TORONTO (miningweekly.com) – Nongovernmental organisation (NGO) MiningWatch Canada has lobbied the new Liberal government to use the upcoming budget to do away with what it terms the “ineffective” and “embarrassing” Office of the Extractive Sector Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) Counsellor.
The office was created in 2009 by the Conservative government of the day in response to growing public pressure to make Canadian mining and extractive sector companies accountable for serious and extensive human rights abuses associated with their international operations.
The CSR Counsellor was supposed to mediate solutions for people claiming they had been harmed by the activities of Canadian mining companies operating overseas, however, MiningWatch argued that the office did not manage to mediate a single resolution in any of the six cases brought before it.
In October 2013, CSR Counsellor Marketa Evans quietly walked away from the job, leaving the office without a counsellor for 16 months. In 2014 alone, the inactive and counsellor-less office cost Canadian taxpayers C$181 600, according to the watchdog.
In March 2015, the Conservative government of Stephen Harper appointed a new CSR counsellor, mining professor and former mining executive Jeffrey Davidson, but Davidson had yet to receive an official Order in Council mandate.
As the new government set out to review various Conservative institutions and appointments, MiningWatch said that this one deserved to simply be closed to make way for a more effective approach to corporate accountability.
“The office of the CSR counsellor was always a deeply flawed response to calls on the Government of Canada to create an effective ombudsman’s office that would be able to address the very serious complaints coming from people harmed by the operations of Canadian mining companies overseas,” stated Catherine Coumans of MiningWatch Canada.
Coumans did not put the blame on Davidson, who has had no opportunity to prove his abilities, but said the institution itself had proven unable to field the complaints. “Rather than provide Davidson with a mandate to keep this ineffective office open, it is time to close this office down and put the resources into the creation of an effective ombudsman’s office,” Coumans added.
NGO Canadian Network on Corporate Accountability in September published its ‘Parliamentary Report Card – Corporate Accountability for Canada’s mining oil and gas sectors’, which documented the commitments made by Canadian federal political parties to adopt corporate accountability mechanisms in Canada and the MP voting record on legislation to create an ombudsman for the international extractive sector in Canada.
MiningWatch wanted to see the creation of an extractives ombudsman office, as well as for access to Canadian courts for people alleging harm by Canadian companies operating overseas.