Modern Slavery Bill
Bill to Amend--Second Reading
March 30, 2021
Honourable senators, I was speaking about my visit in Bangladesh to the Rana Plaza.
As soon as I got out of the car, a crowd rushed me, holding photographs of young adults. I was horrified to learn that these were parents waiting for their children to be found. They came every morning but left every night empty-handed. As I looked at the collapsed building, it was clear there was nothing there but rubble after the monsoon rain. As a mother, I felt their pain deeply, and the absence of any sliver of hope was almost unbearable.
They sat there clutching pictures of their lost children, pleading for us to find them. Not only had they lost their children, but they could not truly grieve or complete their religious burial ceremonies.
Survivors, for their part, often live with debilitating conditions with no compensation or possibility of future employment, leaving some to resort to taking their own lives.
As previously mentioned, women are significantly overrepresented in modern slavery. They are traditionally restricted to low-paid positions because they are perceived as having very few skills and qualifications. Besides being subjected to the usual verbal and physical abuse, women report sexual violence as a normalized practice.
In addition to harassment, it is difficult for women of all ages to find job security. Older women or those having developed disabilities due to their work are targeted and inched out of the workplace through bullying, unachievable targets and wage deductions. Those of childbearing age are monitored and it is commonplace to be asked to undertake a pregnancy test on recruitment or randomly during employment. The expectation for workers to live on-site also forces many families to live separately, making unbearable living conditions even harsher, mentally.
The need to address the plethora of human rights violations to which vulnerable groups, especially women, are subjected during the production process of our goods is overdue. Bill S-216 focuses on the supply chain and enforces transparency with concrete penalties for companies that fail to comply. This means that corporations doing business in Canada will need to report on measures taken to prevent or reduce the use of forced labour or child labour at any step in the production of their goods, thus restricting worker exploitation by subcontractors.
This transparency is necessary in light of a recent investigation revealing that Canadian companies continue to import goods from Chinese factories accused of serious human rights abuses, especially toward Uighur workers. This includes, but is not limited to, The Brick, Danby, Costco, Best Buy and Home Depot. The latter has since cut ties with their supplier, but more must be done.
By targeting large businesses, this bill avoids burdening small- and medium-sized enterprises and smaller local shops. In addition, this bill would reinforce the amended customs tariff by prohibiting the entry of goods manufactured through forced labour and child labour.
According to the 2019 Canadian Consumer Insights Survey, a third of Canadian respondents are willing to pay a premium for non-food items that are either sustainably or ethically produced, and there is a growing demand for businesses to demonstrate product traceability and transparency. This is especially true with regard to Gen Z, who show a great interest in taking action on social and environmental issues through their purchases. Similarly, 86% of Canadian companies surveyed acknowledged that modern slavery in supply chains is a moderately or highly relevant issue.
Businesses who fail to comply with the obligations to publicly report or who knowingly make a false or misleading statement could be found guilty of a summary offence and a fine of up to $250,000. In addition, company directors or officers involved would be considered parties to the offence; hence, this bill holds people at the top accountable for their decisions.
Bill S-216 also includes some aspects that will require further review in committee: for example, the expansive authority provided to the Minister of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness, the broad search and seizure powers available to designated persons and the automatic liability of applicable persons. Consideration also needs to be given to the cost required to implement and enforce the modern slavery act, noting any legal repercussions associated with enforcing this act onto large corporations that might not welcome its passing.
Nevertheless, we must push forward in our united goal to eradicate modern slavery in Canada and abroad.
Some might find it difficult to believe that modern slavery occurs in our own backyard, one the freest countries in the world. The stereotype that modern slavery only occurs in impoverished or unjust, corrupt countries is simply not true. According to the 2016 Global Slavery Index, approximately 17,000 people are living in conditions of modern slavery within our own country. Those numbers cannot be ignored.
The modern slavery bill will ensure that Canadian companies prioritize ethical manufacturers in Canada and abroad rather than aim to cut costs by relying on forced and child labour.
In 2019, 43 victims of modern slavery were freed by the Ontario Provincial Police. They had been brought to Canada for a fee, with the promise of work visas and permanent residency status. Instead, they lived in squalid conditions with less than $50 a month while being transported daily to work at hotels and vacation properties in Ontario. One of the victims told an officer that “last night, I went to bed a slave. This morning, I woke up a free man.”
Unfortunately, these are not isolated cases, as the agriculture sector, construction, hospitality and domestic services are particularly high-risk areas for enslavement. For example, tens of thousands of migrant farm workers from the Caribbean, Mexico, Guatemala, the Philippines and Thailand work in Canadian fields without the possibility of applying for permanent residency, health care or basic labour rights. These farm workers must share cramped apartments with their colleagues and work seven days a week. It is preposterous that we protect ourselves during a worldwide pandemic while endangering vulnerable migrant workers.
