Transparency act to introduce new reporting requirements for miners

It will soon be mandatory for Canadian mining and oil and gas companies to report payments to foreign and domestic governments – including, eventually, First Nations governments in Canada.

The Extractive Sector Transparency Measures Act was tabled in the House of Commons in late October, and the federal government intends to pass the legislation by April 2015.

The law, first announced last June, is intended to stymie corruption in developing nations and align with other similar laws being introduced in the United States and Europe.

The broad initiative has the support of Canada's mining industry, including the Prospectors and Developers Association of Canada (PDAC) and Mining Association of Canada (MAC), in part because they believe that greater transparency will allow citizens and media to hold governments to account for how they spend mining revenues.

However, the inclusion of First Nations communities in the legislation has been controversial …

Read the complete article at NorthernMiner.com/news/transparency-act