and other offences to be stripped of Canadian citizenship. In July, Canadian citizen Omar Khadr received compensation and an apology for the role of Canadian officials in violations against him at the US detention facility at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, for 10 years from 2002. In September, revised guidelines strengthened safeguards against complicity in torture in intelligence sharing with other governments, but failed to absolutely prohibit the use of information obtained through torture by other governments. JUSTICE SYSTEM In June, federal legislation was tabled proposing to establish a 20-day limit on solitary confinement, to be reduced to 15 days once the law has been in force for 18 months. The draft law did not prohibit holding people suffering from mental illness in solitary confinement. A court ruling in December declared existing solitary confinement provisions to be unconstitutional because of inadequate safeguards and provided the government with one year to adopt new standards. In October the Journalistic Source Protection Act was passed, establishing a “shield law” to protect journalists and their sources. REFUGEES’ AND MIGRANTS’ RIGHTS More than 18,000 asylum-seekers irregularly crossed from the USA into Canada during the year, as conditions for refugees and migrants in the USA deteriorated. Asylum-seekers crossed irregularly to avoid the ban on making claims at official border posts, pursuant to the 2004 Canada-US Safe Third Country Agreement. A legal challenge to the Agreement was launched jointly by civil society groups and individual asylum-seekers in July. In August, the CERD Committee pressed Canada to set a maximum time frame for immigration detention, end the immigration detention of minors and provide access to essential health care for all people in Canada, Amnesty International Report 2017/18 regardless of immigration status. New guidelines released in November required that minors only be held in immigration detention in “extremely limited circumstances”. Annual government refugee resettlement targets declined to pre-2016 levels of 7,500, following an increase to 25,000 in 2016 as part of the government’s Syrian refugee resettlement programme. CORPORATE ACCOUNTABILITY The British Columbia Conservation Officer Service concluded its investigation into the 2014 Mount Polley Mining Corporation (MPMC) tailings pond collapse, without bringing charges. A federal level investigation for violations of the Fisheries Act was ongoing. In April, against the wishes of Indigenous and other communities, British Columbia authorities approved MPMC’s plan to discharge mine waste water that does not meet provincial drinking water guidelines into Quesnel Lake. In June the UN Working Group on Business and Human Rights supported British Columbia Auditor General’s recommendation to establish a compliance and enforcement unit independent of the Ministry of Energy and Mines. In August, a private prosecution was filed against MPMC. Also in August, the CERD Committee called on Canada to report within one year on action to address the 2014 disaster. In January the British Columbia Court of Appeal ruled that a lawsuit against Tahoe Resources regarding the shooting of protesters outside its mine in Guatemala could be heard in Canada. In November the Court upheld a lower court ruling that a lawsuit against Nevsun Resources for complicity in forced labour at its mine in Eritrea could proceed. In December, the government announced plans to establish, in early 2018, a human rights Ombudsperson for Canadian extractives companies operating abroad. Negotiations to revise the North American Free Trade Agreement between Canada, Mexico and the USA, including Canadian 117