Companies have also been involved in forced evictions and “high levels of violence” at a mine in Tanzania; water contamination threatening people’s health in Argentina; and The Metals Company, a deep sea mining company headquartered in Vancouver, that is accused of violating the UN's Law of the Sea
John Woodside
Worth remembering the idea behind the Net-Zero Accountability Act (passed in 2021) was to make emissions reductions legally binding to prevent future governments from taking Canada off track. Carney has willingly taken the country's emission trajectory off the rails and now faces a legal challenge.
Just to be clear, eliminating the CORE instead of improving it is Carney abdicating responsibility for human rights abuses committed by Canadian companies.
In recent months and years we've seen more of the same. Last year, civil society organizations wrote to Canada’s Ambassador to Ecuador about “deep concern over the systematic criminalization of human rights and nature defenders” relating to a Cdn mining project.
The Recon case isn't isolated. It's part of a pattern of Canadian companies violating rights abroad, experts say. In 2016, a study termed it the “Canada Brand” where 28 companies were found to be involved in 44 deaths, 403 injuries, 709 cases of criminalization and “widespread” violence.
Here are the types of complaints outlined in affidavits: Farmers say their homes have been destroyed by the thundering seismic drills, while crops have been destroyed, pushing people further into poverty and hunger, and land has allegedly been seized with little or no compensation.
Courts are increasingly going to be the space to watch for the climate concerned. This gov has largely shut out enviro advocates while meeting with O&G lobbyists multiple times a week. In the search for leverage, courts become the battleground and will slow and frustrate Ottawa's fossil fuel plans.
Feds are being taken to court over climate rollbacks. Issue here is actually pretty simple. The Net-Zero Accountability Act requires the gov's Emissions Reduction Plan actually aligns with Canada's target to cut emissions, and it no longer does thanks to the wholesale shredding of climate policies.
Last year I wrote about how a vacancy at the CORE hobbled it leaving victims of a Canadian oil company without recourse.
www.nationalobserver.com/2025/08/07/n...
So when Carney says he is scrapping the CORE because it isn’t working the question to ask is how to give it teeth to hold Canadian companies acting abroad to a better standard? Eliminating a watchdog gives these companies a free pass to commit human rights abuses in the name of profit maximization.
Prime Minister Mark Carney says his government is eliminating a watchdog position responsible for investigating allegations of human rights violations committed by Canadian companies operating abroad.
