SoVote

Context: House Hansard - 170 - Mar/21/23

Mr. Arnold Viersen (Peace River—Westlock, CPC)

Mar/21/23 12:27:42 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I want to question the member opposite about Canada's record when it comes to fighting foreign human trafficking and modern-day slavery. The United States seized 2,398 shipments suspected to be tied to forced labour and modern-day slavery, and Canada seized only one in that same amount of time. After it was contested, it let the shipment go through. Does the member think that Canada is doing a good job of stopping forced labour coming through our border?

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Mr. Kevin Lamoureux

Mar/21/23 12:28:21 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I think we have to compare apples to apples. The United States has a very different situation with human trafficking than Canada. We both have an issue in dealing with it and responsibilities. I do not necessarily know all the details the member is making reference to. I suspect that he might be comparing apples to oranges.

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Mr. Tom Kmiec (Calgary Shepard, CPC)

Mar/21/23 12:28:49 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I do intend to split my time, but I just cannot quite notice the member I intend to split my time with, so when I get there and see the member, I will name his riding. It is possibly in the Wellington region. I am glad to be joining this debate, because this is, for me, about the accountability of the government on the enforcement portion of passing legislation, regulations, rules and advisories that come from the work we do here, so it is about holding the government to account. Part of holding the government to account is doing the work the member for Dufferin—Caledon did. He believed the government was not doing enough to prevent goods made with forced labour from coming into our country, so we asked ourselves questions. In this House, we have the option to ask an oral question during question period, or we can write a written question and then submit it to the government to respond to, and that is exactly what the member did. They are called Order Paper questions. They are written questions. One was Question No. 1112, which basically asked the government the very simple question of how many goods made with Uighur forced labour coming from the Xinjiang province were seized at the border since 2016 by the Canada Border Services Agency or the RCMP, and the answer was a big fat zero, nothing. The government had stopped one, but as the member before me from Peace River—Westlock commented on, it was then released. In the same time, the United States government seized over 2,300 shipments of goods at the border, because that government was directed by the U.S. Congress to four specific areas that the Department of Homeland Security was told to watch for. It is on their website. Members can go on the website. In fact, the member for Dufferin—Caledon has repeatedly stated in the House that he has that list. I looked it up and I have the list, too. We would be happy to provide the government with the list, and then the Liberals could use it. This is great. This would be bipartisan co-operation. We are trying to help the government do its job. The Liberals could just come over to this side, and we would give them the list. There is even something called “electronic mail”. I do not know if members have heard of this. We could send them the email list and they could actually use it and adopt it. The four areas the Department of Homeland Security said were of special concern were apparel, cotton, tomatoes and polysilicon. Based on those four categories or sectors they are especially concerned with, they have seized thousands of shipments of goods that were found to be using Xinjiang as the source region and Uighur forced labour. Uighur forced labour has gone up in its use in the People's Republic of China since 2017. Those labour camps were established in 2017. There is a generalized acceptance that this is when that program started. The program was intentionally created by the Communist government in Beijing. It started early on. The level of repression has been going up since Xi Jinping was first elected in 2013. He is on his third term, and now likely his permanent term, as essentially a dictator in the People's Republic of China. We can compare the timelines. The member for Dufferin—Caledon has done the investigative work a parliamentarian is supposed to do and has proven that the government has not been enforcing the rules or, if it has been enforcing them, it has been incredibly lax. It basically has not done anything. Since then, we have had one government caucus member after another, and parliamentary secretaries, come out and give the best possible version of events. They really try incredibly hard. In the future, I hope never to be before a court, but if it ever comes to that, I would look to that side to find one of those members to defend me, because they really gave it the best possible face they could have. They talked about convening things, declarations, meetings they have had, advisories that were posted and attestations. People can click on the website and read the terms of reference about what they are not supposed to do, and they can click an attestation and move on. Actually, I was speaking to the member for