[Vancouver – Canadian Catholic News] – Although Canadian corporations face strict regulations at home, their foreign operations are a different story. Development and Peace–Caritas Canada is trying to change that with a petition calling for stronger corporate accountability laws.
D&P representatives have been visiting parishes across the Archdiocese of Vancouver, asking Catholics to sign the petition urging the Canadian government to hold Canadian companies accountable for human and environmental rights when operating abroad.
The Reaping Our Rights campaign focuses on raising awareness and gathering tens of thousands of signatures before presenting them to Parliament Hill in April.
While businesses operating in Canada are subject to regulations on environmental damage, labour exploitation, and human rights violations, those protections don’t always extend to Canadian operations abroad, says Development and Peace. As a result, communities in developing nations often suffer the consequences.
The petition calls for legislation requiring companies to “prevent, report, and remedy all violations of human and environmental rights throughout their global operations and supply chains” and to establish “a legal right for people who have been harmed to seek justice in Canadian courts.”
In an online presentation last year, Aidan Gilchrist-Blackwood, coordinator of the Canadian Network on Corporate Accountability (CNCA), spoke for the network of 41 organizations representing about 3 million Canadians. He highlighted the importance of due diligence legislation and thanked Development and Peace for being a crucial leader in advocacy efforts since the very beginning.
“You are truly our leaders in this type of campaign and with Canadian companies,” he said.
Canada is home to many multinational corporations engaged in mining, oil extraction, and other industries that cause severe human rights and environmental abuses, he said.
Currently, Canada does not have a mandatory due diligence law, unlike several European countries. Such a law would require Canadian companies to respect human rights across their global operations and supply chains.
Celeste Smith, co-chair of the International Programs Committee of the National Farmers Union (NFU), spoke about the rights of farmers and peasants and emphasized Canada’s connection to the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Peasants and Other People Working in Rural Areas (UNDROP), a UN declaration adopted in 2018.
“UNDROP recognizes the rights of peasants and small-scale farmers to land, water, seeds, and food sovereignty,” she said.
Although Canada abstained from voting on UNDROP, the Ontario Superior Court cited the declaration in a major migrant worker rights case in 2020, setting a legal precedent for its use in Canada, she said.
“Canada must adopt UNDROP to protect farmers and food sovereignty. We must also push for laws that ensure corporations respect these rights.”
The petition is available to sign at Development and Peace’s campaign website.
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