November 5, 2007

Ms. Karyn Keenan
Program Officer
Halifax Initiative
104-153 Chapel Street
Ottawa ON KIN 1H5

Dear Ms. Keenan:

This is in response to your letter of September 17. Your letter contains many questions and comments which I will answer by focusing on the key issues that you raise.

The first issue raised refers to Export Development Canada’s practices related to public consultations and whether this is a requirement of our environmental review process.

World Bank’s long term strategy – business as usual?
100 days into his term, World Bank President Bob Zoellick has outlined his vision for an inclusive and sustainable globalization that seeks to “overcome poverty [and] enhance growth with care for the environment”. Importantly, it also seeks to better integrate the activities of the World Bank Group (WBG) and build a more financially robust and flexible institution. And it occurs at a time when the Bank is desperate to recapture new borrowers and build new markets in an environment that has a wealth of new sources of development finance.

Mining Abroad 'Morally Wrong': MPs

■ Alexa McDonough and British MP Steve Pound try to resurrect the call for Canada to enact social responsibility requirements.

By Chris Gillcash

NDP MP Alexa McDonough is calling on Canada to enact standards of corporate social responsibility in overseas mining operations following a trip to Honduras last week to investigate concerns that some Canadian companies working in Honduras are taking advantage of weak regulations and endangering local residents through environmental contamination.

Rosemarie Boyle
Vice-President
Corporate Communications and External Relations
Export Development Canada
151 O’Connor St.
Ottawa, ON
K1A 1K3

September 17, 2007

Dear Ms. Boyle:

Click here for pdf

July 16, 2007

Trade talks to start soon with Columbia

Observers say Canada should wait until Uribe government has better human rights record

Jul 12, 2007 04:30 AM
Allan Woods
Ottawa Bureau

OTTAWA–A free trade deal likely to be launched between Canada and Colombia next week will go beyond the usual focus on dollars and cents to spell out the ethical responsibilities of Canadian companies seeking to exploit the South American country's untapped resources.

http://www.thestar.com/comment/article/230187

Canada's Responsibility
by Gerry Barr, President-CEO Canadian Council for International Co-operation
June 28, 2007
PM sees payoff in adding Americas to foreign agenda

Prime Minister Stephen Harper has decided Canada should "re-engage" with the Americas, and in July he's visiting four states in the region to start up his new foreign policy direction. In a world where the majority of the population lives in underdevelopment, Harper rightly says of the Americas, "We also have countries that have development challenges." But will Canada lessen those challenges or add to them?

For pdf, click here

Curb mining abuses, say church leaders - Coalition urges binding legislation on human rights, environment

Art Babych, Anglican Journal - http://www.anglicanjournal.com/100/article/curb-mining-abuses-say-church...

May 30, 2007

Canada's reputation as a human rights leader is being damaged by environmental and human rights abuses of Canadian mining companies overseas, say church leaders and activists from the Philippines and South Africa.