June 11, 2026
Canada eliminated the office that was supposed to hear them.
A 187-page complaint from Namibian communities was one of at least 36 sitting with Canada’s human rights watchdog. The people who filed were never told it was over. They found out from the news.
On June 11, 2026, the Prime Minister said the Canadian Ombudsperson for Responsible Enterprise would be “eliminated.” He said the office had not been effective.
It was not effective because it was built not to be. The office was promised in 2018 with the power to compel witnesses and documents. By the time it opened, those powers were gone — stripped after the mining industry lobbied against them. A detective who has to ask the accused to hand over the murder weapon. In 2025 a Federal Court confirmed in law what the industry had asked for: CORE’s findings “cannot legally affect anyone.”
At least 36 complaints were sitting with the office when it was abolished. One of them is a 187-page complaint filed on April 9, 2024 by the University of Toronto’s International Human Rights Program, on behalf of Kavango communities in Namibia harmed by the Calgary oil company ReconAfrica. The people who gave testimony named themselves at real risk. They were told the process would protect them. They were warned not to talk to the press while it was underway.
Nobody wrote to tell them the office was being closed. They found out the same way everyone else did.
Read the full story — Rob Parker, “Canada, Come Get Your People”, in the Halifax Examiner.
“The idea that some lives matter less is the root of all that is wrong with the world.”
Paul Farmer
From the affidavits
Community members came forward.
They named themselves at personal risk, gave testimony to lawyers, and submitted to a formal process they were told would protect them. This is what they built — the complaint Canada has now abandoned.
All excerpts from the 187-page CORE complaint filed by the University of Toronto International Human Rights Program on behalf of Kavango communities, April 9, 2024.
The local door
I asked my MP for a year.
I am a constituent in South Shore–St. Margarets. In the summer of 2024 I began calling MP Jessica Fancy’s office about the complaint sitting unanswered at CORE. I spoke to multiple staffers. Each agreed the concern was valid. Nothing happened. I sent emails. I followed up by phone. I followed up the follow-ups.
On March 9, 2025, I went to her public meeting, “Java with Jess,” in person. She told me she was familiar with the issue. She said she knew Justice Minister Sean Fraser and Trade Minister Maninder Sidhu, on a first-name basis. She committed to writing to both ministers. We agreed I would follow up in two weeks.
I sent the agreed follow-up on March 23. No reply. I sent another on April 7. On April 8, her office replied. The full text:
“Good day, Thank you for contacting Jessica Fancy’s office… At this time, we have not yet received a response from the relevant ministries regarding your inquiry. Please rest assured that we are continuing to monitor the situation and will share any information with you as soon as it becomes available… Thank you for your continued patience, and we will be in touch as soon as we have an update.”
That “monitoring the situation” note stands as the sum total of the MP’s response since I began contacting the office. It named no minister. It confirmed no letter had been sent. It gave no date.
Two days after the Prime Minister announced he was eliminating the watchdog, MP Fancy used Question Period to ask how the government would staff the 250,000 mining jobs expected over the next decade. “Canada’s mining sector is digging up opportunity,” she posted. I asked her for a year to help locate a stalled complaint about a Canadian mining company, and was told she was monitoring the situation. When it came to the industry, the toolbox came out.
When a staffer explained that giving CORE the power to compel documents would take an Act of Parliament, I proposed exactly that on June 9 — a private member’s bill. On June 16 the office explained why it couldn’t be done: a waiting list, 197th in line, private members’ bills can’t authorize spending. Five days after the Prime Minister announced the office was being abolished, the same office advised me to be patient and wait for the review that would decide its future — and to refile, in the meantime, with the National Contact Point.
Because the office would not tell me whether my file had ever been forwarded, I filed a Privacy Act request with Global Affairs Canada. The answer came back on June 18, 2026, file P-2026-00229: “a thorough search through our files yielded no records relevant to your request.” The office had told me it reached out to one ministry. The ministry has no record of it.
The Record
Nine documented episodes: Canadian government correspondence, company filings, court records, and field evidence from the Kavango. Every claim on this site has a paper trail. If you want to dig in, it’s here.
- 01The Liberal Party pulled its teeth. Communities were promised a watchdog with subpoena power. The mining lobby made 530 visits.→
- 02A $1.2 million payment the transparency law never heard about. ReconAfrica paid the Prime Minister’s Office N$15 million. ESTMA never recorded it.→
- 03Canada chose a side. While communities documented abuses, Global Affairs coordinated with the company — and copied it on Canada’s response to the UN.→
- 04The pattern. Guatemala, 2009. Same network, same playbook, no remedy.→
- 05The verdict. A Federal Court confirmed CORE’s findings cannot legally affect anyone.→
- 06Civil society capture. At the top of Namibia’s environmental sector, Canada has a friend funded by extractive capital.→
- 07They followed every rule. A 187-page complaint, sworn at personal risk — then abandoned.→
- 08120 billion barrels of fairy tales. The discovery that wasn’t, the insiders who sold, the pits they never lined.→
- 09Door after door. The consulate in 2022, the MP in 2024. The same silence.→
What you can do
Read it. Share it.
Make it un-ignorable.
The office is gone and the people who filed were never told. The record is now public — the most useful thing you can do is make sure it is seen.
“Canada, Come Get Your People”
Rob Parker’s account of the Kavango communities, the complaint, and the watchdog Canada abolished — published in the Halifax Examiner.
Read in the Halifax Examiner →Then share it — the buttons below post the story and this record. Patterns only become undeniable when enough people have seen them.
In the press
National Geographic, Test drilling poses toxic risk · The Guardian, New oilfield threatens 130,000 elephants · The Globe and Mail, Inside ReconAfrica’s stock promotion campaign · Rolling Stone, Will an oil racket destroy one of Africa’s most sacred places? · Canada’s National Observer, Complaints are piling up. There’s nobody to hear them. · Halifax Examiner, A Calgary company is drilling in the world’s largest protected reserve · Rob Parker’s research blog, Saving Okavango’s Unique Life