Ombud needs power to work

To fly the Maple Leaf means something.

That was one of the catchier phrases deployed by then international trade minister François-Philippe Champagne in announcing a new federal office to monitor and investigate Canadian business conduct abroad.

Canada possesses an extraordinary brand, the minister said, and in upholding that brand it must exhibit best-in-class approaches to protecting human rights.

That was January 2018. The horrific images of the collapse of the Rana Plaza garment factory in Bangladesh were still fresh in the minds of Canadians. We wanted to know about the Canadian corporate links behind the opaque supply chains responsible for those fast fashions.

The Maple Leaf is flying rather limply this week as the Canadian Ombudsperson for Responsible Enterprise announced it is at long last open to accepting complaints.

If that sounds like a passive posture for an office that once held bold promise, it is. After more than three years of rumination, CORE, as it’s known, will receive and review claims of alleged human rights abuses — forced labour, child labour in supply chains, unsafe work conditions, rape — in the offshore operations of Canadian companies, or entities controlled by Canadian companies, in the garment, mining and oil and gas sectors. There’s even an online form that complainants can fill in.

What it won’t do is robustly investigate abuses through the powers of document disclosure and witness testimony.

Despite CORE’s insistence that it may on occasion initiate its own review of an alleged human-rights abuse, the absence of enforcement powers and the office’s clear mandate for soft diplomacy deflate any hopes of Canada emerging as the gold standard for global social responsibility.

Consider the office’s language around corporate “participation.” Where a Canadian company does not actively get on board with a review — voluntarily offering up relevant information, for example — the Ombud “may draw appropriate negative conclusions or adverse references.”

This is a far cry from the Liberal government’s promise that the office would have the muscle to engage in credible and effective investigations. In other words, the power to do the job.

The government also promised that the office would be fully operational in the fall of 2019. Yet before autumn rolled around, the 14-member advisory panel comprised of industry and advocacy groups had resigned en masse.

The government did commission an external legal report on how to empower CORE. That report was never made public, though was recently released by the Canadian Network on Corporate Accountability.

It makes for interesting reading. CORE was not enacted through legislation that would have defined its powers. Nor was it created as an ongoing commission of inquiry. If the government was serious about being able to compel co-operation, the report concluded, a body created by statute would have been the way forward, understanding that such an approach would be seen by industry as confrontational.

It’s worth remembering here that CORE’s predecessor office, created by the Stephen Harper government to focus exclusively on the extractive sector, was powerless, underresourced, underfinanced, understaffed. What did it accomplish? Nothing of note.

As far as potential punishment was concerned, the old office could recommend the withdrawal of trade advocacy support.

The potential punishment to be meted out by the Liberal government’s creation? Same same.

So much for the fresh idea that the Liberals’ version of Canada would henceforth be seen as second to none when it comes to human rights.

Now that CORE’s complaints process has gone live, transparent reporting on its activities is promised. A six-month audit should prove whether the government has a banner worth flying. If not, it’s back to the drawing board and enacting that statute.

So much for the idea that the Liberals’ version of Canada would henceforth be seen as second to none when it comes to human rights