LONDON — The Canadian government announced new measures Wednesday that will force oil, gas, and mining companies to publicly disclose every penny they pay to any government at home or around the world.

Whether it's a First Nations band council in Northern Canada or a national government in Latin America, Canadian resource firms are going to have to publish what they pay.

The move is seen as an anti-corruption measure and one that many activist groups working in the developing world, such as Oxfam, have been demanding for years, particularly since Canada is home to a majority of the world’s mining companies.

"With 70% of the world's mining companies listed in Canada, and 70% of the world's free-enterprise oil located in Canada, our participation will help transform the way industry reports payments worldwide," Prime Minister Stephen Harper said here as he began his eight-day swing through Europe, which will end with annual G8 summit in Northern Ireland where transparency and taxation are this year's major themes.

"This has long been a priority for Canada. We put great emphasis in Canada on corporate social responsibility and through our various foreign-aid programs, we have assisted transparency in the extractive sector around the world," Harper said.

The London-based International Council on Mining Metals, which represents 22 of the world's biggest mining companies like Barrick Gold, Goldcorp, Vale and Teck, welcomed the move.

"My sense is that the leadership [resource] companies are very anxious to put this out there. It's to their advantage," ICMM president Tony Hodge said.

The European Union and the United States have already moved towards mandatory reporting requirements for their mining companies.

There have been cases in some developing countries where multinationals pay a host government substantial sums for the rights to oil, gas or minerals, but the local population complains that they do not know how much their governments are getting and, as a result, cannot demand their governments spend some of that wealth on them.

In Canada, too, some residents of some First Nations communities have complained that they are unable to learn how much a deal struck between a mining or oil and gas company and their band council is worth to the community.

"There are issues inside of Canada that of real concern on this," said ICMM's Hodge, a Canadian.

Canadian officials said the new reporting regime would likely be phased in over the next two years after consultations with First Nations and provincial governments.

Oxfam said Wednesday it welcomed the announcement and encouraged the feds to work quickly with the provinces to ensure information is “readily available to citizens in Africa, Latin America and Asia.”