Campaign: Pass a Due Diligence Law Archives | CNCA - RCRCE

TAKING STOCK: Accountability and the Overseas Operations of Canadian Multinationals

Aidan Gilchrist-Blackwood — Wed, 29 Apr 2026 16:10:29 +0000

A new CNCA research paper assesses the policy and legal framework in Canada to hold multinational corporations to account for human rights and environmental harms caused overseas. Find the full report in English and in French.

The paper focuses on three key issues: binding standards, an ombudsperson and the state-business nexus. The paper concludes that Canadian policy and legal developments have failed to keep pace with international standards, initiatives in leading jurisdictions and civil society proposals.

Binding standards: While the Canadian government recognizes the value of human rights due diligence, it relies on companies to voluntarily adopt this practice. A government commitment to introduce legislation mandating labour rights due diligence remains unfulfilled.

Ombudsperson: In 2019 the Canadian government created the Canadian Ombudsperson for Responsible Enterprise (CORE). Structural and functional shortcomings undermine the office’s credibility. The ombudsperson post is currently vacant and the office’s future is unclear.

State-business nexus: Canada lacks enforceable mechanisms to condition corporate eligibility for government services on compliance with human rights and environmental norms. The government departments and agencies that support corporations lack transparency regarding their operations and decision-making processes.

To remedy these failings, the Canadian Network for Corporate Accountability calls on the Canadian government to:

implement comprehensive human rights and environmental due diligence legislation. As a first step towards comprehensive legislation, immediately adopt legislation requiring companies to conduct due diligence to prevent forced labour and child labour throughout their supply chains;
publish the results of its 2024 review of the CORE, appoint an ombudsperson and grant the office the independence and investigatory powers required to realize its potential; and
adopt measures that improve transparency regarding the operation of government departments and agencies that provide support to companies, and that condition such support on corporate respect for human rights and the environment.

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From Rana Plaza to today: Why Canada Must Act on Corporate Accountability

Aidan Gilchrist-Blackwood — Fri, 24 Apr 2026 16:41:42 +0000

By Nirvana Mujtaba (Oxfam Canada) & Aidan Gilchrist-Blackwood (Canadian Network For Corporate Accountability)

One of the deadliest industrial disasters of the 21^st century unfolded in 2013, when the Rana Plaza building in Bangladesh collapsed. In a matter of moments, over 1,100 garment workers, most of them young women, lost their lives, and more than 2,500 others were injured. The world watched in horror as images of crushed concrete, trapped bodies, and desperate rescue efforts filled our screens. However, this was not a sudden or unforeseeable tragedy. Cracks in the building had been reported the day before. Workers had voiced their fears. Still, they were told to return to work and were trapped inside the building as it collapsed.

The collapse of Rana Plaza exposed a devastating truth: the global fashion industry, built on the labour of women, was failing them at every level. It revealed a system where fast fashion was prioritized over safe working conditions, where accountability was diffused across borders and where corporations, many based in wealthy countries like Canada, profited from conditions they did little to monitor or improve. Among the revelations was that a Canadian company was sourcing clothing from Rana Plaza, yet lacked sufficient oversight to ensure even the most basic standards of workplace health and safety. Affordable clothing was being subsidized by a devastating human cost.

Since then, international pressure and tireless worker-led organizing have driven some improvements in factory safety, reducing the risk of catastrophic failures in parts of the industry. Yet, health and safety in Bangladesh’s factories remain deeply concerning, as shown by the April 4 fire at a gas lighter factory near Dhaka that left five workers dead. Moreover, safer buildings have not meant fairer working conditions. Workers still face poverty wages, excessive work hours, and intense pressure to meet production targets in an non-unionized environment. Gender-based violence and harassment remain widespread, particularly for the women who make our clothes. The fashion industry may be less visibly dangerous than it was in 2013, but it is far from just.

This pattern is not limited to fashion. Canadian companies continue to operate in ways that harm vulnerable communities both at home and abroad. In the mining sector, Canadian companies have been repeatedly linked to human and labour rights abuses, environmental destruction and the contamination of local ecosystems. Communities have suffered displacement, pollution, and long-term health impacts. These harms continue in part because the rules for companies are weak and accountability is strongly limited.

The harm also extends to global arms trade. Canadian companies export weapons and weapons components that are used in war and conflict zones likely against civilians and in violation of international law, contributing to violence and human rights abuses. These transfers often happen through indirect routes, allowing Canadian companies to avoid scrutiny. Without strong laws, Canada risks being complicit in harm while claiming to stand for human and labour rights.

Canada’s response: more rhetoric than reform

Canada falls far short of meaningfully holding Canadian corporations accountable. Measures such as modern slavery reporting legislation and voluntary corporate social responsibility frameworks have been framed as progress. Yet in practice, they rely heavily on self-reporting, lack enforcement mechanisms, and impose few real consequences for non-compliance. Companies are required to disclose whether or not they have assessed the risks of forced labour in their supply chains – but are not required to actually investigate those risks in the first place, let alone to prevent or remedy harms.

At the same time, oversight of Canadian businesses operating abroad remains weak. The Canadian government “expects” – but does nothing to actually require – Canadian companies respect human rights in their operations abroad.

Mechanisms intended to investigate corporate abuse, including the Canadian Ombudsperson for Responsible Enterprise (CORE) office, have been left to flounder. The government has left the position of CORE vacant for close to a year, meaning the office cannot process complaints and lacks long-promised independence and investigatory teeth. Survivors of labour exploitation, environmental harm, or corporate-linked violence face significant barriers to seeking justice, particularly when abuses occur outside of Canada’s borders. The result is a system where harm is sometimes acknowledged, but rarely addressed in a way that shifts corporate behaviour.

This gap between commitment and action is not incidental – it reflects a broader policy approach that prioritizes narrowly-defined economic interests and voluntary compliance over binding regulation. As long as respect for human rights remains at the discretion of Canadian companies, they can continue to benefit from global systems of exploitation with limited accountability.

What real corporate accountability looks like:

On the 11th anniversary of the Rana Plaza disaster, Canada’s Minister of Labour affirmed that “Canada’s supply chains are far-reaching” and that Canada has “an obligation to every single worker across them”. If Canada is serious about living up to those obligations, it must take decisive action to prevent the harms that continue to be linked to Canadian corporations, such as labour rights violations, extractive industry exploitation, and weapons exports which fuel growing human rights abuse. This means moving beyond voluntary and reporting-only approaches and adopting a mandatory human rights due diligence law. Such a law would require companies to actively identify, prevent, and address human rights and environmental risks throughout their global operations and supply chains – not simply report on whether or not they have bothered to look.

To be effective, such legislation must include strong enforcement mechanisms. Companies that fail to meet their obligations should face meaningful penalties, including fines and potential civil liability. Furthermore, affected communities and workers must have clear pathways to seek remedy in Canadian courts, regardless of where the harm occurred. Without access to justice, accountability remains incomplete.

The government of Canada must:

1. Adopt human rights and environmental due diligence legislation. Canadian civil society has developed a model law which the government could table at any time.

1. Appoint a new Canadian Ombudsperson for Responsible Enterprise, and empower the office with real independence and robust investigatory powers

More than a decade after the Rana Plaza tragedy and amid ongoing harm by various Canadian businesses, the question is not whether we have learned , but whether Canada will finally act.

The lives lost should have marked a turning point, a moment to say clearly that no job, no product, no profit is worth a human life. And yet, from factories to mines to conflict zones, similar patterns of exploitation persist – often hidden and too often ignored.

Canada has the power to do better. It has a duty to do better. Without bold action – as called for by directly-impacted people and by Canadians standing in solidarity from coast to coast – Canada will continue to be complicit in serious human rights violations, and risks contributing to future tragedies like Rana Plaza.

Add your voice to the call for a strong corporate accountability law: https://cnca-rcrce.ca/take-action.

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UN Human Rights Committee “underscores its concern” with human rights abuse by Canadian companies

Aidan Gilchrist-Blackwood — Wed, 25 Mar 2026 20:38:15 +0000

A new advance unedited report from the United Nations Human Rights Committee (UNHRC) raises alarm with “continued allegations” of human rights abuse and environmental destruction linked to Canadian companies abroad,“in particular mining corporations,” as well as the barriers to justice faced by victims of abuse. Among dozens of urgent issues studied by the Committee, business and human rights are one of just two themes from Canada’s human rights record that the Committee underscores in its press release.

