Canada is seeking the opinion of stakeholders in the mining, oil and gas industries, on a plan to implement new mandatory reporting standards for government payments, according to John Boscariol and Robert Glasgow of McCarthy Tetrault. “The government has noted that the purpose of these new standards are to improve transparency within the industry and to move Canada into alignment with the EU Transparency Directive and the U.S. Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act,” explain the authors.
The comment period is open until May 9 and until then, companies can submit thoughts on the plan to the Treasury Board Secretariat’s Open Government portal, note Boscariol and Glasgow. Alternatively, they say the government is also open to meeting with industry members to directly discuss concerns, and they emphasize that “this is an important stage for industry involvement as it represents the best opportunity for companies to have an impact on the development of the standards prior to enactment.” The regime is expected to be introduced in September, with the goal of being enacted as legislation by April 1, 2015, say the authors.
