A usually sedate parliamentary hearing room was jolted with stories of alleged gang rape as MPs heard testimony about the operation of a Canadian-controlled gold mine in the South Pacific. "Numerous accounts of rapes show a similar pattern," testified lawyer Sarah Knuckey, who was recounting information gathered at the Porgera Joint Venture (PJV) mine in Papua New Guinea, partly owned by Toronto-based Barrick Gold... [The] Commons foreign affairs committee [was] examining a proposal to toughen scrutiny of the operations of Canadian mining and resource companies overseas... Responding to the testimony at the committee, Barrick spokesman Vince Borg flatly denied the allegations and said such actions would have been the subject of a full investigation by Barrick and its subsidiary in Papua New Guinea.