The Committee urged Canada to strengthen its mechanisms to ensure our companies respect human rights and to ensure access to effective judicial and non-judicial remedies for people harmed by Canadian corporate activity. Reviewing Canada’s current mechanisms to address allegations of abuse by Canadian companies, it highlighted its concern that the government has left the position of Canadian Ombudsperson for Responsible Enterprise (CORE) vacant since May 2025, and that the office still lacks independent investigatory powers.

The Committee further emphasized that arms produced by companies under Canadian jurisdiction have reportedly reached conflict zones and contributed to “serious violations of international human rights law and international humanitarian law”.

In order to comply with our international human rights obligations, the UNHRC recommended Canada take the following legislative and policy actions:

Consider adopting binding legislation requiring business enterprises to conduct human rights due diligence;
“Urgently” appoint a new CORE;
Ensure the independence of the CORE and provide it with adequate human and financial resources so it can carry out its mandate effectively;
Ensure that the Ombudsperson is granted strengthened investigative powers, including the authority to compel witnesses and the production of documentary evidence;
Strengthen its efforts to prevent, address and mitigate the adverse human rights impacts of arms transfers and exports, including by reviewing and where necessary, revising its legislation and administrative framework, and reinforcing human rights due diligence procedures.

The serious issues raised in this report reflect the longstanding concerns of international human rights bodies and Canadian civil society. For decades, UN institutions have highlighted reports of human rights abuse by Canadian companies around the world and have called on Canada to ensure access to remedy for directly-impacted people. Canadian civil society, working in solidarity with directly-impacted workers and communities around the world, calls on our government to urgently adopt the measures above and has developed model legislation our government is encouraged to adopt.

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CNCA testifies in Parliamentary study on forced labour in supply chains, urges government to advance human rights due diligence

Aidan Gilchrist-Blackwood — Mon, 24 Nov 2025 15:34:30 +0000

November 20, 2025 – In testimony today to Parliament’s Standing Committee on International Trade, representatives of the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives, Canadian Labour Congress, Canada-Tibet Committee, and Canadian Network for Corporate Accountability urged the government to take strong action against forced labour in Canadian supply chains, as well as other serious abuses of human rights, labour rights, and environmental destruction linked to the global operations of Canadian companies.

Speaking as witnesses to the committee’s study of “forced labour, supply chains, and related imports”, the four organizations each urged Canada to adopt comprehensive mandatory human rights and environmental due diligence legislation. Such legislation would require Canadian companies and importers to prevent human rights abuse throughout their supply chains and would help ensure forced workers and people experiencing other human rights abuses have access to remedy in Canadian courts. The CNCA has developed model legislation, based on the consensus recommendations of Canadian civil society organizations and endorsed by hundreds of organizations in Canada and around the world.

With Parliament considering measures to strengthen Canada’s forced labour import ban, CNCA recommended any such measures be accompanied by a firm and time-bound commitment to comprehensive due diligence legislation, which would complement and reinforce the import ban. For example, import bans address harm after it has occurred, while due diligence legislation helps prevent harm in the first place. We further urged the government to closely engage with rights-holders in the development of any regulations under the import ban, to avoid unintended consequences that could negatively impact vulnerable workers.

Finally, CNCA recommended that the government’s approach to addressing forced labour in supply chains include a clear commitment to adequately staffing and empowering the Office of the Canadian Ombudsperson for Responsible Enterprise, an office with considerable potential that has been hamstrung by the government’s failure to provide independent investigatory powers and effective resourcing. The office has already received a significant number of forced-labour related cases.

A recording of the committee meeting can be viewed here.

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Media advisory: Parliament Hill rally to end corporate abuse

Aidan Gilchrist-Blackwood — Thu, 25 Sep 2025 14:39:20 +0000

(OTTAWA, unceded territories of the Anishinaabe Algonquin Nation): Grassroots advocates, civil society organizations, and trade unions, standing in solidarity with frontline communities around the world, will call on the Canadian government to take action to end ongoing human rights abuse and environmental destruction linked to Canadian companies globally. Participants in the rally will deliver to the government a petition signed by over 52,000 Canadians calling for Canada to adopt rigorous corporate accountability legislation.

