In the past, while NGOs were bound by financial ties to the state, they still had some nominal autonomy to bear witness to that abuse. Now, they are increasingly tied to government funds earmarked to further Canada’s mining interests, topped up by money from the mining industry itself.I am on mailing lists of people who are tracking the activities of mining companies in Central America, and I receive almost daily horrific reports of massacres of indigenous people and other atrocities committed by US trained government police and armies in Central America and environmental pollution caused by mining companies. Such stories rarely make it into mainstream media.
Of course, there is nothing unique about Canadian NGOs. This same applies to US NGOs.