Mining Abroad

Getting Real — Canadian Mining Abroad and the Ombudsman for Responsible Enterprise

From: Corporate Rules

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In this chapter, Elizabeth Steyn critically examines what lead to the short comings of the long-awaited creation of the Canadian Ombudsman for Responsible Enterprise or CORE which was promised to be the “new global benchmark” body “mandated to investigate” human rights abuse allegations pertaining to Canadian entities’ activities abroad and “empowered to independently investigate, report, recommend remedy and monitor.” By its unveiling in 2019 CORE failed to live up to its expectations; Core instead only had the capacity to “review” but not to “investigate,” and without any power to compel the making available of either witnesses or documentation. Steyn uses this chapter to explore the gap between promise and execution. To answer these questions, Steyn provide a brief formulation of what is meant by regulatory or corporate capture theory and how it plays out in the context of natural resources extraction projects, then considers the importance of the mining industry — in particular, the mining industry abroad — for the Canadian economy. Then Steyn provides a brief historical overview of the process that led to the implementation of the CORE in its present format and then considers whether the CORE can be said to constitute an example of regulatory capture in the Canadian mining industry.

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