See here to learn more about the legislation we are calling for.

Where: Parliament Hill Lawn
When: Friday, September 26, 2025, 12-1pm

For more information please contact:

Aidan Gilchrist-Blackwood, Network Coordinator, Canadian Network for Corporate Accountability
agilchristblackwood@cnca-rcrce.ca
438-872-0401

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MP Heather McPherson asks order paper question on CORE and human rights due diligence

Aidan Gilchrist-Blackwood — Mon, 15 Sep 2025 22:59:00 +0000

Updated March 4, 2026

The Canadian government has continued to evade questions from civil society and directly-impacted rightsholders on the status of the Canadian Ombudsperson for Responsible Enterprise (CORE), a position it has left vacant since May 2025 and rendered toothless despite promises to the contrary.

The government’s plans to table supply chain due diligence legislation – announced in the 2024 Fall Economic Statement, and building on previous commitments in the 2023 and 2024 budgets – have not materialized.

As Canada restructures its global trading relationships, these measures are essential to ensure Canada’s path forward respects the human rights of workers and communities impacted by Canadian companies and their supply chains.

In June 2025, Member of Parliament Heather McPherson submitted an order paper question for the government’s official response on both matters.

On the future of the CORE, the government’s response indicated that a “new Ombudsperson will be appointed in due course should the government’s review warrant such an appointment.”

On the status of supply chain due diligence legislation, the government said it “remains committed to helping end the practice of forced labour” and that “the new government is assessing its options on how to best address this important issue.” As of March 2026, the government has provided no updates despite ongoing requests for information.

The question in full, and the government’s response, can be viewed here.

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CNCA submissions to Government of Canada’s 2025 pre-budget consultations

Aidan Gilchrist-Blackwood — Thu, 28 Aug 2025 16:16:00 +0000

The Canadian Network for Corporate Accountability submitted written comments to the Standing Committee on Finance and the Department of Finance regarding the upcoming 2025 federal budget.

We recommend that the government take urgently-needed steps to ensure Canadian companies respect human rights, labour rights, and the environment throughout their global operations and supply chains. The government should do so by effectively resourcing and empowering the Canadian Ombudsperson for Responsible Enterprise to independently investigate abuses by Canadian companies, and by tabling mandatory human rights and environmental due diligence legislation.

Read our submissions in full:

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Save the date! Friday, September 26: National rally to end corporate abuse

Aidan Gilchrist-Blackwood — Mon, 11 Aug 2025 16:05:58 +0000

For many years, Canadian companies have been linked to widespread violations of human rights, workers’ rights, and serious environmental destruction throughout their global operations and supply chains.

Workers and communities around the world have called on the Canadian government to hold our companies accountable. But Canada is dragging its feet.

In this “hinge” moment, Canada can chart a new course: rebalancing unchecked corporate power with new rules that require companies to listen to workers and communities, prevent harms before they occur, and provide long-awaited justice to people who have been harmed. A growing number of countries around the world have adopted, or are considering, legislation that does just this.

On Friday, September 26, at 12pm, please join us on Parliament Hill in Ottawa as we rally in solidarity with impacted communities around the world to change the systems that enable corporate impunity.

We will deliver to the government over 40,000 signed action cards calling for Canada to introduce comprehensive legislation that ensures Canadian companies respect human rights and the environment globally. An interactive art installation will highlight the urgent need for action in Canada while celebrating bonds of global solidarity and years of grassroots mobilization by Canadians from coast to coast to coast.

See here to learn more about the legislation we are calling for.

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Canada linked to businesses enabling genocide: UN report

Aidan Gilchrist-Blackwood — Fri, 08 Aug 2025 19:05:33 +0000

A new advance edited report from the UN Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian territories occupied since 1967, Francesca Albanese, argues that corporations have created an enabling environment for Israel’s illegal occupation, apartheid and genocide in Palestine.

Simply put, this devastation “could not happen without the support of private sector actors.”

The report names many companies and sectors with Canadian links, including the sale in Canada of real estate in Israeli colonies. Corporate entities named in the report include arms manufacturers, tech firms, building and construction companies, extractive and service industries, banks, pension funds, insurers, universities, and charities.