The pandemic continues to shed light on many issues such as the provenance of essential products. Face masks have become a necessary accessory for Canadians, while global demand for personal protective equipment, or PPE, has surged. An investigation has shown that some of the life-saving equipment Canadian health-care workers are using appears to have been made in Malaysian factories where workers are grossly exploited. In 2020, Malaysian glove makers produced close to 220 billion gloves, representing about 70% of the world’s supply. In addition to working in unsafe conditions and living in unsanitary quarters, the company does not enforce its COVID-19 protocols.
COVID-19 does not discriminate, and nor should we.
This bill will ensure that Canada has the most effective and proactive legislation in the Commonwealth. The United Kingdom passed its own law on modern slavery in 2015, which lacks concrete penalties. The U.K. law allows companies to simply state that no efforts were made to combat forced labour in their yearly report and does not require companies to address the identified risks. Australia adopted a transparency law in 2018 that imposes obligations on corporations, the federal government and its agencies. In this case, a list of companies that failed to submit a report is published. This “name and shame” concept is a good start, but it does not enable an authoritative power to enforce compliance.
Increased transparency alone is unlikely to improve working conditions or address modern slavery. Empirical evidence suggests that the U.K.’s transparency regulation is too weak to bring the changes necessary to eradicate labour abuse in global supply chains and does more to serve large corporate interests than it does to protect vulnerable workers. For that reason, we need to take this legislation a step further.
As I conclude, I would like to remind you that this bill is about basic human rights and our obligation as parliamentarians to enforce them.
As Senator Miville-Dechêne has so aptly pointed out in the past, this bill transcends party lines and it is about our humanity. I support Bill S-216 because Canadians trust us to ensure important products are not sourced through the means of forced or child labour, and this bill will bring us closer to achieving that goal. I look forward to passing this bill to the appropriate committee for their detailed review. Thank you.
Honourable senators, I rise today to speak to Bill S-216, An Act to enact the Modern Slavery Act and to amend the Customs Tariff.
I would like to thank the Honourable Senator Julie Miville-Dechêne for sponsoring this important bill and remind you all that as Senator Miville-Dechêne mentioned several times, this bill is only a first step.
Honourable senators, in my speech I’m first going to talk about the conditions of child factory labourers, particularly in Bangladesh and around the world, as well as remind us all of the conditions at home — namely, the squalid lived realities which continue to be endured by temporary foreign workers.
In 2013, I arrived in Bangladesh when the Rana Plaza building had just collapsed: 1,400 people had been killed, and 2,500 people were injured. I will never forget the scene outside the Rana Plaza. Injured people were sitting all over, parents were looking for their children, and there were no answers. No one was reaching out to help them.
That is when I met Bithi, a 15-year-old girl who, with all that was happening, was forced to go to work in a building that I was sure would collapse any day as well.
I went into that building and I saw that the exit doors were locked — they actually had big locks that couldn’t be opened from inside. I was flabbergasted that, after just seeing a building next door collapse, the exit doors to this building were also locked.
When thinking about the importance of this bill, my mind went back to Bithi’s heartbreaking story.
Bithi worked with thousands of Bangladeshi children piecing together designer jeans destined for stores in Canada and other high-income countries. She told me she remembered her first day at work at a garment factory three years ago when she was just 12, “The first day I felt bad. I thought it wasn’t good. That first day I cried,” she remembered.
Bithi once had a dream of going to school and becoming a doctor, and she admits:
When I see other girls in their blue and white checkered school uniforms, my heart breaks. But now I just dream of standing on my own feet and not getting injured.
Bithi worked in terrible circumstances so we here in Canada could continue to buy clothing at a cheaper price. We benefit at the cost of Bithi’s and so many others’ basic human rights.
In 2014, more than 406 companies imported textile and apparel goods, similar to the product Bithi works on, into Canada. Desperate girls like Bithi are pushed to work agonizingly long hours, day in and day out, for very low wages. Many workers are brought into these industries under false promises of earning decent wages, meals, training and schooling. Instead, factory owners in many places fire pregnant workers or deny maternity leave, retaliate against workers who join or form unions, force workers to do overtime work or risk losing their job, and turn a blind eye when male managers or workers sexually harass them.
The International Labour Organization estimates that there are over 150 million child labourers globally and 25 million victims of forced labour worldwide. Women and girls make up 71% of victims. A study released by World Vision stated that 1,200 companies in Canada imported goods at risk of being produced by child labour and forced labour.
In 2018, the Subcommittee on International Human Rights of the House of Commons Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs and International Development undertook a study on child labour in supply chains, and it stated:
Virtually no progress was made globally between 2012 and 2016 to end child labour . . . . Furthermore, there has been no change in the number of children subject to forms of modern slavery.
These children are not only missing out on education, reaching their potential and enjoying their childhood, they are being enslaved and mistreated, and many are working in hazardous and unhealthy conditions so they can provide necessities such as food for their families.
