Foreign Affairs committee  Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman and honourable members of the committee. I'm very pleased to be provided time today to address the committee. I believe that Bill C-300.... [Technical difficulties] There are many voluntary codes for multinational corporations, including the

Foreign Affairs committee  I don't know. Mineral companies usually go, and have to go to stay in business, where the minerals are. The issue is really on what basis will they operate in the resource-rich countries where the mineral deposits are located? I would find it very surprising that someone would

Foreign Affairs committee  Thank you. Under the extractive industries transparency initiative, for example, which has now been endorsed by the G-8, by the G-20, and has wide support, including from the Canadian government, which is contributing to the trust fund that helps countries with implementation o

Foreign Affairs committee  I can do that.

Foreign Affairs committee  I'm at your disposal.

Foreign Affairs committee  I was involved in the legislation of the foreign practices in the United States, which made it a criminal offence for U.S. corporations to bribe foreign government officials. The U.S. law actually preceded the OECD decisions and the Canadian law by some 20 years. We heard many of

Foreign Affairs committee  I apologize to the committee. I was trying to abbreviate my remarks and left out the introduction. The Revenue Watch Institute is an independent, not-for-profit organization devoted to promoting effective, transparent, and accountable management of oil, gas, and hardened minera

Foreign Affairs committee  Our annual budget is almost $12 million.

Foreign Affairs committee  It is to promote effective, transparent, and accountable management of extractive resources for the public benefit in the resource-rich countries.

Foreign Affairs committee  We work very cooperatively with the ICMM and other corporations in the EITI and other contexts.

Foreign Affairs committee  Thank you very much. I'm Karin Lissakers. I'm the director of the Revenue Watch Institute. We're a non-profit organization that works in resource-rich, mineral-rich countries around the world. Our focus is on seeing that the mineral wealth of developing countries is transformed

Foreign Affairs committee  There has been considerable debate about this law. Companies have certainly moved a long way in their attitudes toward transparency, in that most of the major industry participants in this debate have said they are all in favour of disclosing their payments, country by country, t

Foreign Affairs committee  Yes. The U.S. law covers payments to the U.S. government as well. A major point of the intent of the law is to make information available to the citizens of countries where the government would prefer to withhold that information from the citizens. So in our view it's certainly

Foreign Affairs committee  You're the development committee, and you know this is a complex business. There is no single solution. You need to address a number of core issues simultaneously to have any sustained beneficial impact. One thing is having strong transparency rules, because that's a critical to

Foreign Affairs committee  I think many companies would like to have greater recognition of the contributions they make, the tax payments and the social payments they make. Sadly, in some cases the companies actually pay very little in tax for the very lucrative mining and oil and gas ventures that they ha