Americas Policy Group condemns Carney government elimination of Canadian Ombudsperson for Responsible Enterprise (CORE)
July 6, 2026
The Americas Policy Group (APG-GOPA) joins the Canadian Network for Corporate Accountability (CNCA) in denouncing the Canadian Government’s recent decision to eliminate the Office of the Canadian Ombudsperson for Responsible Enterprise (CORE).
The APG-GOPA is a national network of Canadian civil society organizations working for human rights and social and environmental justice in Latin America and the Caribbean. We are over twenty international development and humanitarian NGOs, human rights organizations, labour unions, faith-based and solidarity groups, and research institutions. For decades, our network, members, and partners across the Americas have been advocating for a human right-centred Canadian foreign policy and demanding corporate accountability and justice for individuals and communities impacted by serious human rights abuses by Canadian companies and other parties.
Established in 2019 following numerous protests against Canadian corporations in the global South, CORE was one of the few avenues of recourse for communities facing human rights abuses by Canadian corporations operating abroad. Carney’s elimination of the institution enables mining, sweatshop, and oil and gas companies to act with impunity in countries with weak legal protections, and deeply undermines Canada’s international image.
We strongly condemn the decision to eliminate CORE, the lack of transparency, and the cruel indifference to human life that this decision reflects. We are appalled by the Government of Canada’s apparent abandonment of its international human rights obligations and of the basic human rights principles that it has long claimed to uphold.
We join the CNCA in demanding that the Government reinstate the office of the CORE with the necessary powers to conduct thorough investigations and provide a pathway to remedy.
Lisa Kowalchuk Deanna Fasciani
Co-chairs of the Americas Policy Group,
on behalf of the 22 organizational members of the Americas Policy Group
The CNCA just launched a new grassroots action: email Prime Minister Carney, key ministers, and your local MP telling the government to empower the CORE -- not eliminate it. Find the action here: https://cnca-rcrce.ca/take-action/.
Read the CNCA’s statements here
Watch the Press conference here: