The Canadian mining industry is a strong supporter of transparency and worked alongside civil society and government to put Canada in a leadership position in the global transparency movement.
From 2012 to 2014, MAC and fellow members of the Resource Revenue Transparency Working Group (RRTWG) – the Prospectors & Developers Association of Canada, Publish What You Pay-Canada and the Natural Resource Governance Institute – advocated for Canada to join the global transparency movement by making payment disclosure mandatory through legislation.
The RRTWG saw its work in pushing for Canada’s adoption of payment transparency legislation come to fruition with the coming into force of the Extractive Sector Transparency Measures Act in June 2015. The legislation largely consistent with the recommendations that the RRTWG provided to government to assist in the Act’s development.
As a result of the legislation, all Canadian mining companies are required to publicly disclose the financial payments they make to governments both in Canada and overseas. The enhanced transparency resulting from this legislation will help reduce instances of corruption by enabling citizens around the world to hold their governments accountable for how they allocate and spend mining revenues. It will also help to ensure that these revenues contribute to sustainable development and poverty reduction.
Extractive Sector Transparency Measures Act (ESTMA) reporting has been in place for several years as a resource for people interested in understanding how much the industry pays to various governments, and this data can be accessed via the Act’s website.