Dufferin—Caledon, and based on attestations, the government's own officials say that nobody has been found guilty of breaking them and there has been no follow-up on this attestation. This reminds me of a Yiddish proverb. It is a great one. I was looking for this one. It is from a book called Kvetch, so it took me a while to look it up and find it in there: “A drowning man will reach even for the point of a sword.” In this case, it proves the point we are making on this side of the House, that the Liberals have done nothing, if all they can point to is advisories, websites, web pages, an ombudsman, and attestations, which have not done much of anything. We have a written question in the House with a response that says we have zero goods from this particular region, a region that is so egregious with its known violations of the human rights of the Uighur people that the United Nations has written successive reports on it. We have had rapporteurs go there, actual rapporteurs doing work on the ground and trying to ferret out what has been going on. It was Bachelet in this case. We have had repeat congressional hearings. We have had hearings in the different parliamentary committees of this House and in the United Kingdom as well. We know what is going on. We have heard the stories of the Uighur people. I went online to see the People's Republic of China's response to the United Nations report. They said everything is okay and there is full employment in the Xinjiang province. They said everything is good and all laws are being respected. They especially drew attention to something on page 109 of their response, if anyone wants to read it, which says that the religious rights of the Uighurs are being respected. There are so many mosques outside of the Xinjiang region they can go to. There are nice pictures of very happy workers. I am sure all of them knew what was going to happen here. I notice that the member for Wellington—Halton Hills is getting ready to speak after me and add to my contributions. I will share my time with him. That is the point. The government has reached for the sword and it is pointing to what we are pointing to, but it only has pretty words. It only has attestations and declarations, websites and web pages, while we have its own words showing the proof of its work, that it has done nothing since 2016. No goods have been stopped at the border and actually seized. As we said, one shipment was stopped but eventually released. The Americans have proof that they have actually obtained results, and we want results. This reminds me of our sanctions regime. Equally, there have been members of the public who have come to testify before the Canada—People's Republic of China special committee of the House, and they have basically said that enforcement is lacking on the sanctions regime we have. I profess that I believe this is part of the sanctions regime we have against regimes of the world that do things we disagree with, where we find profound violations of people's human rights. This House has found that the People's Republic of China is committing genocide against Turkic Uighurs in the Xinjiang province. The House has said that. In fact, the government was so inspired by its own principles that it abstained on that motion. It sent in a minister at the time, who has now resigned from this House, to say that they are abstaining as a government. As a cabinet, they are choosing to abstain on the matter. That is deeply embarrassing for them, and it should be embarrassing for them. It is embarrassing for all of us that they would do that. We have passed a motion since then calling on the government to expedite this and ensure that another 10,000 Turkic Uighurs would be brought to Canada as refugees and that we would identify who they are. This is an incredibly important part of ensuring that we have accountability in the House. When the Liberals are not doing their jobs, they need to be raked over the coals for it. If the Minister of International Trade has the time to hand out a sweetheart $25,000 contract to a friend, she has the time to expect that her cabinet, the rest of her colleagues and she herself are all doing the job that they were sent here to do. She was named to cabinet. She should be doing her job. We have proof that she is not. She is failing on the job to deliver the results that are needed. It has been seven years since 2016. I just heard a member say that it is the pandemic. We blame the pandemic. When world trade was collapsing and fewer goods were being shipped, it is not as if the CBSA officers stopped doing their work. They were still on the job. It is not as if goods were being stopped all over the world at borders; we still had many goods coming into the country. I see, Mr. Speaker, that you are giving me the signal. I almost wish I had not shared my time with the member for Wellington—Halton Hills. I could have used the extra 10 minutes to lambaste the government for its failure. We owe it to the people in Xinjiang province to ensure that we have a regime in place that stops goods at the border and seizes the goods made with their labour. The Americans have done it. Other western governments have done it. We have the results showing that by the government's own accounting, it has not done it. It is a shame.

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Mr. Kevin Lamoureux (Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons, Lib.)

