NDP MPs table bills for more scrutiny on Canadian companies operating abroad

MPs from the New Democratic Party (NDP) have tabled two private bills aimed at increasing accountability for Canadian companies that violate human rights abroad and have criticized the Liberal Party for not doing enough, days after the two parties announced a confidence-and-supply deal that could allow the Liberals to govern until 2025.

MPs Peter Julian and Heather McPherson believe that the bills — C262 entitled Corporate Responsibility to Protect Human Rights Act and C263, the Responsible Business Conduct Abroad Act — will specifically help the government tackle issues in the country’s mining sector.

“Canadian mining companies are often registered in Canada because Canada has extremely lax regulations,” McPherson, who tabled the C263 bill, said at a press conference. “Many countries where mining happens abroad have poor democracies, weak human rights protections, workers and communities are violated.”

The Liberal government in 2018 created the Canadian Ombudsperson for Responsible Enterprise (CORE), an independent office, to investigate human rights allegations tied to Canadian companies abroad, but the move failed, McPherson said, as CORE does not have the power to “compel documents and witnesses.”

McPherson said none of the of 24 inquiries and 23 complaints reviewed by CORE, ever since the complaints process was launched in March last year, have been resolved. There have been “zero complaints investigated, there have been zero complaints referred to arbitration, zero complaints determined to be founded or unfounded, in other words nothing has happened.”

The NDP MP says her bill would enforce “the importance of an independent body with the ability to investigate human rights abuses” by Canadian companies abroad and call for the “power to compel testimony and witness, a power that was initially promised by the Canadian government but was left out of the CORE’s mandate.”

The Mining Association of Canada (MAC), however, believes that the CORE should be given more time as it has just started receiving complaints.

“We would prefer to get up and running rather than breaking the mould again at this point,” Geoff Smith, MAC’s VP of Government Relations told The Northern Miner.

He further said that the expansion of the powers of the CORE to include “quasi-judicial powers” to compel the work ability and legality is “far from understood” at this point and that the potential move has never been subject to a “comprehensive” public consultation.

A spokesperson from CORE wasn’t immediately available for a comment. But CORE’s website states that it received 46 inquiries and five complaints in 2021, out of which two complaints were “admissible” it said.

Bill C262 would require Canadian companies operating abroad to “do due diligence” and ensure they are meeting obligations around human rights. It also ensures that foreign victims have recourse in Canadian courts.

“We have seen Canadian corporations linked to… slavery, torture, murder, systemic sexual violence,” said Julian. “Many of those violations have occurred with impunity… and so putting into place these two bills really ensure that we are meeting our international human rights obligations.”

When asked if the announcement was related to the confidence-and-supply deal made between the Liberals and the NDP, Julian said that the bills had been “in planning” for several weeks and predates the announcement of the deal, under which the NDP has agreed not to oppose the Liberals on matters of confidence or budget votes. McPherson added that the Liberal government should be “ashamed of their actions to date” on the CORE ombudsperson.

It’s still uncertain how long it would take the bills to reach the next stage. Smith from MAC said that the “advancement of private members business is slow” and that it wasn’t clear “when or if” the bills would advance to the next stage of the legislation process.