AME BC CSR Messages

The following messages are to help you answer questions you may be encountering in your business or your private life.The Association for Mineral Exploration British Columbia is committed to assisting our members reach their highest potential and that includes by acting as the most responsible international mineral exploration companies in the world.

  • The best way to regulate and monitor Canadian companies operating overseas is through a collaborative approach. This encourages companies to adopt and share best practices, and provides a venue for legitimate complaints and a fair and timely resolution process that is designed not simply to punish but assist the local impacted community. This is best accomplished through a non-punitive system.
  • Punitive rules and legislation, such as Bill C-300, allow for unsubstantiated complaints, presume guilt before innocence, do not provide the necessary resources for adequate and fair investigation and most importantly could destroy B.C. and Canada’s mining sector by chasing legitimate operators offshore.
  • Canada has recently implemented a new Corporate Social Responsibility initiative – Building the Canadian Advantage – which is engaging companies, governments and civil society in a collaborative process – and this must be given time to operate before judging its relative success. The initiative provides practical tools for improving the operations of extractive industries by:
    • Helping host governments to manage and benefit from development of mining and petroleum resources, including their own regulatory and enforcement capacity.
    • Providing information and guidance to Canadian companies on global standards for corporate social
      responsibility.
    • Creating an Office of the Extractive Sector CSR Counsellor to assist with the resolution of CSR issues related to the activities of Canadian companies operating abroad.
    • Supporting the creation of a CSR Centre of Excellence to implement voluntary performance standards by providing information, training and tools.
  • In cases where companies conduct themselves poorly, professional geologists and mining engineers are held accountable by their professional bodies. Securities and exchange regulators ensure the highest level of disclosure in public reporting. Canadian’s operating overseas in any profession or activityare subject to international human rights law and the laws in the nations they operate.
  • Canadian companies are a major source of international investment in developing countries. In 2008, over 75 percent of the world’s exploration and mining companies were headquartered in Canada. These 1293 companies had an interest in some 7809 properties in Canada and in over 100 countries around the world.