Canadian mining in foreign lands demands regulation

NDP critic, CCODP cite environmental, social abuses

- Photo by Carlos Alberto Ramo Alexa McDonough and the Siria Valley Environmental Committee discuss Canadian companies' mining practices in foreign lands.

By DEBORAH GYAPONG
Canadian Catholic News
Ottawa

The developing world is depending on Canada to rein in its mining and resource companies with social responsibility standards, because their own nations are too weak to enforce them.

That was the message NDP foreign affairs critic Alexa McDonough and representatives from the Canadian Catholic Organization for Development and Peace and Mining Watch Canada delivered at an Ottawa news conference Sept. 19.

Canadians care

"Canadians want to know for sure that their companies do not corrode human rights around the world, or foul the land on which communities in developing countries depend to sustain their livelihoods," said McDonough, who just returned from a fact-finding mission to Honduras with two British MPs.

CCODP and its Caritas partners in the United Kingdom and Honduras sponsored the trip at the invitation of Cardinal Oscar Andres Rodriguez, archbishop of Tegucigalpa.

"Canada should and must ensure accountability," said Mary Durran, CCODP's advocacy/ research officer.

Corporate responsibility

McDonough called on the Conservative government to adopt the corporate social responsibility standards recommended last March based on an unprecedented consensus among industry, NGOs and other civil society groups.

Along with clear corporate responsibility standards, the report called for the establishment of an ombudsman with powers to investigate complaints. The report also recommended financial sanctions, such as the loss of CIDA grants, for companies breaking the standards.

Government, industry and civil society groups "can only win" by implementing the recommendations, because doing so would "greatly enhance Canada's reputation as a global leader" in the corporate social responsibility arena, said Durran.

Conflicts around Canadian mining have "continued unabated," said Catherine Coumans of Mining Watch Canada, who, like Durran, participated in the roundtables.

"Environmental and social concerns are widespread," Coumans said. She named several countries where abuses are taking place, including the Philippines, Turkey, Chile, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Indonesia and Papua New Guinea.

While in Honduras, McDonough, Durran and the British MPs met with every level of civil society from peasants who claim a Canadian owned mine open pit mine dried up their wells, to mining company employees, civic leaders, members of the Honduran Congress and Auxiliary Bishop Juan Jose Pineda.

Durran wrote a detailed blog of the fact-finding mission that can be accessed through CCODP's website at www.devp.org

A mine run by a subsidiary of a Canadian-owned company was recently fined $50,000 for arsenic and cyanide pollution, Durran said. The company contested the test results and planned to go to court rather than pay the fine.

McDonough praised the Catholic Church in Honduras for the leadership role it has played. She also criticized the Harper government's "wall of silence."

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