"Canada must develop national plan on responsible business and human rights," 29 August 2017

Canada is lacking a coherent policy approach to address business and human rights as well as the risks of modern slavery in corporate supply chains... An important first step would be to develop a national action plan on responsible business and human rights... There is a increasing convergence around the expectation that businesses should respect human rights and take concrete, actionable steps (such as due diligence, monitoring and reporting) to prevent human-rights abuses in company operations and provide remedies if such abuses take place. Many Canadian companies do substantial work to ensure this takes place... [h]owever, there is little or no unifying direction from the Canadian government... While human rights and Indigenous rights have been raised by the Canadian government as an issue for discussion in the context of the current North American free-trade agreement negotiations and is regularly addressed in international trade agreements, there is no public policy strategy to address the human-rights impacts of Canadian business globally and in line with international standards. The United Nations Working Group on Business and Human Rights recently commented on a lack of coherent policy in Canada on this topic... Since 2009, Canada has had in place a corporate social-responsibility strategy for the extractive sector, which is intended to preserve and enhance the reputation of that industry globally... The current policy approach is overly focused on the mining sector, ignoring global supply chains that cut across industries... A national action plan will put Canada on a path to promote global competitiveness and enhance Canada's reputation in the field of human rights. It is much needed and long overdue.