TORONTO (miningweekly.com) – The Resource Revenue Transparency Working Group on Friday released its draft recommendations on implementing mandatory reporting standards for Canadian mining companies for public comment.

The release came on the heels of Prime Minister Stephen Harper's pre-G8 announcement that Canada would establish new transparency standards.

"The Canadian mining industry is fully committed to improving transparency in a way that aligns with global standards. Today's launch of the draft framework, which was developed hand-in-hand with our civil society partners, is an important step forward to help reduce corruption and build governance capacity, while showcasing the positive contributions we make to the countries where we operate," Mining Association of Canada (MAC) president and CEO Pierre Gratton said.

Transparency is a critical tool for ensuring the more than one-billion people in resource-rich countries reap the full benefits of their natural resources. Mandatory reporting standards require operating companies to publish the amounts they pay to governments, disclosures that give citizens the information they need to hold their governments accountable for the use of resource revenues.

In the US, disclosure requirements were passed in 2010 under Section 1504 of the Dodd-Frank Act, which compelled publicly listed companies to report on a country-by-country and per project basis. This week, the European Union Parliament passed similar legislation, which also applied to large, private companies and forestry.

About 60% of the world's mining companies were registered in Canada, and more than 1 000 Canadian exploration companies were active in 100 countries - most of which had their only public listing in Canada. Canadian stock exchanges, the TSX and TSX-V in particular, hosted the lion's share of the total global value of mining sector market capitalisation, and mining equity capital raised.

The group, comprising the MAC, the Prospectors and Developers Association of Canada and nongovernmental organisations Publish What You Pay-Canada and the Revenue Watch Institute, said the document represented more than nine months of collaborative efforts.

The group held consultations across Canada with industry, civil society, government officials and experts to develop draft recommendations that reflected not only the desire to improve the management of revenues derived from mining activities, but also the unique Canadian regulatory environment.