Mar/21/23 12:38:26 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, the Conservatives make a great deal of reference to China. On all issues, they tend to focus a lot of attention on China. What does the member suggest the Conservative Party, in general, would do in dealing with China when it comes to the issue of trade, given that there was a secret trade agreement that was signed with the former prime minister of Canada? Can he provide his thoughts on what kinds of consequences there should be for China generally, based on the comments that we are hearing today from the Conservatives?

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Mr. Tom Kmiec

Mar/21/23 12:39:13 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, that is actually quite simple to answer. I would turn to the member for Dufferin—Caledon and ask him for the electronic list that the Department of Homeland Security has of companies sourcing forced labour goods and trying to ship them in, and I would give it to the CBSA. It is pretty simple. Also, the particular treaty the member is referring to is not secret; it is a public document that was approved by the House.

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Mr. Charlie Angus (Timmins—James Bay, NDP)

Mar/21/23 12:39:42 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I have been reading Watson's Dictionary of Weasel Words. It is a fascinating book, and I have been studying it very closely. It has such goods words, like “aspirational”, “drill down” and “recontextualize”. However, I would ask my hon. colleague about the term “move on”. I would like to quote this so I get it correct: “Going-forward basis: It is a popular form of escape from responsibility, accountability or discomfort, much favoured by cads, con men and carpetbaggers, etc.”, as in “Let's not dwell on the past”, “Let's not wallow in the lens of history”, “Let's not waste public money setting up inquiries”, “Let's not waste time arguing about who said what and whether or not they meant it.” I would like to ask my hon. colleague if he thinks that the advice we are getting from Watson's Dictionary of Weasel Words might help give clarity to the debate that we have been having in the House for the last few weeks.

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Mr. Tom Kmiec

Mar/21/23 12:40:36 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I am not sure which book the member is referring to. I kind of missed that part. I did catch the word “inquiry”, though, and I notice that we are still waiting to hear how the New Democrats intend to vote on our motion to call the Prime Minister's chief of staff to testify before a committee of the House.

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Mr. Kyle Seeback (Dufferin—Caledon, CPC)

Mar/21/23 12:41:04 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, there is an advisory that has been put out by the Government of Canada that says, “The Government of Canada is deeply concerned by reports and documentary evidence of repression of Uyghurs and other ethnic minorities by Chinese authorities”. The U.S. version says, “The People’s Republic of China (PRC) government continues to carry out genocide and crimes against humanity against Uyghurs and members of other ethnic and religious minority groups in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region (Xinjiang), China. The PRC’s crimes against humanity include imprisonment, torture, rape, forced sterilization, and persecution”. I wonder if the member could comment on why the Government of Canada's approach to this, including not seizing any goods, is seemingly so at odds with our number one ally and trading partner.

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Mr. Tom Kmiec

Mar/21/23 12:41:48 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, the member is absolutely correct. He named some of the crimes that we see happening against the Turkic Uighur people in the Xinjiang province, which have really ramped up since 2017, the start of these formal labour camps that the regime in Beijing keeps referring to as “vocational schools”, typically. That is kind of the nomenclature it uses. As someone of Polish heritage, I am pretty used to this from Communist regimes. They give everything weird names. “Potemkin village” comes to mind as well. This is consistently done by regimes like this. We should be aligned in this case with our partners in the USMCA, who have done a much better job, especially the Americans, in enforcing the rules. If we are going to take this to heart, we have to enforce the sanction regimes passed by the House.

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Mrs. Julie Vignola (Beauport—Limoilou, BQ)

Mar/21/23 12:42:45 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I would like to hear my colleague's thoughts on the answer we were given earlier, that consultations are being held on the steps to be taken to improve the forced labour situation, that is to say to eradicate it. With respect to children, the Convention on the Rights of the Child was signed on November 20, 1989, or almost 34 years ago. They have had 34 years for consultations, so we wonder if they are asking all eight billion people on earth what concrete steps should be taken. I would like to hear what my colleague thinks about this.

