Development and Peace brings signatures from its 2013 fall education campaign on international mining to Parliament Hill

Wednesday, May 21, 2014

On May 14, 2014, close to 300 members of the Canadian Catholic Organization for Development and Peace (CCODP) gathered with representatives of other organizations on Parliament Hill in Ottawa to present the 85,000 signatures collected from the Development and Peace 2013 fall education campaign, A Voice for Justice. The campaign called for the establishment of an impartial and independent ombudsman for responsible mining in the Global South.

In a letter to the Prime Minister last month, the Most Reverend Paul-André Durocher, Archbishop of Gatineau and President of the Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops (CCCB) also urged the federal government to establish an independent Ombudsman “who could hear complaints and help establish stronger accountability standards for companies that are registered in Canada and involved in international resource extraction.”

The CCODP campaign was launched in Montreal last September 30, with the participation of three Bishops from the Global South, together with the CCCB President and several other Canadian Bishops, including representatives of the CCCB Episcopal Commission for Justice and Peace. The guest Bishops were the Most Reverend Pedro Ricardo Barreto Jimeno, S.J., Archbishop of Huancayo, Peru; the Most Reverend José Salmorin Bantolo, Bishop of Masbate, Philippines; and the Most Reverend Nicholas Djomo Lola, Bishop of Tshumbe and President of the Episcopal Conference of the Democratic Republic of Congo.

Link to the CCODP website
Link to the CCCB President’s letter to Prime Minister Harper
Link to interview of CCCB President with Vatican Radio