28 JANUARY 2010 – Bill C-300 Lobby Will Resume After Prorogued Parliament Resumes

Bill C-300 (the Corporate Accountability of Mining, Oil and Gas Corporations in Developing Countries Act), which the United Steelworkers supports, has passed second reading and will be in front of the committee for 60 days after parliament is called back.

USW District 3 Director Stephen Hunt, who led a November 2009 union lobby of politicians on Parliament Hill, says the bill is a “move in the right direction” to get Canadian mining, gas, oil and other extraction industries that operate around the world to be more accountable on human rights, labour rights and the environment.

Hunt was joined on the lobby by USW Local 9705 president Chuck Macklon from the Teck Metallurgical Operations in Trail and Ewan Gordon from Local 9346, the Elk Valley Coal Corporation open pit coal mine near Sparwood. Other lobbyists were Jorge Escobar from District 6 and Denis Matteau from District 5.

Hunt acknowledges that there are those in the corporate community, including litigation representatives, who are opposed to Bill C-300.

“We expect that to continue,” says Hunt. “There are certain interests that will fight any attempt at regulation. They would prefer to continue to operate around the world by voluntary standards.”

To Hunt that is tantamount “the foxes guarding the henhouse.”

“To our union, corporate responsibility means much more than just being responsible to shareholders,” he says. “It includes operating in a foreign country in a way that respects labour and human rights, the environment, communities and aboriginal peoples and those countries themselves.”

“We can export technologies and investment to other countries,” adds Hunt. “There’s no reason why we can’t export good ethics and good corporate social responsibility as well.”

Canadian extractive resource companies are world leaders, accounting for some 60 per cent of the world’s extracting industries doing business in third countries.

Many of these companies are backed by taxpayer dollars through the Export Development Bank of Canada.

Introduced by Liberal MP John McKay (Scarborough-Guildwood), Bill C-300 has support from the NDP, the Bloc Quebecois, some Liberals and members of the Canadian Network for Corporate Accountability which includes Amnesty International, the Canadian Council for International Cooperation, the USW’s Humanity Fund, Friends of the Earth, the Canadian Labour Congress, Mining Watch Canada and the KAIROS Ecumenical Justice Institute.

If proclaimed into law the bill will allow foreign individual and groups to file complaints against Canadian extractive companies with Canada’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Trade. An investigation would have to take place within 8 months.


Companies that are in non-compliance with the bill’s provision could then become ineligible for support from the federal government.

Pat Van Horne, the USW National Offices’ lobbyist in Ottawa says the Bill C-300 lobby is continuing during the prorogation of parliament and will remain in place after MPs return.

“There is still much work that has to be done in getting a majority of opposition MPs to vote in favour of the bill,” says Van Horne. “It’s not a done deal by any means.”

Van Horne says that Liberal MP Bob Rae, the former NDP Premier of Ontario, needs to come on side along with other Liberals.

“We encourage our members to contact Bob Rae and seek his commitment to supporting C-300,” she says.

The text of Brother Hunt’s appearance in front of the parliamentary committee appears on the USW’s national website (click to view).

A video interview with Hunt on the union’s support for C-300 appears on Straightgoods.ca’s Youtube channel.