TORONTO (miningweekly.com) – Canadian mining executives and others, including a former federal trade minister, came out strongly on Thursday against the contentious Bill C-300, arguing that, if enacted, the bill could result in a potential “exodus” of Canada-domiciled resources companies.

Hearings are under way this week into the controversial private-members' bill, which would allow Canada's government to investigate complaints about Canadian resources firms operating in foreign countries and withhold taxpayer-funded financing, such as from Export Development Canada, from transgressors.

On Thursday, Canada's top three gold producers, Barrick Gold, Goldcorp and Kinross Gold, made a joint submission to the Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs and International Development in the House of Commons in Ottawa, protesting the bill as “unnecessary” and potentially harmful.

“The bill will encourage a flood of frivolous and vexatious complaints with no recourse for responsible Canadian companies that will suffer substantial cost, disruption and reputational harm once a complaint is filed,” they said in their submission.

Representatives from the three companies warned the bill would not only create a potential exodus of mining companies from Canada, but that Canadian firms would be less likely to invest in projects in developing countries.

It also ignores the existing corporate social responsibility framework under which miners operate, not to mention the regulatory and governance systems in the foreign countries themselves, in which the Canadian government does not have jurisdiction.

Also speaking before the standing committee on Thursday, former federal Minister of International Trade James Peterson agreed the measures proposed in the bill would make Canada much less attractive for mining companies.

The bill is “flawed in its construction and unduly prejudicial” to the mining industry, he said.

"If passed, this bill could deter companies from working in less stable developing countries as it does not provide companies with any opportunity to address and remedy an issue without immediately being subject to a complaint, possible investigation and sanction.”

The Mining Association of Canada and Prospectors and Developers Association of Canada have also spoken out against Bill C-300.

The bill, introduced by Liberal Member of Parliament (MP) John McKay, aims to address wide-ranging allegations of human rights abuses and environmental damage by Canadian firms operating abroad.

The proposed legislation has received the support of numerous nongovernmental organisations (NGOs), including Amnesty International and  MiningWatch Canada, which described it as "our best chance to assure the accountability of our government to us, as taxpayers and citizens, by assuring that government financial and political support will not be provided to companies that breach human rights and environmental standards".

In earlier hearings, the committee has heard from a number of supporters of the bill, including a former Argentine environment minister, who told MPs that she had been personally threatened by Canadian mining companies operating in the country.

Sarah Knuckey, a lawyer for the Center for Human Rights and Global Justice, at the New York University School of Law, told the committee that guards hired at a mine in Papua New Guinea, in which Barrick has an interest, had beaten and gang raped local women.

But in a separate submission on Thursday, Barrick responded to the criticism levelled at its own operations during the hearings process, and protested against a "parade" of allegations made against itself and its peers.

Allegations against mining companies should be raised in the countries where they operate, under existing governmental institutions, regulatory regimes, legal procedures and courts, not in a parliamentary committee in Canada, Barrick corporate communications vice-president Vince Borg said.

“One thing has become crystal clear as the hearings have progressed: some individuals have not been made to substantiate even their wildest allegations about the Canadian mining industry and Barrick Gold - much of which has been thoroughly disproved well before today.

“They have not provided the committee with facts or evidence to support their claims as they conduct these hit-and-run company character assassinations," Borg said.

Canadian miners operating in foreign countries are often targeted by NGOs, which criticise the companies' practices, draw attention to alleged abuses and cite local opposition to the operations.

In the last couple of months, Toronto-based HudBay Minerals made headlines when violence flared up in September at its project in Guatemala, over attempts to persuade people living illegally on the property to relocate, while another Canadian miner, New Gold, was ordered to suspend mining at its Cerro San Pedro operation, in Mexico, because a court revoked its environmental approval to run the operation.