TORONTO (miningweekly.com) – Marketa Evans, Canada's new corporate social responsibility counsellor for the mining, oil and gas sectors expects her office will be ready to handle the first complaints about Canadian firms' activities abroad by the fourth quarter of this year.

The counsellor position was created and Evans' appointment announced in October last year, and she spent the last few months getting opinions and views from as many interested parties as possible, including mining companies, non-governmental organisations, host governments, Canadian missions abroad, academics, consultants and legal experts.

Informal discussions were held on what people wanted to see from the CSR counsellor, as well as on the more detailed aspects of dispute resolution between mining companies and communities accusing them of wrongdoing.

“It's a voluntary process, so we need to do the best we can to make sure that people feel comfortable  entering into that process,” Evans said in an interview at her Toronto office.

A background document was almost completed, and the next milestone would be in early June, when a formal public consultation process begins for the details of a dispute resolution mechanism.

A lot of time and effort is going into drawing up clear rules of procedure, in the hopes of increasing the chances that the mining industry will participate in the processes, once the office begins operating in earnest, Evans said.

“The industry response has been very positive,” she said.

“Their basic request is that there be clear rules of procedure. They want to know what does this mean at each stage, what are the mutual accountabilities, what are the ways forward?”

Companies are concerned because the impact on reputations could be huge, given that all the CSR counsellor's activities will be publicly reported, even if a case does not end up progressing beyond the initial stage.

Questions have also been raised by companies over apparent legal issues, especially around confidentiality and disclosure.

“Some of them might be more apparent than real, but we need to acknowledge and address them to ensure people are comfortable.”

The creation of the CSR counsellor's office and Evans' appointment coincides with an ongoing public debate on the behaviour and potential regulation of Canadian companies abroad.

The contentious Bill C-300, tabled by Liberal Member of Parliament John McKay, seeks to give the Canadian government the right to investigate complaints of environmental or human rights offences by Canadian-based firms overseas, and to withhold public money from companies found to have breached CSR standards.

McKay has criticised the CSR counsellor position as toothless, and complained publicly that Evans has taken so long to get the process off the ground.

But she responds that she is not the start and finish of the government's CSR strategy for the extractive industries.

“I'm very conscious of the fact that I'm a piece of a much larger puzzle,” Evans commented.

“It isn't just about one silver bullet, there's a lot of variables at play and I'm a little piece of that.”

She declined to comment on the merits of McKay's proposed legislation.

Evans' mandate is to “assist companies and stakeholders in the resolution of disputes related to the corporate conduct of Canadian extractive companies abroad”.

She will also communicate the government's expectations regarding how companies in these industries should conduct themselves, including advising them on implementing and achieving CSR standards.

The process will not be binding and dispute resolution will need to be voluntary on both sides, but Evans is hopeful that there will be broad participation from both industry and other stakeholders.

“I believe that there are big incentives for companies to participate.”

Other review mechanisms around the world that she has looked at in drawing up the background document have shown good progress in being able to “unstick” long-running disputes by getting the parties talking to each other.

“It's really meant to foster constructive dialogue...it's meant to be a forum for people who want to explore the possibility of using this office as an honest broker,” Evans said.

“It isn't about declaring someone in breach, it is really about trying to figure out ways of improving the situation.

She also pointed out that her office will be available to assist with complaints brought by mining companies themselves, over allegations made in public by nongovernmental groups.

The rules of procedure will include specific criteria on which complaints will be handled by Evans' office. They will at least need to come from communities themselves that are affected by mining operations, and must be outside Canada.

Before moving into the CSR counsellor's office, Evans worked most recently with nongovernmental organisation Plan.

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