International Trade committee  There are concerns in certain situations. There aren't in all situations. As I said, we have a number of tools that are quite powerful. However, in certain situations, such as when they're worried about impacted individuals and communities, these civil society organizations are n

International Trade committee  Thank very much for the question. CORE is the first ombuds office of its kind in the world, so there is no model for us to look to, although there are various ombuds offices that hold governments accountable. There are administrative ombuds and various industry ombuds. There are

International Trade committee  I think with respect to setting up this office, we're definitely leading. I think we have supply chain transparency legislation that's moving forward. We're on a par with that. We're starting to talk about human rights and environmental due diligence legislation in a private memb

International Trade committee  Just to be clear, while I opened up the doors to the CORE in 2019, we were a brand new organization. We had to build out our procedures and get our technology going so that we could put up our complaints portal. That happened in March of 2021, so it's been open for two years for

International Trade committee  That's correct.

International Trade committee  We are aware of issues that are going on and we're monitoring them. We hear about issues, but we have not received complaints to act on.

International Trade committee  We have talked to a number of companies at various times about the situations they're dealing with. We've provided advice. We monitor all the issues. We are just as concerned as anybody else out there in regard to what's going on. Some of these matters, as you know, have gone to

International Trade committee  Don't forget you heard testimony that with respect to mining situations, Canadian civil society organizations are not encouraging the impacted individuals and communities they come into contact with to bring their complaints to CORE. That's also one possible situation.

International Trade committee  Thank you for the question. I opened the office door on May 1, 2019. We are just closing in to the end of the fourth year.

International Trade committee  As stated previously, out of 15 admissible complaints that we have right now, two of them are with respect to mining companies.

International Trade committee  No, not to date.

International Trade committee  Thank you for raising that question. Why do we not have more complaints on mining companies coming to the CORE, given that we know it has a large footprint? We've heard from other people who have testified that there are a lot of situations out there that acquire attention and r

International Trade committee  I'd just say that we are taking steps to be more accessible and to have a longer reach. We are engaging with a consulting company to help us identify the networks and the different civil society organizations that exist in the various countries to help us to access down to the lo

International Trade committee  Thanks for that question. I just want to say that in the CORE's mind, in my mind, it's not an either-or of transparency legislation or human rights and environmental due diligence. They both serve a purpose, so I think they both have merit. With respect to regulations, what we

International Trade committee  I'll go back to what I said when I responded about the complaints. We now have some complaints that have come into the CORE. We are dealing with them. Some companies have refused to participate in our process. Having the power to compel witnesses and documents would provide my