Corruption: Canada backs firm banned by World Bank

by Marty Logan, Inter Press Service (Johannesburg), July 30, 2004.

It is business as usual between Canadian government agencies and a local company barred from World Bank contracts after being convicted of bribery in Africa.

In September 2002, engineering firm Acres International was found guilty in the High Court in the southern African nation of Lesotho for trying to bribe the official responsible for the multi-billion-dollar World Bank-financed Lesotho Highlands Water Project (LHWP).

Acres, based in Oakville in the province of Ontario, appealed and last year had one charge dropped. But the conviction was maintained on the second count and the firm was fined the equivalent of two million U.S. dollars.

Submitted to Department of Finance and CIDA before World Bank discussions at Fall 2003 meetings on Enhancing Voice an

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Canada refuses to take responsibility for large dam disasters by ignoring World Commission recommendations

Ottawa, June 12, 2003 - Canada should implement the recommendations of the World Commission on Dams (WCD), rather than continuing to support such environmental and human rights debacles as China's Three Gorges dam and Colombia's Urra dam, argues a new report, released today by the NGO Working Group on the EDC.

Probe International’s Brief on Bill C-31: An Act to amend to Export Development Act...
Presented to the House of Commons Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs and International Trade

October 18, 2001
by Patricia Adams

The Halifax Initiative Coalition members include development, human rights, environment and church organizations. In Canada, it is the main voice for reform of the international financial institutions so that they better serve the poor.

Like many others, the Halifax Initiative Coalition initially extended a tentative welcome to the Poverty Reduction Strategy Process, hoping that the language of "country ownership" and "civil society participation" would, in time, result in some level of empowerment of people affected by IFI policies and programs.