International Trade Committee on Feb. 6th, 2023

[Simon-Pierre Savard-Tremblay, Bloc, Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot, QC]

So this issue certainly needs to be addressed then.

You talked a bit about the ombudsman, but I will ask you nonetheless if you think the ombudsman has sufficient powers.

Please answer yes or no.

[Catherine Coumans]

No. We do not believe she does, because she still does not have the powers, five years after her office was created, to compel witnesses and compel documents. That was something that the Government of Canada recognized as critically important, and it committed that she would have those powers when the office was first announced.

[Simon-Pierre Savard-Tremblay, Bloc, Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot, QC]

In 2009, the Bloc Québécois, which is my party, introduced a bill to create a commission of inquiry that would have been independent from political power. It would have had the necessary resources to conduct its own investigations and to appeal directly to Global Affairs Canada if the department had offered support to those mining companies in order to encourage or force the department to withdraw that support.

That brings me to my next question. Have you heard of Canadian embassies providing diplomatic support to mining operations in foreign countries?

[Catherine Coumans]

Diplomatic support to Canadian mining companies operating overseas through the trade commissioner service is ongoing in all cases that we're aware of. There's a really big problem of accountability there as well.

There is something called an integrity assessment or agreement that mining companies are supposed to sign if they want to have trade commissioner support, but when we come across really egregious cases of human rights abuses or environmental abuses by a Canadian mining company and we know that there's been trade commissioner support, sometimes through access to information or very overtly through the media, and we ask whether this company has signed such an integrity agreement, that's confidential information. There's no way for us to hold either the company or even the government to account for how it is supporting this company, often quite overtly, and yet this company's being accused of very egregious harms.

So yes, Canadian companies get a lot of political support. It's not just financial support that they get; it's also political support. This is also an issue of Canadian government accountability.

[The Chair, Liberal, Judy Sgro]

Mr. Killeen, you have your hand raised. This is Monsieur Savard-Tremblay's time. Do you want Mr. Killeen to answer your question?

[Simon-Pierre Savard-Tremblay, Bloc, Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot, QC]

I would like to ask another question first. If I have time left, I will go back to Mr. Killeen.

Ms. Coumans, have you also heard of projects financially supported by Export Development Canada which have involved the violation of human rights, environmental rights or social rights?

[Catherine Coumans]

I'm not sure on the exploration side. It's certainly on the exploitation side, yes, on the major projects that our mining companies are operating overseas.

[Simon-Pierre Savard-Tremblay, Bloc, Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot, QC]

Let me just say that I was not referring to the export sector, but rather to Export and Development Canada, the Crown corporation.

[Catherine Coumans]

Yes. As I said, I'm not aware of exploration companies that are supported by Export Development Canada, but I am aware that we have run into companies that have been supported by EDC that are actually mining and exploiting mines.

[The Chair, Liberal, Judy Sgro]

Thank you very much.

We'll go to Mr. Cannings for six minutes, please.

[Richard Cannings, NDP, South Okanagan—West Kootenay, BC]

Thank you.

Thank you to the witnesses for being here.

I'd like to thank my colleague Monsieur Savard-Tremblay for bringing forward this motion. I've encountered this issue numerous times in my time here in Ottawa.

I was at the ParlAmericas meeting on the side of the Summit of the Americas meeting last spring in Los Angeles, where I talked to a number of Latin American parliamentarians. A woman representing Chile was there. All she wanted to talk about was Canada's terrible reputation in Chile with regard to mining. There were similar comments from the representative from Guatemala. I've met with indigenous groups here in Ottawa from Colombia who, again, had serious problems with the conduct of Canadian mining companies in Colombia.

With that background, I'd first like to ask Mr. Thomson a question.

He mentioned three recommendations. One of them was to have new legislation to focus on companies that are not acting well now. The second one was to strengthen the ombudsman's role. Those are two things that the NDP put forward in private members' bills, Peter Julian on the first and Heather McPherson on the second.

Are you familiar with those legislative efforts by the NDP? How well do they match up with your recommendations?

[Ian Thomson]

Oxfam Canada is aware of both of those private members' bills and fully supports them. We would like to see those changes brought about.

[Richard Cannings, NDP, South Okanagan—West Kootenay, BC]

Can you expand on both of those? You mentioned due diligence regarding human rights and providing redress. Would you like to expand on that first one, and what you would like to see?

[Ian Thomson]

Certainly. Mr. Julian's bill really brings about the comprehensive due diligence framework that we believe Canada needs so that all of our companies are aware of their human rights responsibilities and make sure that they respect human rights in all of their operations and throughout their global supply chains.

At the moment, there is no enforceable standard. Some companies do it, but many companies do not, so that puts a lot of Canadian investment at risk. It also puts a lot of people in harm's way, depending on where a Canadian company might be operating. A consistent framework that covers all human rights and expects all companies to exercise their due diligence is an emerging global standard that we feel Canada must also adopt.

We see that the European Union is developing a due diligence framework, and we think that is going to be the trend. We really have to get ahead of this, and our businesses really need to do this due diligence to ensure that they're operating responsibly.

On the ombudsperson, we met with the ombudsperson on the first day she was appointed. Oxfam brought some partners from Mexico and Guatemala who had been harmed by Canadian mining companies to meet with Ms. Meyerhoffer on the very first day to say that these problems are serious and that this office is needed but that we are not confident that your mandate is sufficient to give us redress in the cases we're facing. We have been telling the government and the CORE since day one that we need stronger powers in order for that office to be effective, and we would welcome the passage of Heather McPherson's private member's bill to strengthen that office.

[Richard Cannings, NDP, South Okanagan—West Kootenay, BC]

Thank you.

I'd like to turn to Ms. Coumans again to comment on both those actions, if she would like to expand on those two recommendations.

[Catherine Coumans]

I think it's really important to know that the Canadian Network on Corporate Accountability, which has over 40 member organizations across Canada, created draft legislation, and that draft legislation was for mandatory human rights and environmental due diligence. It was adopted into the bill that Peter Julian tabled in March of last year, BillC-262.

Heather McPherson's bill was on the CORE, and that was BillC-263.

Just to briefly talk a little bit more about the mandatory environmental and human rights due diligence, what this bill would require is that companies headquartered in Canada would report regularly, probably yearly, on risk that they have established throughout their entire supply chain. They have to look to see if there are human beings at risk or environments at risk through their operations and the operations of their subsidiaries and contractors. They then have to report on the risks that they've identified.

Beyond that, they would now also have to address that risk. They would have to actively make sure that if people are being abused through slave labour and all of the things that I talked about, such as forced evictions, killings by security guards, rapes and all of the things that are going on at various mining companies, they have to be addressed—not just reported on, but addressed.

Finally, the last really important point is that if those issues are not addressed, people can bring a court case to Canada. There will be a cause of action created through this legislation that allows people to bring a case against the parent company in Canada. They wouldn't have to worry about forum non conveniens or about the corporate veil. That's really important.

[The Chair, Liberal, Judy Sgro]

Thank you, Ms. Coumans.

We'll move on to Mr. Carrie for five minutes.

[Colin Carrie, Conservative, Oshawa, ON]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you to all the witnesses for being here today.

I want to start with Ms. McDonald.

You mentioned in your opening that you're a supporter of rare earth mining. We just did a study that involved the Inflation Reduction Act, and the United States and Canada are moving forward with mandates. In terms of the amount of money the Americans are putting into it, there's a credit of $3,750 U.S. for a vehicle containing an electric battery having specific percentages. What's happening is that those percentages are increasing. It's 40% by 2023, 50% by 2024, 60% by 2025, 70% by 2026 and 80% by 2027 and thereafter. It is significant.

These are already called rare earth minerals. I was just wondering if we can meet these governments' mandated targets for these batteries. What's your opinion on that?

[Lisa McDonald]

Certainly, as you say, we see that there is ever-increasing demand for these kinds of minerals with that switch to the lower-carbon energy sources.

Jeff, can you elaborate a bit more on the complexity of critical mineral exploration development?

[Jeff Killeen]

Yes, certainly.

Before I start, I want to offer this to some of the comments we have heard about operating abroad. There's an inference that there are rampant human rights abuses or other types of actions. We would argue that this is just not the case.

There are certainly incidents that happen and there are assets and places in the world where we have seen it. As Lisa mentioned in her opening remarks, that's not something that we ignore as an association, but by and large, Canadian companies operating abroad do bring best practices to their operations.

We are seeing our colleagues at MAC bringing out the TSM protocol, the “towards sustainable mining” protocol. Now nine different nations have signed on to that, which requires reporting on things like human rights. It requires assessments and it is done through third party verification. We are seeing that grow within the Canadian marketplace more and more.

With regard to rare earths specifically, rare earths actually aren't that rare in terms of where they can be found. My background is in geology. The concentration of rare earths in a deposit to a point where it is an economic deposit is where the challenge mostly lies.

With respect to the timeline of what our demands look like in this day and age and what our capabilities are to service those demands in terms of Canadian production, it doesn't look like we would have the capacity to feed into the marketplace the amount of lithium, rare earths or graphites that are being projected forward. That's why the critical minerals strategy here at home—that's an evergreen document—is so important, and why the intergovernmental coordination of our efforts to protect 30% of Canada's lands and oceans and reach net zero by 2050 should be a step coordinated with our critical mineral strategy in understanding where we can take our exploration activities and where we can develop new assets. It's going to be inherently important.

I would argue we're behind the curve already. We need to do more to get in front of that curve, but it is only going to happen with coordination between the government and the people within Canada.

[Colin Carrie, Conservative, Oshawa, ON]

This is an opinion question. Can we meet those deadlines for those mandates?

[Jeff Killeen]

We always like to ground our thoughts in evidence, I would suggest, Mr. MP. When we think of the imperative here in Canada, just based on our current population base.... Clean Energy Canada, another group here in Ontario, did a study last year. It suggested that somewhere around 113 dams the size of the Site C dam in B.C. would be required for Canada to reach net zero.

When we think of 2050 on the calendar, that means we would have to build a dam about every three months here in Canada. That already suggests that we're not doing those types of electrical transition infrastructure developments, that we're already behind the curve and that it will be a challenge for us to meet 2050 goals, based on what we have here in Canada from an infrastructure base and from a mineral base.

[Colin Carrie, Conservative, Oshawa, ON]

Thank you very much.

I have less than a minute left, but when we are looking at rare minerals, I know one of the countries that we compete against internationally is China. When the opportunity is there to extract these important minerals, if the Canadians don't do it, maybe the Chinese are going to do it. Could you compare the environmental and accountability measures that the Canadian companies have against some of our competitors, such as China?

If we need these minerals, do you think Canada is better placed to extract them in a very environmentally sound manner, versus some of these other countries?

[The Chair, Liberal, Judy Sgro]

Somehow give a brief answer, sir.

[Jeff Killeen]

From a broad-stroke basis, Mr. Carrie, yes. Canadian companies operate in a much more transparent and above board perspective relative to a Chinese company or a state-owned enterprise from China.