Fight ramps up to prevent Canadian companies’ abuses abroad

Montreal, Canada – Enzo Brizuela describes his hometown as a “sacrifice zone”. “The government of Canada needs to decide if it is going to continue to trail behind and drag its feet and let companies operate with impunity, or if it’s going to do something to rein in corporate abuse,” said Emily Dwyer, policy director at the Canadian Network on Corporate Accountability. “This is a crucial step forward in our mission to help promote and protect human rights and Canada’s reputation in the world,” the ombudsperson, Sheri Meyerhoffer, said in a statement in March 2021. Legislative proposals A spokesman for Global Affairs Canada, the foreign affairs ministry, told Al Jazeera that the government expected Canadian companies operating abroad “to abide by all relevant laws, to respect human rights in their operations, and to adopt best practices and internationally respected guidelines on responsible business conduct”. “What’s actually needed is an obligation to prevent human rights violations from happening throughout a company’s supply chains, an obligation on companies to do due diligence – to take measures to identify, mitigate, address and remedy abuses and risks that are in your supply chain – and real enforcement of those obligations through access to Canadian courts,” she said.