In the Sur de Bolivar region, a Colombian government human rights protection agency issued very clear recommendations, i.e., that eliminating large scale investments in the region would help avoid egregious human rights violations. In particular, that would protect the people we talked about earlier, the members of the Agromining Federation of Sur de Bolivar, or FEDEAGROMISBOL, who live in that region, conduct farm production and mining activities and earn their living in the Sur de Bolivar region, despite its very difficult human rights conditions. That is one of the regions in Columbia that has been most hard hit by armed conflict.
We are concerned about the exploration concessions granted to Canadian companies in the region. The names of those companies are listed in the report. Far be it from me to claim that those companies are complicit in human rights violations and the actions of paramilitary groups.
Mr. Bryson was wondering how we could ask Canadian mining companies to ensure that their concessions be free from the risks that we describe in our report. In fact, it is not necessarily up to a mining company to give that assurance. Here is the question: does the Canada-Columbia Free Trade Agreement give the Colombian government the leeway it needs now and in the future to implement the recommendations of the human rights ombudsman in order to protect the human rights of people in Sur de Bolivar? That is the gist of the issue.
One of the mechanisms that should be addressed, and this is our recommendation, is that the free trade agreement be subjected to a human rights impact study. Such a study would go far beyond the scope of what we were able to conduct. It would eventually lead to the establishment of mechanisms guaranteeing the right of the Colombian government to revoke an exploration concession on lands that were clearly identified as having been a place of forced displacement or massive human rights violations.