Honourable senators, I urge us all to challenge our own buying practices and the products we use, the products we wear and the products we consume every day. We should ask ourselves how many of these products were produced by child labour.
The proposed modern slavery bill tackles the issues of child labour and forced labour with the aim of ending such practices. It requires large Canadian companies to ensure their supply chains are transparent and don’t rely on child labour or any other form of exploitation. It also imposes an obligation on companies to report on measures taken to prevent child and forced labour. I am very glad that it also proposes amendments to the Customs Tariff to ban goods manufactured or produced by child labour or forced labour.
I strongly believe that this bill is an important first step in realizing much-needed improvement in workers’ and children’s rights. However, senators, you don’t have to go far from my house to see what is happening here in our own country. I was amazed that suddenly we all started to value temporary foreign workers when the pandemic hit us, because the worry was about who would pick up our fruit or tend to our farms. All along, for the past 20 years I have spent working with these workers, I have seen nothing but neglect of them.
In 2017, we endorsed the U.K.’s Call to Action to End Forced Labour, Modern Slavery and Human Trafficking. In 2018, we endorsed the G20 strategy to eradicate child labour, forced labour, human trafficking and modern slavery in the world of work. Further, as part of Canada’s G7 Presidency, we made similar commitments.
Many countries have advanced legislation like that of the U.K., including the Netherlands and France, among others. It’s high time for Canada to follow suit.
In 2015, when I was chair of the Standing Senate Committee on Human Rights, which investigated the garment industry and corporate social responsibility in Bangladesh, we heard from witnesses and experts over several meetings. What they said then is still true today. The testimony of witnesses from both the Canadian government and civil society organizations led us to the conclusion that, while the Canadian government and Canadian companies have taken a number of measures to address the rights of garment workers, we still have a long way to go. Child and forced labour are ongoing and it is our duty to take measures to stop them, especially when a growing number of Canadians are raising their voices in condemnation of such practices.
Honourable senators, when speaking on Bill S-216, we cannot only point our lenses of critique outward; rather, it is imperative that we look at the vicious and inhumane practices of exploitation in our own backyard. Canada often receives praise for its human rights record and treatment of people. It is easy to forget that not all have access to this aspirational ideal. I know this bill is about the rights of child workers, but we cannot forget about the rights of workers in our own backyard.
Honourable senators, in 2017, Canada had an estimated 550,000 temporary foreign workers. It is inconceivable that Canada can justify upholding a system that devalues human lives in the interest of Canadians having fresh food on their tables.
Honourable senators, for countless years, temporary foreign workers have sustained our country’s farms. These workers are brought to Canada to help us cultivate our food. Indeed, much of the fresh food on the tables of Canadians from coast to coast to coast is cultivated by the hard labour of temporary foreign workers, mainly from Mexico and Thailand.
When we consider whether to pass Bill S-216, it is important for us to think of the rights removed from 12-year-old Bithi and the abhorrent conditions endured by the people in Canada whose work directly and profoundly benefits our lives and the lives of our families.
Honourable senators, let me describe to you the plight of temporary foreign workers. They come to our country mainly for harvesting season, and at its end most of them have to return home. While in Canada, workers are forced to live in substandard living environments and lack access to proper sanitation and hygiene necessities. Their rooms are overcrowded, forcing workers to be double-bunked. In the midst of these inadequacies, workers are forced to be alone, far away from their families and loved ones. Their families are not allowed to join them.
Due to this inadequate access to basic health and housing services, when they do inevitably become ill and require medical assistance, far too often temporary foreign workers are once again left alone to suffer in silence amidst a shameful national apathy for their suffering. At the termination of the year’s harvesting season, workers are forced to return to their homes. However, due to the ongoing pandemic, many workers have been unable to leave or return to their homes. This year, when workers did eventually return to their homes, many Canadians realized — some for the first time — that because of their hard labour in the midst of living in such terrible conditions, we are blessed with fresh food on our table.
Honourable senators, you will hear again from me about the plight of temporary foreign workers, but today I want to say to you that while we criticize other countries for the plight of their workers, especially the mistreatment of child workers, we too bring workers from other countries to our country and do not treat them well. Clearly, as Canadians, we need to make it known to our government that these practices are unacceptable.
Passing Bill S-216 is the first step in trying to correct these unacceptable conditions of existence endured by millions of people both abroad and in our own backyard. We can demonstrate our commitment to do so by supporting the bill’s main initiative of protecting the rights of workers of all ages, including children, and ending forced labour around the world.
Moving forward, we know that there is still much work to be done. Honourable senators, I ask you to support this bill. As Senator Miville-Dechêne has said many times in her speech, this is the first step. Senators, let us now take the first step. Thank you very much.
Are senators ready for the question?
Is it your pleasure, honourable senators, to adopt the motion?
Hon. Senators: Agreed.
(Motion agreed to and bill read second time.)
