Canadian Mining Industry

Yep, it doesn't make one feel very good to know that Canada remains evasive about its responsibilities to the rest of the world.  Fearful of impeding business initiatives, of making ill-thought-out decisions that will impact on already frail employment statistics in enterprises that should long ago have been abandoned because of their deleterious effects on peoples' health and the environment.

Tobacco, a case in point; while the wealthy countries of the world have undertaken domestic public relations drives to discourage smoking with the realization of its impact on vulnerable populations, and concomitant soaring health costs, there is no matching responsibility seen to alert people in developing countries of the world to the perniciously ill effects of smoking, lest domestic tobacco producers suffer a further loss in their manufacturing and profit margins.

Then of course, there's the problem of the federal government looking the other way while the province of Quebec insists it will do nothing to dissuade the asbestos industry in the province that its mendacious business, harming asbestos mine workers, is conscienceless, but far more so, an affront to the dignity and the human rights of third-world workers in countries like India which still use asbestos as a building material, while in Canada work is ongoing to remove the deadly carcinogen from elderly buildings.

Now a private member's bill, Bill C-300, introduced in the House of Commons to construct legal standards that all Canadian mining companies should observe has gone down to defeat.  No single political party stood four-square with the premise that a wealthy, forward-looking and human-rights-observing country like Canada should logically pass legislation that would compel its industrial mining giants to operate internationally in a responsible manner with full respect for the countries in which they do business.

International Trade Minister Peter Van Loan had a legitimate concern when he voiced his concern that the bill - whose major contention was Canada's responsibility to ensure that its mining companies were not responsible for human rights abuses - might appear too strictured and stringent, impacting badly on Canadian jobs.  Well then, if the bill as it was presented seemed too restrictive, then collaborate on presenting an altered bill that would address the industry's concerns, yet produce a set of useful guidelines.

Many Canadian mining companies already match their activities to the guidelines the bill represented.  It is those companies who do not, and whose reputations reflect so poorly on their own operations, and that of Canada as a responsible government that should be requiring its industry giants observe certain acceptable standards, who sully the situation.

Canada's far reach and experience in mining, as a result of our own natural resources and extraction and refinement of minerals and metals resulting in 75% of the world's largest mining and exploration companies being based in Canada, places a special obligation upon the country and its mining industry to operate abroad in a manner that does justice to our internal values, which should match those which we practise internationally.

It is profoundly disturbing to know that Canadian companies have been deeply implicated in the past decade in abusive incidents and serious allegations including human rights violations, in supporting brutal regimes - in looking the other way when violence, civil war and corruption is occurring while they are engaged in mining and exploration in areas of the world experiencing great social turmoil.

It truly is incumbent on Canada to demonstrate, as a leader in mining activities around the world, that the industry should not be immune to practising leadership skills reflecting Canadian values in its interaction with emerging economies for whom the rights and safety and security of their populations is of lesser concern that it should be. 

We are not disinterested onlookers, capable of neutral non-involvement, when we are ensconced directly within theatres of civil war, witness to atrocities we do nothing to ameliorate.  Remaining there, operating as though nothing untoward is occurring when all around people are suffering, is not an option, or should not be. 

It's too bad, in fact, that legislation must even be considered, and that industry leaders themselves do not produce a general best practises code of conduct that would represent best industry practise that all would willingly adapt to, in pursuit of an honest and respected bottom line.