Opinion

Canada Paid $180,000 for Mining Responsibility Counsellor That Doesn’t Exist

By Scott Vrooman

Feb. 12, 2015 1 min. read

This article is more than 9 years old

The government spent over $180,000 dollars last year to run the office of a corporate social responsibility counsellor for the Canadian mining industry even though there was no counsellor. Which is actually a fitting metaphor for what this office does: nothing.

It has no power to investigate problems or issue reports. Just look at the title, it’s not corporate social responsibility enforcer, it’s counsellor. “Hey man, there’s no judgment here. Think of me as a coach. How can I help you to help yourself to not murder activists, forcibly evict people and set their homes on fire? Yeah, help yourself to the jelly beans. Those are for everyone.”

Last spring over 30 organizations co-authored a report about mining in Latin America. It documented several human rights abuses by Canadian companies, and concluded that in spite of those abuses, the Canadian government provides those companies with political, legal and financial support. Because hey, what happens in Latin America, stays in Latin America.

Sometimes you just gotta take a break and get away from the hustle and bustle of…laws.

It surprised me to learn that I’m partly responsible for this problem. Because the Canada Pension Plan – and anyone who’s contributed to it – is an investor in these mining companies.

The NGO MiningWatch asked Canada’s pension investment board to divest the 26 million dollars it has in the company Tahoe, which owns a Guatemalan mine where security forces shot 7 protestors. But the board refused to divest, and said they aren’t allowed to consider any non-investment factors when deciding where to invest Canadians' retirement money.

Well if we’re not considering non-investment factors, know what company has a great return on investment? The mafia. Let’s invest our pension money in the mafia.

Between 50 per cent and 70 per cent of all mining in Latin America is done by Canadian firms, and until we have muscular laws and regulations to keep them in line, they will continue to make terrible ambassadors for our country. Even worse than Robin Thicke.

This video originally appeared on the Toronto Star.

Like a kid in a candy store

When those boxes of heavily redacted documents start to pile in, reporters at The Narwhal waste no time in looking for kernels of news that matter the most. Just ask our Prairies reporter Drew Anderson, who gleefully scanned through freedom of information files like a kid in a candy store, leading to pretty damning revelations in Alberta. Long story short: the government wasn’t being forthright when it claimed its pause on new renewable energy projects wasn’t political. Just like that, our small team was again leading the charge on a pretty big story.

In an oil-rich province like Alberta, that kind of reporting is crucial. But look at our investigative work on TC Energy’s Coastal GasLink pipeline to the west, or our Greenbelt reporting out in Ontario. They all highlight one thing: those with power over our shared natural world don’t want you to know how — or why — they call the shots. And we try to disrupt that.

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