This brief provides an overview of Canada's National Contact Point for Responsible Business Conduct (NCP), compares it to the NCPs of other countries to demonstrate why the Canadian NCP is not an effective human rights mechanism, and examines how years of lack of reform have led to a loss of trust in the NCP in Canada.
Since 2000, 32 complaints have been brought to the Canadian NCP. Of these 32 complaints 23 were brought against Canadian mining multinationals. This is particularly striking as since March of 2021, the Canadian Ombudsperson for Responsible Enterprise (CORE) also has received complaints against Canadian mining companies. Of the most recent six cases filed with the NCP, four were brought against Canadian mining companies.
Unlike the NCPs of other countries discussed in this brief:
- Canada’s NCP is not independent of Government.
- Canada’s NCP does not conduct independent investigations of complaints.
- Canada’s NCP does not make findings of fact about whether a company has breached the OECD Guidelines.
- Canada’s NCP does not make recommendations regarding remedy for harm done.
As the NCP is a state-based mechanism, it is a matter of political choice that the Canadian NCP has not adopted more effective procedures over its 25-year existence. There have been many opportunities, since 2000, for the NCP to have taken external advice it received from authorities to reform its practices as NCPs in other countries have done (See Appendix).
It is because Canada’s NCP has refused steadfastly to reform into a more effective non-judicial mechanism that Canadian civil society organizations, via the Canadian Network on Corporate Accountability, advocated for over 10 years for the creation of the Canadian Ombudsperson for Responsible Enterprise to fulfill the necessary corporate accountability functions not carried out by the NCP.