The Canadian Democracy and Corporate Accountability Commission issued a call today for Canadian governments and corporations to adopt measures to expand corporate accountability.

The commission’s report, The New Balance Sheet: Corporate Profits and Responsibility in the 21st Century, outlines 24 recommendations to significantly broaden the concept of corporate accountability, which has traditionally been confined to how well company directors deliver profits.

In the corporate sector, the commission recommended that all stock exchanges require companies to disclose their corporate social responsibility policies and describe the extent to which they conform to Corporate Social Responsibility Guidelines. Large private companies and managers of pension funds, including the Canada Pension Plan, should also make this information available, the Commission said.

If implemented the Commission’s recommendations would also: amend corporate laws, which company directors often interpret as preventing them from considering social impacts, to clarify that such considerations can be part of business decisions; establish a set of social responsibility guidelines to be used by corporations and governments in establishing a core set of standards; encourage improved human rights and environmental records through decisions by the federal government to restrict business to companies who adhere to basic social responsibility and environmental standards; prohibit donations by corporations or unions to political parties and candidates.

Commission co-chairs, McClelland and Stewart chair Avie Bennett and former NDP leader Ed Broadbent, said their recommendations would help “bridge the gap” in the divisive debate on corporate influence and create a climate in which Canadian corporations could increase long-term financial success in a way consistent with certain values important to Canadians.

“Canadians want a new balance sheet that factors in the social impact of corporate decisions,” said Bennett. “Our recommendations deliver practical answers for a new system of corporate accountability in the 21st century.”

The commission’s report follows a year long investigation of corporate accountability in Canada. Hundreds of organizations, corporations and individuals made submissions, met with and sent comments to the commission during a series of seven hearings across Canada.