So it is less than one per cent. Given Colombia's record on human rights and investment opportunities that may also impact human rights...
Several impact studies have been done. One report, entitled Land and Conflict: Resource Extraction, Human Rights and Corporate Social Responsibility: Canadian Companies in Colombia, looks at three case studies of the impact of Canadian projects on investment. On the subject of paramilitary forces and human rights violators, the report notes the following:
The regions in which they are active, rich in minerals and oil, have been and continue to be plagued by violence, displacement and paramilitary activities. In fact, resource-rich regions are the source of 87% of forced displacements, 82% of the violations of human rights and international humanitarian law, and 83% of murders of union leaders. Both the high levels of violence and the presence of illegal armed groups raise serious concerns about the potential for Canadian investment to benefit from or be complicit in the conflict.
There is still the clause, or agreement respecting investment in place. The report goes on to say this:
Paramilitaries and their successors control between 2 and 7 million hectares of stolen land. In one of the few returns of stolen land, some 18,000 hectares were given back to Afro-Colombian communities in Chocó in 2007.
Canadian oil and mining companies want to invest and run the risk of doing so on land that has been stolen. With chapter 11 and protection provisions, people are buying...This means that people who have been displaced from their lands will never have the opportunity to reclaim them if Canadian companies invest in Colombia. If, as a sign of good faith, the Colombian government gives the land back to the farmers, the clause on investment and expropriation will automatically apply.
Companies claim that the situation will improve if they invest in Colombia, but the situation could in fact deteriorate, particularly with respect to investments in natural resources. All that, when Colombia accounts for only one per cent of our exports.
How do you feel about all this?