Parliament passed a bill this week creating reporting requirements for companies on the issue of products made by slave labour. Proponents recognize it as only a first step to address the problem, while critics call it widely ineffectual.
Bill S-211, an Act to enact the Fighting Against Forced Labour and Child Labour in Supply Chains Act and to amend the Customs Tariff, cleared the Commons on May 3 and will now receive royal assent and become law.
Bloc Québécois and NDP MPs voted against the bill sponsored by Sen. Julie Miville-Dechêne in the Upper Chamber and Liberal MP John McKay in the House.
“I’m very pleased to say that it was a very, very strong vote. And now the real work begins,” said McKay in a press conference on May 4 in Ottawa.
McKay said he completed a “four-year journey” to get this passed, with previous efforts falling short.
“We want a bill that works. We want a bill that compels Canadian companies to expeditiously complete their obligations under the bill and to build, if you will, a database so that we can expunge this scourge from our economic life.”
McKay had encouraged his colleague MPs to vote on the bill during Third Reading debate on April 26 and noted that financial penalties are accompanied with the failure to comply, which can carry a fine of up to $250,000.
The bill creates requirements for government institutions and private companies to produce annual reports to the minister of public safety and emergency preparedness on steps taken to prevent and reduce the risk of forced or child labour being used in the supply chain.
Companies encompassed by the legislation must do business in Canada, be listed on the stock exchange in Canada, and meet two conditions of having at least $20 million in assets, generate at least $40 million in revenue, or employ at least 250 employees.
NDP MP Heather McPherson, her party’s foreign affairs critic, criticized the legislation as doing “nothing to fight forced labour and child labour in Canadian supply chains.”
“The NDP continue to push for mandatory due diligence legislation to ensure that [Canadian] companies don’t contribute to human rights abuses,” she wrote on Twitter on the day of the vote.
Mehmet Tothi, executive director of the Uyghur Rights Advocacy Project, has also been vocal against the bill. The Uyghurs, a Turkic Muslim minority in China, are reported to work under slave labour conditions in industries such as hair products and tomatoes.
“S-211 is the pretence of pretending of doing something without doing nothing as this bill mandates only a reporting obligation to the companies if they exercise due diligence on Uyghur forced labour,” he previously told The Epoch Times.
Canada has yet to stop a single shipment of goods made from slave labour, whereas the U.S. has stopped over 3,000, with over 400 being denied entry.
Under the renegotiated free trade agreement with the U.S. and Mexico, parties have a duty to eliminate all forms of forced labour and prevent the importation of products sourced from such labour.