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Mr. Tom Kmiec

Mar/21/23 12:43:29 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I agree with the member. As I said, this reminds me of the Yiddish proverb: “A drowning man will reach even for the point of a sword”. With respect to this file, the government talks about consultations, commissions, websites and attestations. That is not good enough. What we need are results from the CBSA, to ensure that goods imported into our country are not made with forced labour.

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Hon. Michael Chong (Wellington—Halton Hills, CPC)

Mar/21/23 12:44:05 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, the government can introduce all the legislation it wants and Parliament can adopt all the legislation the government presents. The government can introduce all the regulation it wants and it can sign all the treaties it wants. However, if it does not operationalize that legislation, does not operationalize those regulations and does not put into effect those treaties, it is all for nought. What is going on with Xinjiang is a good example of this. Clearly, a genocide is taking place in Xinjiang. As members know, Canada is obligated under the genocide convention to prevent genocide. Article 1 of that convention says, “The Contracting Parties confirm that genocide, whether committed in time of peace or in time of war, is a crime under international law which they undertake to prevent and to punish.” One of the elements of a genocide is “[i]mposing measures intended to prevent births within the group”. The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights said the birth rate in Xinjiang plummeted by 50%, one half, between 2017 and 2019. In two short years, 24 months, the birth rate went from 16 births per 1,000 people to eight births per 1,000 people. Clearly, one element of the genocide is taking place. Two other elements of genocide under the convention are “[c]ausing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group” and, second, “[d]eliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part”. There is evidence that both of these elements are also in place in the massive detention camps the PRC has set up in Xinjiang. There is evidence based on satellite imagery, survivor testimony, investigative journalism, leaked documents, smuggled videos and so many other pieces of evidence, documenting hundreds of detention camps built by the PRC in Xinjiang province. It is estimated that more than two million Uighur Muslims have been detained in these camps. Some experts have called these camps the greatest detention of a group of people since the Second World War. PRC authorities first denied the very existence of these camps, but when presented with high-resolution satellite evidence, they recanted and explained them away as simply educational camps. Documents obtained by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists have highlighted what is going on in these camps, including torture and forced labour. There is evidence that Uighurs are being forced to pick cotton and produce tomatoes that the PRC is exporting around the world, which is just like what happened during another genocide. During the Holodomor in Ukraine in 1932 and 1933, millions of Ukrainian peasants were forced to produce grain that Stalin then exported to the rest of the world, leaving them with nothing, not even seed grain for the next year's planting and harvest. As a result, over three million Ukrainians starved to death. Therefore, clearly, a genocide is taking place in Xinjiang. Parliament recognized that a genocide was taking place in early 2021 by adopting a resolution in the House. It is now time for the government to uphold the international rules-based order. It is now up to the government to uphold two treaties to which this country is a party. It needs to uphold, first, the 1948 genocide convention by preventing genocide from continuing, by preventing the importation of products like tomatoes and cotton that have been produced using forced Uighur labour. Another treaty that the government should be upholding, if it is serious about upholding the international rules-based order, is our obligation under the Canada-United States-Mexico Agreement. Article 23.6 of the agreement requires Canada to ban imports produced by forced or slave labour. The agreement says, “Accordingly, each Party shall prohibit the importation of goods into its territory from other sources produced in whole or in part by forced or compulsory labor, including forced or compulsory child labor.” Subsequent to the signing of the USMCA several years ago, Canada and the United States adopted legislation to implement the elements of the CUSMA treaty that ban imports that have been produced using forced or slave labour. Parliament amended the Customs Tariff Act in July 2020 to bring Canada's laws into conformity with CUSMA, and the government published regulations stemming from those changes to the Customs Tariff Act that came into effect that same month, July 2020, some two and a half, almost three, years ago. A year later, the United States also changed its laws to bring them into conformity with the CUSMA treaty, but here is where the similarities end. While the similarity between Canada and the United States is that both of us have implemented laws bringing CUSMA into effect, and both are party to the genocide convention, it ends there. Since these laws have come into force, the United States has stopped thousands of cargo container shipments from entering the United States from Xinjiang, but Canada has not stopped a single shipment from entering this country. In fact, the government temporarily halted one shipment from coming into Canada and subsequently released it. I believe that was in the province of Quebec. No shipment has been blocked, interdicted and prevented from entering Canada, despite the fact that, south of the border, the U.S. government is upholding the rules-based international order and has prevented the importation of thousands of cargo containers containing things such as tomatoes, cotton and solar panels that have been produced using a labour force of millions of Uighur Muslims in the Xinjiang province. Despite the U.S. interdicting thousands of shipments, the U.S. government has admitted that this is not good enough. In fact, it has plans to hire over 300 new positions at the border to continue to interdict even more products coming into its country from Xinjiang. It has plans to implement new computer systems and new training, and to conduct outreach to importers to prevent further shipments from arriving on American shores. However, in Canada, nothing has happened, despite the fact the law came into effect almost three years ago. One shipment was temporarily blocked and then admitted into Canada. Meanwhile, thousands of cargo container shipments have been blocked from Xinjiang by the U.S. government because it is upholding its treaty obligations, its laws, the regulations it has published and the rules-based international order, which the current government says it supports. However, as the CBC, The Globe and Mail, and so many other investigative journalists have reported, tomatoes and cotton produced in Xinjiang, likely with forced labour, have continued to flood Canadian supermarket shelves and retail shops. The government turns a blind eye despite the fact it has these treaty obligations under CUSMA, it has these laws in place, and there are regulations that have been gazetted. Let me conclude by saying this. The government can introduce all the regulations it wants, Parliament can pass all the laws it wants and the government can sign all the treaties it wants, but none of this has any effect unless the Government of Canada and its agencies operationalizes these laws and regulations, upholds these treaties and starts putting the work in place to actually block shipments from Xinjiang from coming into Canada. That is why I will support the motion in front of the House. If the government is truly going to uphold our international reputation and the rules-based international order that it says it so deeply believes in, then that starts with doing exactly what we are calling for in this motion: to start blocking cargo container shipments at the Port of Vancouver and other Canadian ports that contain tomatoes and cotton from Xinjiang that have been produced using forced and slave labour.

