“A just society requires a vigilant State and civil institutions that are capable of overcoming the singular mentality of efficiency, and of ensuring that resources, creative solutions and regulations favor the most vulnerable.” Pope Leo XIV, Magnifica Humanitas, 158.
Development and Peace — Caritas Canada (DPCC) strongly denounces the decision of the Canadian government to eliminate the office of the Canadian Ombudsperson for Responsible Enterprise (CORE).
As stated by our director of public engagement, Luke Stocking, “To eliminate the CORE is to eliminate the voice of over 500,000 Canadians who called for its establishment over 10+ years of campaigning. Canada can do better.”
For years, we have heard from our partners in the Global South that the activities of Canadian companies often endanger human rights and the environmental integrity of the territories in which they operate. Due to weak legal constraints in Canada for companies operating abroad, most of these abuses go unpunished and companies can act with impunity.
In response to our international partners’ concerns regarding Canadian companies’ human rights abuses, our members campaigned for more than a decade for the creation of an independent ombudsperson equipped with the power and authority to truly investigate reports of abuses. Our volunteer members devoted countless hours to widespread public education about the impacts of corporate impunity, and their efforts demonstrated real courage on behalf of a broad-based movement of Canadians dedicated to bringing about change. That work came to fruition with the establishment of the Canadian Ombudsperson for Responsible Enterprise (CORE) in 2019.
Nevertheless, when the CORE was created, we were disappointed that it lacked both independence and the powers it needed to fulfill the purposes expected by victims of abuse and Canadian civil society. In less than one year’s time, DPCC resigned from an advisory committee for the office, along with all other civil society organizations, in protest of the Ombudsperson’s lack of power. We have argued ever since that the CORE required the power to compel documents and witnesses pursuant to claims of abuse filed against Canadian companies. These legal powers would create a mechanism for accountability.
Yet, not only did the CORE lack the necessary tools to fulfill the mandate delivered by civil society, but the federal government also clearly sidelined its ability to function, leaving the office entirely vacant for more than a year. Such negligence betrays a serious lack of attention to and interest in corporate responsibility and accountability. This attitude favours no one but the corporations that continue to propagate a bad reputation for Canada abroad, signalling that victims of Canadian abuses cannot bring their concerns to the country in which the abusers are headquartered.
Despite the limitations of the CORE, our call was always to strengthen the office with teeth, not to abolish it. Now, rather than acting as a foundation, all the effort and grassroots mobilization of over half a million Canadians is being thrown away. Abolishing the CORE is not only a waste of millions of dollars and a mistreatment of the abuse claimants; it is also a strike against people power in Canada.
DPCC calls on the Canadian government to rectify this situation immediately, reconvene the civil society organizations that formed the CORE’s former oversight board as genuine partners in dialogue, and demonstrate that Canada cares about the voices of both Canadians and those wronged by the injustice of Canadian perpetrators. Motivated by the tenacious dedication of our members and the firsthand stories of our friends and partners around the world, DPCC is eager and willing to contribute to such an effort.