Room for dialogue on mining ethics, Ottawa Citizen Op Ed January 8, 2014 The raging debate about the conduct of Canadian mining companies overseas is about to get a lot more polarized in Canada. And not because a new environmental disaster has occurred at a Canadian-owned mine, or because women from a mining affected community have come forward with new allegations of human rights abuses. Sadly, the federal government and its decision to withdraw funding from an initiative that was showing some promise is the culprit this time. Over the past three years, mining industry leaders and civil society organizations have been quietly meeting through a federal government initiative called the Centre for Excellence in Corporate Social Responsibility. One of the four pillars of the Government of Canada’s CSR Strategy that was launched in 2009, the Centre had become a multi-stakeholder space that brought together mining companies, Canadian civil society groups and government representatives from Foreign Affairs and International Trade Canada, Natural Resources Canada and the Canadian International Development Agency. “Room for dialogue on mining ethics” BY DOUG OLTHUIS AND IAN THOMSON, OTTAWA CITIZEN MARCH 10, 2013 We joined the Centre’s executive committee because we felt the Centre was the only promising element in the government’s CSR strategy. It offered a space for frank exchanges of perspectives and the potential to launch projects that might benefit mining affected communities, as well as other stakeholders. The three other pillars of the CSR strategy — endorsement of voluntary CSR guidelines, the creation of a new grievance process without any real powers, and new CIDA programming in the extractive sector — do not address the very real problems associated with Canadian mining overseas. Now it appears that the Centre is to become mere window dressing as well, without the resources or the government commitment to develop creative solutions and support positive change on the ground. Last month, representatives from five civil society organizations — Amnesty International Canada, KAIROS: Canadian Ecumenical Justice Initiatives, Mennonite Central Committee Canada, MiningWatch Canada, and the United Steelworkers — resigned from the Centre’s executive committee, citing the government’s failure to fund the Centre as the reason for their resignation. In March of 2012, the federal government terminated funding to the Centre and failed to renew its memorandum of understanding with the Centre’s secretariat. No explanation has been forthcoming from the federal ministers who oversee the CSR strategy. But the silence is telling. If the government thinks it can hand off the Centre to the industry, this is misguided. The Canadian Institute for Mining, Metallurgy and Petroleum, which houses the Centre, determined early on — to its credit — that a broad, multi-stakeholder approach would be needed for the Centre to establish credibility and create space for diverse voices to be heard and cutting edge issues to be discussed. Failure to fund the Centre for Excellence in CSR stands in stark contrast to the government’s announcement of $25 million over five years to create the Canadian International Institute for Extractive Industries and Development. So, why has the Centre fallen out of favour? Mining industry associations do not question that a multi-stakeholder approach is key to solving the CSR challenges they face. Civil society organizations, including our own, have long been calling for Canada to adopt greater corporate accountability measures and we see the Canadian government as a key actor in solving these problems. Binding regulations are the only way to deal with the worst offenders in the industry. Providing access to Canadian courts for those who have been harmed in the most egregious cases is urgently needed, particularly for abuses committed in countries with no rule of law or weak judiciaries. We were willing to engage in the Centre even though we see CSR as an extremely limited concept. All too often, CSR amounts to little more than public relations to promote a better corporate image without substantive commitment to change on the part of companies. Reliance on CSR alone, in the absence of enforceable standards, represents a model of corporate “self-regulation” that leaves communities and workers without legal recourse to defend their rights and advance their collective interests. If the Centre for Excellence were to become entirely industry-funded, its credibility would be lost. There are plenty of industry-controlled spaces where CSR is on the agenda. By being housed at an industry association, the Centre is perhaps already not neutral enough for some to engage with it. But what has distinguished the Centre for Excellence has been its multi-stakeholder governance structure and its balanced approach between government and industry funding sources that allowed new approaches to be tried and multiple perspectives to inform its work. The Centre facilitated constructive engagement in these difficult debates by companies, civil society and government. At one time, it was poised to be a unique Canadian success story able to put Canada at the forefront of business and human rights issues internationally. The government’s failure to offer any funding to support the initiative is an indication that the Canadian government is no longer striving for such leadership and is not prepared to support a collaborative approach. Doug Olthuis is Department Leader Global Affairs and Workplace Issues, United Steelworkers. Ian Thomson is corporate accountability program coordinator at KAIROS: Canadian Ecumenical Justice Initiatives. Together they have acted as non-industry co-chairs of the Centre for Excellence.
Posted on: Fri, 11 Jul 2014 17:50:41 +0000
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