Hundreds of mining, oil and gas companies reveal payments to governments for the first time, in Canada and around the world

Ottawa, Canada – June 8th, 2017

Today, Publish What You Pay-Canada welcomes the public disclosure of hundreds of reports detailing payments to governments by Canadian extractive companies. For most companies, this represents the first time these payments have been made public.

“With more than 1200 Canadian-listed extractive companies operating in over 100 countries, the disclosure of payments in Canada will increase the transparency of the extractive sector globally,” stated Claire Woodside, PWYP-Canada Director. “These new reports will also provide meaningful data about payment flows to federal, provincial and territorial governments in Canada, where this information has previously not been available to the public in a systematic way.”

The reports, filed with Natural Resources Canada and posted on their website, have been made available due to the implementation of the Extractive Sector Transparency Measures Act. An Act that requires all Canadian registered and listed extractive companies to disclose payments to governments in Canada and abroad. PWYP-Canada championed the development and passage of this Act through an innovative collaboration with Canadian mining industry associations and the Natural Resource Governance Institute (NRGI).

“Our global partners are looking forward to examining these report more closely,” said Ian Thomson of Oxfam Canada. “Many communities are impacted by large-scale Canadian resource extraction projects, but lack critical information about the revenues flowing to governments from these projects. Citizens want to know if their countries are getting a fair deal.”

In the coming months, PWYP-Canada, with the support of NRGI, will work to create a central database of the reports, in addition to analyzing individual reports and raising awareness about the reporting more broadly.

“Transparency in the natural resource sector is critical to accountable resource governance and to evidence-based policy-making,” stated Kady Seguin, Partnership Africa Canada, “with these reports, Canada is leading the way to a more transparent and accountable global resource sector.”

Publish What You Pay-Canada is the national coalition of the global PWYP network. A network of over 800 civil society organizations in more than 40 countries united in their call for a more transparent and accountable extractive sector, that enables citizens to have a say over whether their resources are extracted, how they are extracted and how their extractive revenues are spent.

Media Contact:

Claire Woodside, Publish What You Pay Canada, [email protected], 613-237-6768 ext 29 or 613-794- 3536, @pwypcanada

The press release is also available here.