Foreign Affairs committee  Thank you, Mr. Chair, and thank you, members of Parliament. I'm honoured to have the opportunity to speak before the committee on a matter that greatly affects both Canada and Argentina. I speak before you today in two capacities, first as a former Secretary of the Environment o

Foreign Affairs committee  Yes, Mr. McKay. When President Néstor Kirchner, the former President of Argentina, requested that I join government as the Secretary of the Environment, he decided to put the Secretary of the Environment at the ministerial rank. He gave four times more budget than we'd had befo

Foreign Affairs committee  I will start with your first question on the legal part. I'm not a judge, I'm not part of the judiciary, so I cannot say whether Barrick complies with the law or not, but I can say that Barrick Gold has dozens of legal claims before the court right now. There are two claims aga

Foreign Affairs committee  I was not in touch directly with the Canadian government. I was in touch with the Chilean government, because it was a binational project and it was our counterpart during these operations.

Foreign Affairs committee  Yes, I speak French. The translation is not very good, so I couldn't understand one of the questions. Can you repeat your question, please? If you can do so in French, that's fine.

Foreign Affairs committee  Yes. First, though, if you will allow me, perhaps I can answer the last question a little better. Did I have contact with the Canadian government? As the environment secretary, I did not have contact directly with the Canadian government, but there were demonstrations before th

Foreign Affairs committee  I'm not an expert on Canadian law. My background is that I'm a lawyer, but I'm not an expert in Canadian law.

Foreign Affairs committee  I can talk about some of the projects, but the amount will be around.... Let me check the numbers; I have them here. I want to give you exact numbers.

Foreign Affairs committee  It's around $8 billion.

Foreign Affairs committee  No, it's American dollars.

Foreign Affairs committee  That varies, because the projects have different phases. I cannot tell you for sure. For example, on the Veladero Pascua Lama project, the company says it will hire around 3,000 people.

Foreign Affairs committee  That doesn't mean that all of them will be Argentinian.

Foreign Affairs committee  It could be.

Foreign Affairs committee  I would not say so. When you define “colonialism”, it's to override the jurisdiction and maybe take over the resources of a country, and this is not what the law is about, as I understand it. I think this law is about controlling how and in which companies the government invests

Foreign Affairs committee  No, no. I'm sorry I didn't express myself very clearly. It's not my language. As in many developing countries in the world—and I will set Congo aside, because really Congo is a different situation—those countries that are in the process of constructing democracy, in Argentina ou