporate Social Responsibility Counsellor, Department of Foreign Affairs, Trade and Development
They referred to a number of observations I made, out of 36, or 30-plus, regarding what I saw in the country. They also referred to two or three paragraphs at the end of the report. I felt that in writing this report I had to speak to Canadian actors principally, and that if I was writing at the end and making suggestions or sharing thoughts with Canadian companies and with our own ambassadors and diplomatic staff in the field, I should also try to talk about the role of Canadian development and advocacy NGOs.
In the Honduran context, which by my own admission is very complicated and not so easy to understand, from what I could tell, I felt that there could have been more constructive approaches than some that were taken. We tried to meet with both local NGOs and Canadian counterpart NGOs in the field. In some cases, our requests to meet and understand from their point of view what was going on were rejected in advance. That made it very difficult for us.
To be honest, I struggled with those few paragraphs. I spent days trying to figure out how I could shape this in a way that would not be totally negative or destructive, that would have some constructive impact, but would be honest. That's my response to that.
2 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Michael Levitt
Thank you very much. We're out of time. I see it's now just after two o'clock.
I want to thank all of our witnesses for being here today and for participating and starting the ball rolling on this study.
Thank you, colleagues.
With that, we shall adjourn.