- Canada created a watchdog agency in 2019 to investigate human rights abuses overseas involving Canadian corporations, including leading mining concerns. It was called the office of the Canadian Ombudsperson for Responsible Enterprise (CORE). But for more than a year, its top position remained vacant.
- Mongabay reported earlier this month that the office had at least 24 active complaints and that additional communities around the world were ready to make complaints once the office was properly staffed.
- Now, in a move that stunned observers and drawn sharp criticism from activists, Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney announced he has closed the agency.
Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney announced last week that the government eliminated an office created to probe overseas human rights complaints about Canadian corporations, including mining conglomerates. This comes only months after the foreign affairs minister said the office was “important.”
The announcement shocked environmental and human rights nonprofit organizations and those who said they have faced personal risk to alert Canadian authorities about actions by corporations based in the country.
The Canadian government created the office of the Canadian Ombudsperson for Responsible Enterprise (CORE) in 2019 to evaluate complaints about alleged human rights abuses by Canadian companies operating abroad in the garment, mining, and oil and gas sectors.
At a June 11 press conference, Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney said his government had eliminated the CORE office months before because it considered the agency ineffective, only conducting one investigation in seven years. But his government made no public announcement about the decision, and three weeks earlier had addressed questions from Mongabay about the status of its investigations.
While the office failed to complete any investigations for its first four years of operations, it reported on the outcome of five complaints in 2024, its last year with a permanent Ombudsperson. Since then, the office has been without a permanent leader. In April 2024, an interim Ombudsperson took over the post until May 20, 2025; the role has since sat vacant.
“The Carney government’s reasons for disbanding the ombudsman are at best misinformed but much more likely a deliberate favor to Canadian multinationals to protect them from human rights claims against them,” said Catherine Coumans, the Asia-Pacific program coordinator with Mining Watch Canada, an independent watchdog that works with companies affected by Canadian mining companies and campaigned for the creation of the office.
Earlier this month, Mongabay reported that the office had at least 24 active complaints and that additional communities around the world were ready to make complaints once the office was properly staffed.
The announcement that the office is being eliminated comes as Canada faces criticism over insufficient efforts to combat forced labor. The Trump administration recently said Canada was not strongly combating forced labor in its supply chain, and that it would impose tariffs on Canadian goods in response. The Carney government said new legislation would address those concerns.
The ombudsperson’s office received complaints about forced labor. It was also seen by its proponents as an important place to turn regarding alleged human rights abuses by Canadian mining companies.
Canada is home to about half of the world’s publicly traded mining and mineral exploration companies, and the office was created after decades of calls from civil society for greater oversight of the overseas operations of Canadian companies.
From the outset, corporate accountability advocates raised concerns that the office’s powers didn’t go far enough, specifically that it could not compel witness testimony and produce documentary evidence. However, advocates wanted to see the government staff the position and strengthen it, not eliminate the role.
In its seventh periodic review of Canada in April, the United Nations Human Rights Committee echoed these sentiments. It expressed concern about continued allegations of human rights abuses and environmental degradation by companies headquartered in Canada and recommended that Canada urgently appoint a new ombudsperson and ensure the office is given strengthened investigative powers.
The elimination of the office comes only months after Foreign Affairs Minister Anita Anand said in March that “the office remains important.”
In a statement, the Canadian Network on Corporate Accountability said it was shocked to learn that the government had made this decision months ago.
“I think it’s really callous that the government didn’t communicate its plans for the office to directly impacted people. We’re talking about people who are facing really serious abuses of their human rights linked to Canadian companies, who have in some cases been told by Canadian government officials to put their trust in this office,” said Network Coordinator for the Canadian Network on Corporate Accountability Aidan Gilchrist-Blackwood.
Lateef Johar, a member of the Human Rights Council of Balochistan, submitted a complaint in January 2023 against Barrick Mining, which is developing the Reko Diq copper and gold mine in Balochistan Province, Pakistan. In May 2023, CORE decided the complaint was admissible. Johar was told to expect an Initial Assessment Report, a document produced before a full review or investigation, by Oct. 18, 2023. A report has never been provided to him.
He said he was given no warning that the office was closing. “What happens to people like myself, who put everything at risk — including their personal security — by working on these petitions against very powerful corporations and their backers, including governments of highly hostile countries, such as Pakistan?” he wrote in an email.
He said he spent over four years on the complaint and that the Prime Minister’s remarks are an insult to “those who believed in the mechanism and brought their cases forward in the hope that the Canadian corporations would be accountable for harming tens of thousands of people globally.”
In April 2024, the International Human Rights Program at the University of Toronto filed a complaint on behalf of communities in Namibia represented by Saving Okavango’s Unique Life (SOUL), about the conduct of Vancouver-based Reconnaissance Energy Africa Ltd. (ReconAfrica), which had been conducting oil and gas exploration activities in the country. It took approximately six months and a trip to Namibia to speak to community members and gather testimony to prepare the complaint. Representatives from the program say they have not had any updates since June 2025 and were not alerted that the office was closing.
“Affected communities in Namibia who risked their safety to come forward and file a complaint have waited over two years for their concerns to be heard, only to be left in limbo by a process that never moved beyond intake,” said Nabila Khan, research associate with the International Human Rights Program, by email.
Mongabay sent questions to the CORE office, Global Affairs Canada and the Prime Minister’s office in April and May. CORE told Mongabay in late April that it was still taking complaints. It did not inform Mongabay that it had been eliminated. As of June 19, the webpage for the office remains active, providing contacts for prospective complainants.
After the announcement that the office had been eliminated, Global Affairs Canada reiterated the Prime Minister’s sentiments that the mechanism had not been effective. “A decision has been taken to permanently streamline the CORE Ombudsperson’s work into other functions with stronger track records of effectiveness, including the National Contact Point,” said John Babcock spokesperson for Global Affairs Canada in an emailed statement.
Aidan Gilchrist-Blackwood of the Canadian Network on Corporate Accountability hopes that the government will rethink the move. “We want to see this decision reversed, we want to see the CORE reinstated, and we want to see it be given the independence and the powers that it always has needed and that we’ve called for right from the start.”
Banner image: Canadian flag. Image by David Carroll viaFlickr (CC BY 2.0).
This story first appeared on Mongabay
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