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The timing and optics are dreadfully ironic: just hours before the February unveiling of Transparency International’s annual corruptions perceptions index, U.S. President Donald Trump signed an executive order pausing enforcement of the U.S. Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA).

Say the word “corruption” and what may spring to mind is a low-paid foreign police officer making a traffic ticket go away in exchange for cash.

In reality, legislation such as the FCPA targets large-scale corruption, the impact of which is much more insidious, particularly in getting illegally extracted natural resources in the form of wildlife, timber, fish and minerals into legitimate markets.

This fraud robs local communities of sustainable livelihoods, exacerbates poverty, concentrates illicit wealth in the hands of corrupt actors and contributes to biodiversity loss and climate change. It also creates a tilted playing field against law-abiding Canadian businesses, impacting well-paying jobs here.

“Against a backdrop of record-breaking global warming and extreme weather events, erosion of democracy and a decline in global climate leadership, the world has its back against the ropes in its fight against the climate crisis,” says the report from Transparency International, an independent, non-governmental, not-for-profit fighting to end corruption.

“Corruption is making that fight much harder, and the international community must address the link between corruption and the climate crisis.”

Canada has an opportunity to exert influence not only through its roles in the UN, OECD, G7/G20 and other international bodies. But it can also have a practical impact by realigning capacity-building assistance, as well as sharing its policy and technical expertise, to counter both corruption and environmental crime globally.

Corruption preys on people and economies

What happens when people cannot survive because their resources are stolen or their lands and waters poisoned? They become economic refugees legally or illegally migrating to more affluent countries in search of opportunity.

But these events can also radicalize the victims along ethnic or religious lines, cause them to become entangled with organized crime or contribute to the financing of terrorism. The victims may get into making drugs, poaching rare species or mining valuable minerals illegally to smuggle abroad.

Bribery corrodes institutions, undermines economies and devastates democratic norms at all levels. The U.S. law and its Canadian equivalent, the Corruption of Foreign Public Officials Act, reflect commitments under the OECD anti-bribery convention and the UN Convention Against Corruption.

Legislation in signatory countries makes it a crime for people and companies to slip money or favours to public officials to gain access to things such as natural resources.

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The U.S. has traditionally taken a leadership role in countering international environmental crime and corruption, including funding a global wildlife whistleblower program.

However, the pause in enforcement announced in Trump’s executive order – along with the suspension of most U.S. overseas assistance, including for conservation and anti-green crime initiatives – leaves a potential vacuum with economic, environmental and security consequences for Canada and other countries.

While violations of environmental laws are often local in scope, their cumulative impacts are global. Think of clear-cutting a forest without having the proper permits, illegally obtaining fishing quotas to the detriment of local populations or fraudulently claiming carbon-offset credits.

In all of these a middleman facilitates the crime – often a corrupt regulatory official paid to look the other way or to sign a document declaring that something illegal is legal. A payment to grease the wheels by a small company or a multinational corporation may be seen as a one-off local issue but the effects can snowball quickly.

Canada can do more

For example, land-use change, principally deforestation, is responsible for 12-20 per cent of greenhouse gas emissions globally. It also removes trees and plants, which soak up and sequester carbon.

While we think of Canada as a wood exporter, recent World Bank data shows this country is the fourth largest importer of wood products, worth $54 billion in 2022. It is estimated that 10-12 per cent of wood imports are at high risk of being of corrupt origin. This pits well-regulated Canadian forestry jobs against unfair competition.

Another example of the problem occurred in 2022 when a high-ranking Cambodian official was arrested while changing planes in the U.S. on his way, ironically, to the Convention on the International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES) Conference of the Parties in Panama.

He was said to be involved in a corrupt scheme to allow illegally wild-caught macaques into the legal production chain by falsifying their origin as captive-bred, then exporting them to the U.S. The official was eventually found not guilty. However, doubts as to the integrity of the Cambodian macaques supply remain. The CITES Secretariat recommends against procuring these animals from that country.

Canada saw an increase of 63 per cent in the import of macaque between 2022-23. Canadian authorities monitor import documents for domestic regulatory compliance, but there are no verifications under current frameworks for corruption in the supply chain.

Similarly, illegal fishing and mining, as well as poorly regulated oil and gas production in countries with rampant corruption, undercut our domestic producers while destroying the ecosystems upon which vulnerable populations in those countries often depend.

Canada is in a strong position to influence the global fight against environmental corruption and must step up. With a relatively strong integrity score – it recently ranked 15th out of 180 countries on Transparency International’s corruption perceptions index – Canada has built up strong expertise at home both in investigating environmental crimes and in fighting corruption.

Canada spends less than one per cent of its GDP on global assistance, but it is a global influencer in the field.

In fiscal 2022-23, the federal government spent $729 million on foreign government and civil-society assistance. However, only about one per cent, or $7.4 million, of that went directly to anti-corruption efforts despite the real threats this poses to our economy and security.

While $249 million went to international general environmental protection, such as promoting science, biodiversity and protected areas, it appears that none went to countering the green crime and corruption that undermine the integrity of these important investments. That is not a good risk management strategy.

With the U.S. reevaluating its foreign-aid strategy, Canada has the opportunity to have its voice – and values – heard even more loudly than before.

Environmental crime is enabled by, and benefits from, bribery and fraudulent activity. Our country is negatively impacted when corruption happens both within and beyond our borders.

It undercuts the many efforts ordinary Canadians are making to be good environmental stewards and hurts the competitiveness of our industries in global markets. Not only is taking on corruption good for the global environment, it is good for our security and our economy.