New bill on CSR puts government house in order
This month Liberal MP John McKay introduced a private members’ bill (see Just the Facts) that imposes tighter controls on the provision of government support to Canadian extractive companies. Numerous studies have highlighted the significant environmental and human rights impacts of oil, gas and mining operations overseas. In 2005, a report by the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs and International Trade (SCFAIT) drew attention to the fact that some Canadian extractive companies, which are responsible for adverse impacts, receive financial and political support from the Canadian government.

Bulgarie

Dundee Precious Metals Inc.

ACT NOW TO HELP SAVE ROSIA MONTANA!

 

IMF back in business, but still politically bankrupt
Even before US President George Bush announced plans for next month’s G-20 Summit on the financial crisis (see “Just the Facts”), International Monetary Fund (IMF) Managing Director Strauss Khan has been pushing for the IMF to be front and center in addressing the crisis. In a complete about-face from one year ago, Strauss Khan now sees the IMF not just fighting fires through new flexible emergency loan arrangements to address food, fuel and finance crises, but as a “global regulatory coordinator” or world central bank.

To access the submission, click here.

Government’s Response to Mining Report Still Underground

By Michelle Collins, Embassy Newspaper

It has been just over a year since a highly anticipated report recommending significant steps to ensure Canadian mining companies operating abroad adhere to socially responsible standards was submitted to the government.

Yet despite indications from Prime Minister Stephen Harper at the G8 leaders’ summit last June that Canada—which has the world’s largest number of extractive companies—was poised to take the lead, nothing more has emerged, and observers and critics say they have no idea what to expect, or when.

Innovative financing for development gets boost
As the World Bank, IMF and World Trade Organization are set to discuss innovative financing at their bi-annual High-Level meeting at the UN next month, and UN representatives address the issue in their review of Chapter IV of the Monterrey Consensus days later (see IU January 2008), innovative finance has gotten a series of unexpected boosts from various sides.

At home and abroad, Canadian companies should have the same human-rights and environmental standards



Our mining and oil and gas interests shouldn't act like a foreign fox in an overseas hen house

ED BROADBENT AND ALEX NEVE

Special to Globe and Mail Update

February 29, 2008 at 12:21 AM EST

Corruption back on the Bank’s agenda?
Evidence of serious fraud and corruption has emerged in five Bank-funded health projects in Orissa, India. The $570 million for malaria, tuberculosis and HIV-AIDS control was implemented from 1997 to 2003. The charges emerged from a Detailed Implementation Review (DIR) of projects in India begun in 2006, a process itself triggered by evidence of corrupt practices by two pharmaceutical companies involved in another Bank health scheme. The Indian government has pledged to take “exemplary punishment” of the parties involved.