Policy Brief : Export Development Canada and Human Rights - June 2006

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Export Development Canada (EDC) is a federal crown corporation that was set up in 1944 through the Export Development Act (EDA) 'for the purposes of supporting and developing directly or indirectly, Canada's export trade and Canadian capacity to engage in that trade and to respond to international business opportunities.' As such, it is the main source of publicly-supported export financing in Canada, and was designed to complement financial support provided by private sector banks and financial institutions. Like other export credit corporations in the home ECA country.

As a first step toward enhancing its human rights practices, EDC should develop a human rights impact assessment mechanism for screeing the impacts of projects on human rights, based on existing models.