Canada offers mediation to extractive sector firms

The Canadian government is recruiting a ‘CSR counsellor’ this month to advise the country’s mining, oil and gas companies.

The C$150,000-a-year ($130,000, £78,000), Ottawa-based post will be in the government’s new Office of the Extractive Sector Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) Counsellor. The incumbent will be an informal mediator in disputes on responsible business practice.

The counsellor will help companies and their stakeholders resolve issues related to the corporate conduct of Canadian extractive companies abroad, and will be a ‘neutral, impartial and objective reviewer of requests to undertake informal mediation and fact-finding’.

Requests for reviews may originate from NGOs and individuals, but also from Canadian extractive sector companies that believe they are being accused unfairly of corporate misconduct abroad. Reviews will be conducted only if all sides agree, and the counsellor’s report will not be binding.

However, the counsellor will be accountable to the deputy international trade minister, giving the post some weight.

The move is part of a new CSR strategy, called ‘Building the Canadian advantage’, aimed at helping Canadian mining, oil and gas companies to ‘meet and exceed their social and environmental responsibilities when operating abroad’.

The other main objectives will be a centrally-funded Centre of Excellence ‘outside government’ to provide CSR information for companies, NGOs and other organizations, and to compile an in-house inventory of Canadian company CSR contacts, activities and best practices. The Canadian Institute of Mining, Metallurgy and Petroleum is interested in running the centre.

The government says the measures are needed because Canadian extractive companies are increasingly seeking new resources in developing countries, where they are encountering human rights issues and poor governance.

Canadian mining companies have invested more than C$60billion in developing countries, including about C$41bn in Latin America and almost C$15bn in Africa.

Building the Canadian advantage, which will be reviewed after five years, was formed after consultations with industry and NGOs. It has also taken into account recommendations on CSR and mining in developing countries raised in a 2005 report by the foreign affairs and international trade standing committee.

Robert Wisner, a partner in the litigation and dispute resolution group of the Canadian law firm McMillan, said that even though the counsellor’s office could not make legally binding rules or decisions, it could issue reports ‘that can harm or bolster corporate reputations’.

He added: ‘The first challenge will be to adopt a set of procedures that guarantee the parties a minimum standard of procedural fairness while avoiding the costs and delays of formal litigation. The next will be for the counsellor to apply the often ambiguous norms of most international CSR guidelines to the specific facts of a dispute.’