There was good news last month for more than 145,000 Canadians who responded to the Canadian Ecumenical Jubilee Initiative campaign calling for more accountability on the part of Canadian corporations, including the Export Development Corporation, which operate abroad and often on indigenous lands.

On May 15, the interim Auditor General of Canada, Sheila Fraser, released an audit on the Export Development Corporation which slammed the crown corporation for its environmental assessment practices. The audit confirms what NGOs under the umbrella of the NGO Working Group on the Export Development Corporation and CEJI have said about the need for improved standards of assessment.

More than 90 per cent of EDC projects examined in the Auditor General’s report were not properly assessed under the corporation's environmental review process. The audit gave a failing grade to 24 out of 26 projects backed by the EDC based on a review procedure first introduced in April 1999. The report also found that 9 of 13 other transactions that didn't qualify for reviews under the EDC's guidelines also presented significant environmental risk.

"We believe that these problems are serious. Potential environmental risks were not identified (in the EDC’s assessment)," said Ms. Fraser.

"The corporation does not have sufficient information to know if environmental risks exist and are being adequately addressed, and how Canadians could be supporting projects which they would feel do not meet environmental standards."

The report said that public consultation and disclosure of information should be essential elements of a credible environmental review process.

In a written response to the report, International Trade Minister Pierre Pettigrew said he is concerned with the EDC's performance, and asked for another audit in two years rather than the recommended three.

The EDC indicated yesterday that it intends to adopt each of the Auditor General's recommendations.

The previous day the Crown corporation released a draft of its long-awaited disclosure policy, which proposes to release information about all its financing activities. The new disclosure policy would make it necessary for EDC to reveal the country involved, the amount and name of the borrower, EDC financial service granted, a short description of transaction, the amount of EDC financial support and the exporter's name. This is a vast improvement over the previous non-existent disclosure practice of the notoriously secretive government crown corporation. In terms of disclosure, the new policy raises EDC’s standards to the level of best practices of similar Export Credit Agencies in other countries.

Following the Auditor General's advice, the EDC says it intends to hold "an open, public consultation process" to find ways to improve the review process. It also will hold consultations about its proposed new disclosure policy.

On Friday May 25, representatives of member organizations of CEJI and the NGO Working Group on the Export Development Corporation met with International Trade Minister Pierre Pettigrew. They urged Mr. Pettigrew to influence the EDC to come under Canadian Access to Information legislation and improved standards of environmental and social risk assessment.

The coordinator of the NGO Working Group on the EDC, which for years has done tremendous research and advocacy around EDC reform said the Global Land Rights campaign made a important contribution to these successes.

Emilie Revil wrote on May 31 that

All members of the coalition of groups working on this campaign are very concerned at the moment of writing this update about the fate of Kimy Pernia Domico. Kimy is a leader of the Embera Katio nation in Colombia which has been severely impacted by an EDC-financed hydro-electric dam. Kimy’s kidnapping on June 2 comes after many months of courageous struggle including two visits to Canada to let Canadians know of the plight of his people. A fellow Embera leader, Alberto Achito visited Manitoba, Alberta and Ontario as part of the Jubilee Global Land Rights campaign. (See the June 4 ICCHRLA urgent action here.)