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Mr. Kevin Lamoureux (Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons, Lib.)

Mar/21/23 12:54:17 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, one of the things I made reference to during my comments was in regard to the Minister of Labour and the mandate letter provided by the Prime Minister, which gives very a clear indication that we are to be developing legislation. That legislation is, in fact, in the works. I am not going to indicate when we will see it, because I am sure the member can appreciate that it does require a great deal of consultation and working with a wide spectrum of different types of stakeholders. Could the member provide his thoughts in regard to the type of work that should be done prior to introducing legislation, given the consequences of a substantive piece of legislation that we hope to be producing at some time, whether it is in months or years?

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Hon. Michael Chong

Mar/21/23 12:55:20 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, the government does not need new legislation. It has immense powers under existing framework legislation. It has immense powers under the Customs Tariff Act and its regulations. The government needs to get its hands dirty and figure out exactly what it needs to do to empower the Canada Border Services Agency officers to interdict these shipments. It needs to sit down with frontline officers and ask what they need, in terms of training, computer systems and personnel. Let us get this done in the next six months so we can stop bringing in these products that have been produced using Uighur forced labour.

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Ms. Monique Pauzé (Repentigny, BQ)

Mar/21/23 12:56:05 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for his speech. I have to say that I completely agree with him on the answer he just gave to the Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Government. We do not need consultations or other measures. Billions of dollars are at stake. That may be why the situation is not going to change anytime soon and also why the government is acting with a little too much caution. Between 2015 and 2020, there was even an increase in the estimated dollar value linked to forced labour. My colleague provided many suggestions about how to improve all of this. Does he believe that transparency and perhaps even labelling could also be solutions?

