Improved Transparency is in Everyone’s Best Interest
Last year, in an effort to improve transparency between Canadian extractive companies and the payments made to governments worldwide, Canada committed to establishing new mandatory reporting standards...
By: Brent Bergeron, Senior Vice-President Corporate Affairs
Last year, in an effort to improve transparency between Canadian extractive companies and the payments made to governments worldwide, Canada committed to establishing new mandatory reporting standards. Recommendations for these standards were released in January by the Resource Revenue Transparency Working Group comprised of the Mining Association of Canada, The Prospectors and Developers Association of Canada and two non-governmental organizations.
Goldcorp has been very supportive of this process and has participated actively in consultations organized by the Working Group and by Government of Canada officials. These standards require publicly traded mining companies in Canada to disclose project-level payments to domestic (including national and sub-national authorities) and foreign governments, as noted in the recommendation.
Goldcorp has a history of working openly with governments on matters of taxes and royalties. As a member of the International Council on Mining and Metals, Goldcorp is committed to the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (EITI) – a global standard that promotes revenue transparency. This initiative requires both governments and companies to disclose revenues received from extractive activities.
Under the standard, Goldcorp would be required to disclose all payments above $100,000. The types of payments captured by the recommendations include profit taxes, royalties, fees, production entitlements, bonuses, dividends, infrastructure payments required by law and transportation and terminal operation fees.
We believe this is a step in the right direction and fully support the recommendations provided by the Working Group. Goldcorp’s operations generate revenue for governments around the world through taxes and royalties. Since 2011, Goldcorp has been disclosing payment figures in its Annual Sustainability Report. Goldcorp contributed over $800 million to public finances in the countries where we operate in 2011; in 2012, that figure grew to over $1 billion.
Most importantly, these funds help support a country’s economy and contribute to local development – it’s at the very heart of our vision “Together, creating sustainable value.” And ]\]\\while contributions to governments is an important measure of transparency, Goldcorp’s operations contribute to the economic development and wealth of host communities through a number of other ways such as wages and salaries paid to employees and contractors; job creation through the expansion of existing projects and new growth projects; payments to suppliers for goods and services; indirect job creation and small-business development in surrounding communities and towns, upgrades to local infrastructure and financial support for community development. Our blog series on Education and Health, highlighted some of the projects we’re most proud of.
Improved transparency of the contributions mining companies make to economic development is in everyone’s best interest. If you want to learn more about our economic impact at the local, regional and national scale, please see the local economic impact section of our Sustainability report.
