Remarks for the CSR session at the OpenText Enterprise World EIM Conference – July, 2019

Toronto, ON
July 10, 2019

Thank you Andrew.

I am grateful for this opportunity to speak to such a distinguished, international audience.

The Office of the Canadian Ombudsperson for Responsible Enterprise, or CORE for short, is a new mechanism created to support and strengthen Canada’s commitment to:

• Responsible Business Conduct; and
• the promotion and protection of human rights around the world.

First, some background:

The Government of Canada announced creation of the CORE in January 2018.  

The Minister of International Trade Diversification, the Honourable James Carr, appointed me as the Ombudsperson in April and I commenced my duties on May 1.

This new office is independent with delegated powers to develop its organizational structure, staff that structure and design its operating and complaint procedures. We are still in the development and design stages with a view to being operational this fall. Fingers crossed!

CORE’s work is guided by the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights and by the OECD Guidelines for Multinational Enterprises, and is thus consistent with Canada’s commitment to internationally respected norms.

There are several components to CORE’s mandate:

• Promoting Responsible Business Conduct and raising awareness;
• Advising Canadian companies on best practices, and partnering with industry to improve their capacity and guide them to find the tools they need to improve their accountability;
• And most importantly (and when needed);
  • Reviewing allegations of human rights abuses that may arise from the operations of Canadian companies abroad in the mining, oil and gas and garment sectors;
  • and providing recommendations to help resolve disputes and redress harm

Having an effective dispute resolution mechanism is often at the heart of the Responsible Business discussions, but promoting best practices, raising awareness and advising companies on their accountability is key to catch problems early, avoid serious issues, and protect human rights internationally.

For clarity, Human Rights include rights related to the environment, labour, health and safety and therefore an alleged human rights abuse can be based on the environmental degradation caused by, or any unsafe working conditions that exist within, a company’s operations abroad.

What’s really important is obtaining the support and collaboration of all key stakeholders for the effectiveness of the dispute resolution mechanism and for accomplishing my mandate.  This is why I have spent the first 60+ days of my mandate meeting with industry associations, company executives, representatives of foreign governments, officials from all levels of government in Canada, and with civil society, to inform all of these organizations of my role and to gain an understanding of their concerns.

For clarity, CORE’s key stakeholders include:

• Government (Canadian and foreign)
• Canadian Companies with operations abroad
• Individuals, groups, communities harmed by Canadian company operations in a foreign jurisdiction and/or those who represent them

The CORE is a new approach to monitoring the activities of the foreign operations of Canadian firms abroad. 

CORE is committed to hearing and learning from all stakeholders and will be consulting them on the procedures for the review process.  These procedures will ensure that our process is transparent and fair for everyone involved in a review and we hope to get buy-in from all on these before we launch our first review.

I will end my opening remarks by asking all of you in the audience to consider what tools your companies might have to assist CORE in systematizing its operating and complaints procedures to promote efficiency and maximize our transparency and fairness.