An investment newsletter offers the advice that there are still vast profits
to be made from extraction investment in the Toronto Stock Exchange "because
more and more mining companies are heading to Canada."

Five Roman Catholic bishops from dioceses in the Philippines have also
noticed that mining has become the doyen of Canada's international
businesses. But the bishops are not as interested in an investor's ability
to turn a quick profit on the TSX. They are more concerned with the lives of
the people who live in their dioceses.

In virtually every instance, the people who live close to mining operations
are poor. And the social argument for the industry is that the trickle-down
rewards from the mine's profits will bring some economic relief to the
people who live nearby. No one doubts this can be true. The trouble is there
are still too many cases where local people suffer the effects of
environmental degradation and strong-armed mining operation security,
accompanied only by the rapid exodus of profits out of the country. In
short, the poor of a mining region can often end up still poor but living in
a destroyed environment.

In this case, the Philippine bishops are hoping to find support in Canada
because a large-scale mining operation in Mindanao, Philippines, involving a
Canadian company, the Calgary-based Toronto Ventures Inc., hasn't convinced
them that it will bring their parishioners anything but trouble. The mine in
question is a gold mine.

The bishops say the company's operations "are wrecking havoc upon our land
and people." They do not believe the company's promises of local economic
development and they ask that Canadians reconsider investing in Canadian
mining companies operating in their country.

Typically, the response to the bishops and other like clerics who have
sounded the alarm over Canadian mining activities has been that these church
people are for the most part "luddites." That word, by the way, is a direct
quote this newspaper was once told by a former ranking Canadian diplomat
posted to a country where a large Canadian-owned gold mine was attracting a
lot of criticism.

But more recently there has been an attempt by the Canadian extraction
industry and NGOs to reach guidelines that create a framework for corporate
responsibility in their activities outside of Canada. We've been told that
several federal departments-and the government itself-were actually
surprised that a consensus could be reached on this contentious issue. But
it should come as no surprise that the remote foreign operations of major
corporations no longer take place in obscurity. Global scrutiny has grown up
beside globalism like a conscience whose voice, while growing louder, is
also making some very practical appeals. And national governments, when they
are inclined to some kind of progress, are also making a difference.

This is the case of Norway's admirable investment fund: companies that
contribute to social evils (say, by producing nuclear weapons and cluster
bombs or marketing goods created by child labour) will lose investment
money, while those that are willing to place the common good beside the
bottom line will prosper. In the case of Norway, this means that companies
like General Dynamics, Northrop Grumman and Wal-Mart saw their shares dumped
by the country's $309-billion investment fund.

Canada's mining industry is increasingly becoming one of the world's big
extraction players. But to the credit of both the industry and its
increasingly sophisticated watchdogs, it has reached a consensus on good
mining practices.

Now is the time for Canada's government to step up to the table by
formalizing the kind of mining guidelines that could make Canada's mining
industry true world leaders. And, to answer the bishops' plea, to place
those guidelines alongside the Canadian gold mine in Mindanao.