A/HRC/45/12/Add.1 has a duty to ensure that Canadian businesses do not abuse the rights of victims in other countries, regardless of race, colour, nationality or other distinction.100 64. One global trend is the export of toxic impacts from wealthier countries like Canada with relatively stronger environmental health protections to poorer countries with lower standards of protection. Exporting hazardous substances and wastes from developed countries to developing countries is a form of international environmental discrimination.101 Through the action or inaction of the State and businesses, the rights of individuals and communities where such exposure takes place are not equally respected. Those most seriously affected are the poor, who often face inordinate challenges in obtaining recourse and pursuing protection.102 Stricter regulations and the cost of managing such wastes in the country that generated it being higher than in the importing countries is no excuse for placing the safety and health of the populations in the destination country at risk.103 65. Various extraterritorial impacts of Canadian businesses activities on human rights in the context of toxics were raised, in addition to the impacts of Canadian businesses in Canada discussed in other parts of this report. An evaluation of these cases suggests that Canada does not fully uphold its obligations concerning the extraterritorial impacts of Canadian businesses, embodied in part through the failure to implement sufficient measures to ensure accountability for these companies in a vast number of cases.104 Certain Canadian companies are implicated in the intentional release of toxic waste, tailings dam failures, in the start of activities without the meaningful participation, let alone the free, prior and informed consent, of indigenous peoples and in other conduct resulting in the exploitation and abuse of human rights of workers and local communities (see sect. V below). III. Rights to information, participation and free, prior and informed consent A. Rights to information and participation 66. The right to information is crucial for protecting the human rights of all people.105 Information must be available and accessible in an appropriate and usable form, including to those most vulnerable.106 67. Non-personal health and safety information should never be confidential.107 Various stakeholders, however, have reported the tendency for information to be withheld from the public to protect commercial interests. 108 For example, various interlocutors stressed that maintaining confidentiality of information in respect of the chemical properties and constituents of mixtures used in pesticide spraying hindered efforts to address the associated health and safety risks. 68. The legal framework should better empower the public to demand health- and safetyrelated information on hazardous substances from industry, and to ensure that such 100 101 102 103 104 105 106 107 108 14 Ibid. Rozelia S. Park, “An examination of international environmental racism through the lens of the transboundary movement of hazardous wastes”, Indiana Journal of Global Legal Studies, vol. 5, No. 2 (1998). E/CN.4/2004/46 and Corr.1. Laura A. Pratt, “Decreasing dirty dumping? A reevaluation of toxic waste colonialism and the global management of transboundary hazardous waste”, William and Mary Environmental Law and Policy Review, vol. 35, No. 2 (2011). E/CN.4/2003/56/Add.2, E/C.12/CAN/CO/6, A/HRC/38/48/Add.1, CERD/C/CAN/CO/19-20 and CRC/C/CAN/CO/3-4. A/74/480 and A/HRC/30/40. A/HRC/30/40. A/74/480 and A/HRC/30/40. www.canada.ca/content/dam/eccc/documents/pdf/pded/cbi-flowchart/Confidential-businessinformation-approach.pdf.