What is the CORE?

CORE stands for Canadian Ombudsperson for Responsible Enterprise. We are a human rights ombudsperson or “ombud.” We are part of the Canadian government. We look into complaints about possible human rights abuses when they happen in Canadian companies that work outside Canada in the garment, mining, in the oil and gas sectors.

We can only look into possible human rights abuses if they started after May 1, 2019 OR they started before May 1, 2019 and are still going on.

More information – What are human rights?

What does the CORE consider when it looks into possible human rights abuses

We believe that Canadian companies must respect human rights wherever they do business.

As an ombud, we know that some people have more power than others. These differences in power can make a complaint process unfair. We try to make sure that everyone can take part in our complaint process and has a voice in solving the problem.

These are the values that guide our work:

We are independent

Our decisions are NOT influenced by any of these:

• other Canadian government organizations
• Canadian companies inside or outside of Canada
• community organizations that work with human rights

We work in a fair and impartial way

We do NOT favour one party over another. As an ombud it is our job to listen to both sides of a dispute. We take care to give everyone an equal voice in resolving a complaint.

Our work is transparent and we are accountable

We communicate clearly and openly with everyone who has taken part in our complaint process and we publish the results of our work.