Mining companies should uphold Canada's standards abroad – Bill C-300
Corporate social responsibility advocates in fight with industry lobby.
by Ish Theilheimer, with files from Lori Steuart
OTTAWA, November 20, 2009, a HarperIndex.ca report, with YouTube video: Environment, social justice and labour advocates are urging federal opposition parties to pass a private member's bill that will enable Canada to hold its mining companies accountable for their international activities. Bill C-300 was introduced by Liberal MP John McKay in February 2009, although not all his caucus members appear to solidly support the measure. The bill implements recommendations from the March 2007 final report of the Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) Roundtables, which reflected the consensus of a multi-stakeholder advisory group with representatives from industry and civil society groups. If it passes, C-300 will put in place human rights, labour, and environmental standards that Canadian extractive companies receiving government support must live up to when they operate in developing countries, or risk losing federal grants, tax breaks and other supports.
"Many many people took the time to come out, and present and provide a lot of good ideas and good suggestions, and the government for the most part disregarded the input from the public," Stephen Hunt told Straight Goods News in a video interview. Hunt is Director of District 3 of the United Steelworkers, which represents western Canada. He travelled to Ottawa from Vancouver for the week to press opposition MPs to support the bill, and to testify before a committee studying it.
Stephen Hunt of USW, District 3, tells why he travelled to Ottawa from Vancouver to lobby for Bill C-300:
Instead, the government "came up with some real loose guidelines for mining companies that basically say that mining companies can regulate themselves," said Hunt. "The fox guarding the chicken house is basically where they're at." In response, McKay introduced Bill C-300.
"The mechanism the Canadian government offered," in response to the roundables, is "a counsellor whose job it is to advise companies how to meet guidelines," Jamie Kneen of Mining Watch Canada told Straight Goods News. "If they don't, nothing happens."
Kneen said C-300 is "a fairly modest bill in what it really does. It's actually a government accountability bill, not a corporate accountability one," he said, because it forces the federal government to review the activities of Canadian mining companies abroad. "The amounts of money we're taking about are not that huge," he said. "It's more a political issue than a money issue."
"What we're trying to do is raise the floor, for miners in other countries," said Hunt. "If we raise the floor all around the world for mining, obviously it helps us domestically, because when companies like this start exploiting – and they've been doing it for as long as I've been in the mining industry – if they start exploiting, they want to compare, and they say, 'Well, we can produce this commodity, this exact same commodity in another country for this much less, so therefore Canadian workers, you should expect less, because if you don't we're just going to turn the light switch off in Canada and operate wherever we can find the commodity.'"
Canada does more mining business internationally than any other country, said Kneen. He lists Canadian mining companies operating in countries from Burma to Madagascar to Chile that have been accused of unsafe working conditions, mistreatment of miners, and pollution they could never get away with at home.
A high pressure campaign is working to defeat C-300. "The Hill has been apparently crawling with mining company lobbyists," said Kneen. He says advocates for the bill have been concentrating on Liberals who are waffling on it, including Bob Rae. "He has a long list of concerns." Kneen points out many Liberals are conflicted on the bill because their party "has supported the mining industry as much as the Conservatives ever did."
Stephen Hunt says it's important for Canadians who believe in the concept of corporate social responsibility to talk to their MPs about the bill. "We think responsible mining companies, and most of them are, will benefit from this law. It's not something that's going to put anybody in trouble, as long as they follow the law. And the important thing about this is that it is corporate social responsibility – so most of them are – so all you have to do is extend that. If they're responsible and they have good social skills in Canada, then why not take those skills and export them? That would be a good thing. We could be world leaders in what we do in the mining industry, and really show off as we should."
by Ish Theilheimer, with files from Lori Steuart 