Sovereign wealth and pension funds are highlighted as “significant financiers” of abuse, including the Caisse de Dépôt et Placement du Québec (CDPQ). The CDPQ invests almost $9.6 billion in companies named in the rapporteur’s report – “despite its sustainable investment policy and human rights policy.”

Businesses have a responsibility to respect human rights. They can implement this responsibility by conducting human rights due diligence, and heightened human rights due diligence through periods of conflict. The Special Rapporteur names these responsibilities directly and notes, “Had proper human rights due diligence been undertaken, corporate entities would have long ago disengaged from Israeli occupation.”

The CNCA reiterates its calls to the Canadian government to implement human rights and environmental due diligence legislation to prevent Canadian corporations from acting with impunity. New research by the Palestinian Youth Movement, World Beyond War, and other members of the Arms Embargo Now campaign clearly shows that Canada continues to send weapons to Israel, despite Canadian government claims to the contrary. We urge the government to take seriously the UN reports of genocide and several decades of human rights abuses under occupation, and to make every effort to divest from these.

We also note with great concern that the UN Special Rapporteur has been sanctioned by the U.S. following the publication of her report. It is fundamentally important that governments protect independent investigation, human rights for all, and the ability to fairly critique the corporate sector and governments freely.

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CNCA letter to Prime Minister Mark Carney

Aidan Gilchrist-Blackwood — Fri, 16 May 2025 16:17:29 +0000

The Right Honourable Mark Carney
Prime Minister of Canada
Office of the Prime Minister
80 Wellington Street
Ottawa, ON K1A 0A2

CC: The Honourable Maninder Sidhu, Minister of International Trade

Dear Prime Minister Mark Carney,

On behalf of the Canadian Network for Corporate Accountability (CNCA), I would like to welcome you to your new role as Prime Minister of Canada.

Formed in 2005, the CNCA brings together over 40 human rights, environmental, labour, faith and solidarity groups, collectively representing millions of Canadians. Our network is united by the straightforward principle that Canadian companies should respect human rights and the environment throughout their global operations and supply chains.

For too long, Canada has failed to adequately address glaring human rights abuse and environmental damage linked to the activities and operations of Canadian companies. These harms include killings, sexual violence, water contamination, and land grabs, as well as forced labour, poor working conditions, and violations of other fundamental labour rights including to freedom of association and to collective bargaining. Workers and communities around the world have called on the Canadian government to hold our companies accountable.

This issue matters deeply to Canadians. Over 50,000 have signed a petition calling for legislation to ensure Canadian companies respect human rights, including the right to a healthy environment, throughout their global operations and supply chains. Action is especially vital now, as these challenging economic times can heighten the vulnerability of workers and communities to abuse and exploitation.

Your election platform called for Canada to show global leadership and to champion important values, including human rights and the rule of law. In order to do so, it is essential that Canada fulfil its internationally recognized duty to protect against human rights abuses by non-state actors, including Canadian companies who all too often act with impunity. For decades, UN experts have repeatedly called on Canada to do just that.

CNCA members are business and human rights subject-matter experts. Furthermore, CNCA is the secretariat of a global network of corporate accountability organizations spanning six continents. Many of our members and colleagues have decades-long relationships with people who have been negatively affected by Canadian businesses overseas. We offer tools and resources to support the development of effective policy.

The Canadian Network for Corporate Accountability urges your government to take the following actions to ensure Canadian companies respect human rights and the environment:

Adopt mandatory human rights and environmental due diligence legislation. We note that the 2024 Fall Economic Statement announced the Canadian government’s “intent to introduce legislation to create a new supply chain due diligence regime”. Our network has developed model human rights and environmental due diligence legislation, endorsed by over two hundred organizations from Canada and around the world, which your government can use as a blueprint for its own legislation.

Empower the Canadian Ombudsperson for Responsible Enterprise to effectively serve impacted communities. For over a decade, our network has advocated for an independent and effective office and has provided expert advice to the Canadian government on the essential powers and independence such an office requires. The need today for an effective Ombudsperson is as great as ever.

Support progress towards a strong UN Treaty on Business and Human Rights, answering the calls of civil society organizations in Canada and around the world. CNCA is connected to the global movement moving the treaty agenda forward.

We encourage you to include specific instructions to implement these measures in your ministerial mandate letters, and we kindly request a meeting with you in the coming weeks to discuss these measures in greater detail.

