Canadian Government Promises Stronger Monitoring of Canadian Companies Operating Abroad

On January 16, 2018, the Government of Canada announced that it will create a new Canadian Ombudsperson for Responsible Enterprise (CORE). The office will investigate complaints about the activities of Canadian companies abroad, and make recommendations to both government and the companies themselves. This is a spectacular breakthrough on several grounds, but there are some missing details that will determine the extent to which the office can address the outstanding problems identified by groups from Latin America and Canada who have made submissions on this issue to the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights.