Bill C-300 – A National Law with International Ramifications

Scarborough-Guildwood Liberal MP John McKay has introduced a private members bill to Parliament that has been stirring up controversy in the global mining and natural resource sector. Bill C-300 asks mining companies that seek financing from Canadian markets to disclose to Export Development Canada (EDC) a wide array of information having to do with their human rights practices, labour standards, and environmental policies. If they fail to meet this requirement, or if their standards do not conform with pre-established norms, these companies will not be eligible to receive public pension plan investment dollars and other public monies from EDC. Perhaps this does not sound like a major deal, but 85% of international extractive projects seek financing at the Vancouver and Toronto stock exchanges. This is a case where a domestic law could have a very international reach.

McKay has brought the bill forward in the hopes that it will alter what he sees as an inexcusable state of affairs concerning the global mining industry’s effects on the populations of developing nations.[1] Detractors of the bill note that the extractive sector of Canada has already enacted very stringent Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) guidelines after the National Roundtables on Corporate Social Responsibility of 2006. For them, more regulation simply re-invents the wheel.[2]…

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