We look forward to your reply to this letter.

Sincerely,

Aidan Gilchrist-Blackwood

Network Coordinator, Canadian Network for Corporate Accountability

This letter is also available in PDF format, in English and French.

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Election 2025: Federal Parties on Corporate Accountability

Aidan Gilchrist-Blackwood — Fri, 25 Apr 2025 17:27:24 +0000

The Canadian Network for Corporate Accountability (CNCA) invited all registered federal political parties to outline their commitments on corporate accountability aimed at ensuring Canadian companies respect human rights, labour rights, and the environment in their global operations and supply chains.

We asked:

Will your party support comprehensive mandatory human rights and environmental due diligence legislation?

Will you make the Canadian Ombudsperson for Responsible Enterprise (CORE) independent, provide it with the power to compel documents and testimony, and ensure the office is well-resourced so it can effectively investigate human rights abuse allegations linked to Canadian corporations operating overseas?

We received replies from five federal parties. We did not receive a response from the Liberal Party or the Conservative Party.

The Bloc Quebecois, Green Party, NDP, Christian Heritage Party, and Communist Party expressed their support for comprehensive mandatory human rights and environmental due diligence (mHREDD) legislation and for empowering the Canadian Ombudsperson for Responsible Enterprise.

The Conservative Party’s 2025 platform commits to “stop forced and child labour with strict new minimum penalties for executives or board members of companies that exploit children and abuse workers for profit, and create a private right of action against goods made with forced and child labour that are sold in Canada.”

The Liberal Party’s 2025 platform does not contain specific commitments on measures to ensure Canadian companies respect human rights when operating abroad.

Here are the full responses we received:

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Federal Election Questionnaire 2025

Aidan Gilchrist-Blackwood — Mon, 31 Mar 2025 20:43:45 +0000

The CNCA questionnaire is also available in PDF format.

For years, Canadian multinationals have been implicated in serious human rights abuses and environmental damage around the globe. The abuses include killings, sexual violence, water contamination, land grabs, and forced labour. From the food we eat, to the clothes we wear, to the metals in our phones, we are all connected to corporate harm.

The communities and workers who suffer these harms are often unable to access justice or remedy. Human rights defenders, labour rights defenders, and environmental defenders who stand up to powerful corporations frequently face violence, intimidation or criminalization.

Canada has international obligations to protect, respect, and fulfil human rights. This includes the obligation to protect against human and labour rights abuses by non-state actors, such as Canadian businesses operating abroad. However, Canada has not implemented the necessary laws and policies to uphold these obligations, relying instead on voluntary or reporting-only measures which have been ineffective to stop corporate abuse.

Canada has also failed to equip the Canadian Ombudsperson for Responsible Enterprise (CORE) with the investigatory powers, resources, or independence from government needed to effectively serve impacted people – as government’s own experts, and even the previous CORE, have called for. The CORE is an urgently-needed public institution, which the government can and must equip with the necessary tools to fulfil its mandate. Absent these powers, CNCA has advised impacted people to approach the CORE with caution.

Communities and workers around the world have called on the Canadian government to finally hold Canadian companies accountable. Several jurisdictions, including some of Canada’s largest trading partners, have now enacted, or are in the process of developing, enforceable legislation to prevent and remedy corporate abuse.

This issue matters deeply to Canadians. Over 50,000 have signed a petition calling for legislation to ensure Canadian companies respect human rights throughout their global operations and supply chains.

The Canadian Network for Corporate Accountability is asking federal political parties to state their positions on corporate accountability for Canadian companies operating abroad.

Will your party support comprehensive mandatory human rights and environmental due diligence legislation? Such legislation requires companies to identify, prevent and remedy all human rights abuses and provides for liability when companies cause harm in their global operations (subsidiaries and supply chains).¹

Will you make the Canadian Ombudsperson for Responsible Enterprise (CORE) independent, provide it with the power to compel documents and testimony, and ensure the office is well-resourced so it can effectively investigate human rights abuse allegations linked to Canadian corporations operating overseas?²

[1] The CNCA’s model legislation provides a blueprint for enshrining these obligations into law.

[2] For more information, see the CNCA’s submission to the 5-year review of the CORE.

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