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Hon. Michael Chong

Mar/21/23 12:56:50 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I thank the member for her question. I believe that the government needs to provide us with more information. I believe that is a problem here in Ottawa. We could even say that this place is information-free compared to the capitals of other G7 countries. It is a huge problem with the lack of transparency and information. It is very difficult to find out from the government whether or not shipments have been interdicted and blocked. We often have to get that information through access to information requests or other investigative techniques, rather than the government being transparent about what is going on by default. That adds to the problem. People are generally not aware that we are not upholding our treaty obligations. We are not upholding the rules-based international order when it comes to preventing imports using forced Uighur labour. Part of that problem is the lack of transparency from the government about what exactly is going to be interdicted at the border. We do know one thing, which is that no shipment has been blocked from Xinjiang that has been produced using forced Uighur labour.

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Mr. Brian Masse (Windsor West, NDP)

Mar/21/23 12:58:08 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, with regard to the CBSA officers, one of the things we had this summer was mandatory working during vacation time and mandatory overtime. One of the things we could do is actually expand their operations and boots on the ground, so to speak. What are the member's comments about that, versus what right now is an agenda to actually move to more automation? Where do the Conservatives stand on that?

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Hon. Michael Chong

Mar/21/23 12:58:34 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, it is hard for me to give a specific answer to that question, because we are not presently in government and I do not have access to that information, unfortunately. The minister should sit down with frontline CBSA officers and, obviously, the head of the CBSA, to talk about what resources and tools they actually need to start blocking these cargo container shipments. Ninety-eight percent or so of the world's trade arrives on these cargo containers. There has to be a way to implement computer systems, training and other measures in order to interdict these shipments. The United States has been doing it and they are further improving on their record. There is no reason why Canada cannot do the same.

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Mr. Arnold Viersen (Peace River—Westlock, CPC)

Mar/21/23 12:59:55 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, it is my honour to rise today to talk a bit about the forced labour happening around the world and the concerns around the importation into Canada of some of the products that have been produced by forced labour. I want to talk a bit today about products that get a free pass. Increasingly, we have these environmental, social and governance indicators, or ESG indicators. To some degree, that ends up having a watering-down effect and folks who have a so-called environmental footprint get a free pass on some of the other issues. A number of organizations around the world have pursued looking at so-called green technology, wind turbines or solar panels, for example. What happens then is that these products get a great brand around their environmental bona fides. People with solar panels or wind turbines get a relatively free pass. We can override a number of other issues. We have seen this right here in the province of Ontario. A lot of locals who live in areas where wind turbines or solar fields are being put up are frustrated. They do not necessarily appreciate these, yet they have little recourse to fight them. We see the same thing happen when it comes to forced labour around the world. When it comes to the production of wind turbines or solar panels, for example, a blind eye is turned to the use of forced labour. For instance, most of the cobalt in the world, if not all the cobalt in the world, comes out of Congo. Vast amounts of that cobalt are harvested by forced labour and child labour. There have been examples from the U.S. Department of Labor, where up to 75% of the polysilicon that goes into the making of solar panels comes from forced labour around the world. Reports have identified 90 Chinese and international companies whose supply chains for these solar panels come from forced labourers. Seven of the top 10 wind turbine manufacturers come out of China and over 50% of the installations around the world come from these seven companies in China. Most of these companies have been identified by the Sheffield Hallam University. It has shown that forced labour is a major part of all of these companies' supply chains. I want to highlight today that while these are green technologies, they sometimes allow us to overlook the forced labour that is in many of these products.

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The Deputy Speaker

Mar/21/23 1:02:56 p.m.
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It is my duty to interrupt the proceedings and put forthwith the question necessary to dispose of the motion now before the House. The question is on the motion. If a member of a recognized party present in the House wishes that the motion be carried or carried on division or wishes to request a recorded division, I would invite them to rise and indicate it to the Chair.

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