In Honduras, the Canadian government is spending taxpayer dollars to help set up a favourable legal framework for Canadian mining operations against the will of Honduran civil society, while remaining silent about rampant targeted attacks and threats against the press and social movements. These efforts, all in the name of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR), raise questions about Canada’s conflict of interest in advising another country on its mining law and expose the Canadian government’s policy for the overseas extractive sector as one of convenience – not responsibility.
In Canada, CSR has already come to stand for “Corporate Self-Regulation” and the intransigence of the Conservative government in the face of demands to adopt effective mechanisms to hold corporations accountable for human rights violations and environmental degradation at their overseas operations.
The attached article looks at the situation and the contradictions in more detail.