44th Parl. 1st Sess.
March 21, 2023 10:00AM
- Mar/21/23 10:03:35 a.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I move that the fourth report of the Standing Committee on International Trade, presented on Thursday, February 9, be concurred in.
I will be sharing my time with the member for Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan.
How did we end up with this report from committee so that we are here today talking about it? Well, I will give a bit of background.
We signed a trade agreement in 2020, which was CUSMA. This was almost three years ago. That agreement specifically stated that we would not allow goods made with forced labour to be imported into Canada on their own or through supply chains. I have been very curious as to the progress made with respect to this file.
The Minister of International Trade came to committee, and I had the opportunity to ask her what progress had been made, in particular with respect to goods seized from the Xinjiang region of China. As we know, there are real challenges with the goods being made in the People's Republic of China.
I had an exchange with the minister. I asked her, “Have any shipments been seized as a result of this at the Canadian border? Do you track that?” Her response was, “I believe that there have been.” She then went on to talk about some bills and other things.
I also asked, “is the department keeping track of any of this? Are there any numbers that...[you] can release to this committee?” She did not have any numbers to give to me but finally said, “Absolutely, I am working very hard with the Minister of Labour and with my colleagues to ensure that we do have the mechanisms in place to live up to this important [thing].” She went on to say, “What I am saying is that the commitment by the Canadian government to ensure that there is no forced labour in our supply chain is real and that we are working on it.”
This prohibition started in 2020, and the minister is saying in 2023 that she is working very hard on it and believes we received some shipments. As a result of that, I asked an Order Paper question, and members might be very surprised at the answer. My Order Paper question was this:
With regard to government measures to stop the importation of goods made using forced Uyghur labour in China, since 2016: (a) how many times have such goods been intercepted or seized at points of entry by the Canada Border Services Agency or the RCMP; and (b) what are the details of each instance....
I asked about the description of goods, quality, estimated value and so on. Members would be shocked to know the answer that came back was absolutely nothing. There was zero, zip, zilch. In three years, the government has not been able to seize a single shipment made by forced labour from the Xinjiang region of China. It is a shocking abdication of responsibility. The Minister of International Trade has done absolutely nothing on this in the past three years.
If we want to look at CBSA, the Minister of Public Safety has also completely abdicated his responsibility on this. It has seized absolutely nothing. One might ask what the problem is and say this is probably a complicated thing. Well, guess what. It is not.
Over the same period of time, the United States has seized more than 1,400 shipments. It is taking this seriously. It is living up to its obligations in CUSMA. The United States has seized 1.3 billion dollars' worth of goods over this period of time and what has Canada done? It has done absolutely nothing. It is all talk, no action, not only on this but on virtually any file we want to talk about with the government. However, this is an important one.
The Liberals are going to say that it is really difficult to do this and that it is hard to figure out where goods comes from. Right. It is very hard, but guess what. The United States has put together an entity list, which is a list of companies that are very clearly using forced labour in their supply chains or directly for the manufacture of their goods. That list is publicly available, and I have the entire list right here. If it is so difficult, the minister could cut and paste it, but I know that is hard. The Minister of International Trade has time to approve a very lucrative contract for her friend, but what she does not have the time to do is cut and paste the entity list the United States has created as a result of our trade agreement.
I know we all have to make priorities. A former member of this place, Mr. Dion, once asked, “Do you think it's easy to make priorities?” I suspect that this attitude has leaked into the current government. Cutting and pasting is a very difficult thing to do.
About 1.4 billion dollars' worth of goods was seized from the United States, and there was zero from Canada. This is embarrassing. The Minister of Public Safety and the Minister of International Trade have completely abdicated their responsibilities on this file, and no matter what they say, there is no excuse because there is an easy-to-use list. The United States is not the only one that has a list. There are all kinds of organizations around the world that have done investigations into this, and they have produced lists.
How is it that we cannot give a similar list to CBSA and say that goods coming from these companies must be intercepted at the border? I do not know. I think it would take about 10 minutes. In fact, I would be happy to table this document so the minister can pick it up, get someone to type it up and send the instructions to CBSA. I know it is hard work being in government, but members are not willing to do any of that hard work.
This problem is not getting better, but bear in mind that the government has done absolutely nothing on it. When I say “nothing”, I mean nothing. I got back my Order Paper question, and it has done nothing. As a report by World Vision says, “Unfortunately, Canada is a significant contributor to [the] global problem“ of using child and forced labour in supply chains. “As this report reveals, Canada imported nearly $48 billion in risky goods in 2021”. It goes on to say that that represents a nearly 30% increase since 2016.
Talk about being asleep at the wheel. I mean, the government is not even at the wheel, and the problem is getting worse all the time. I do not understand what it will take for the Liberals to spur themselves to action. I have asked the minister at committee about this, and there have been questions on it in the House of Commons.
Again, I go back to the fact that it is not all that complicated. The United States has published a list and acted quickly. However, it did not just publish a list; it also passed legislation. On December 23, 2021, President Joe Biden signed into law the Uyghur Forced Labour Prevention Act, “which bars the importation into the United States of products made from forced labor in the Xinjiang region of China.”
I became a lawyer because I am not very good at math, but this is almost two years later, in December 2021. What has the government done? Has a single piece of legislation been passed? No. Has it given instructions to CBSA to seize goods from the known list of entities? No. What is even more glaring is that at one point, in an article that talked about this, CBSA said it had seized one shipment to say it was doing something. However, the answer to my OPQ says it has seized absolutely nothing. Actually, I apologize. I said it did not do anything and that was incorrect. It put out an advisory for Canadian businesses doing business in the Xinjiang region. Stop the presses. There were two advisories saying they should check their supply chains.
“Hear, hear!” for the hard work that was done by the government on this file. The government should be absolutely ashamed of what it has done on it. It should be embarrassed by the lack of action it has taken. The Minister of International Trade should be embarrassed because she has done nothing. The Minister of Public Safety should be ashamed as well. They have done absolutely nothing.
This takes very little work. The United States is a trusted partner, and it is part of our Five Eyes intelligence network. If it has published a list of companies using forced labour and seized 1.4 billion dollars' worth of goods, we can do the same thing, but the government has not done it. I would like to know why.
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- Mar/21/23 10:16:18 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, I thank the Bloc members on committee who voted for this motion.
A very simple first step would be to take the list of entities that the United States has done the research on. It has said that it very clearly knows that these companies are involved in the use of forced labour. This is just with respect to the Xinjiang region of China. We can look at other parts of the supply chain, of course.
They could take that list today. As I have said, we are prepared to table it. The members could walk it over to the respective ministers and tell them that it is a well-researched list and to give it to CBSA to say that any goods from the companies on the list will be automatically seized because we know they are using forced labour. It is a very simple solution. They could do it quickly and have it in place within a couple of days. I just do not understand why they will not.
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- Mar/21/23 10:18:23 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, we absolutely have to look at the use of forced labour, not only in the Xinjiang region of China but also, of course, in any of our supply chains. We have to be willing to work with any party in Parliament to try to get some progress on this.
I would say a good first step would be, if the Liberals will not take a copy of the list, maybe the member from the NDP could walk it over to them. They could copy and paste it, and we would at least have a good start.
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- Mar/21/23 10:28:56 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, I appreciate the member's comments and those of his colleague. This is an important issue that we are debating today.
With respect to the Xinjiang integrity declaration, it is about a broader examination of what is going on in China, particularly with respect to one community, the Uighur community.
On the issue of Chinese human rights violations, it is articulated quite clearly in the Indo-Pacific strategy, which our government launched last November. It talks about being clear, open-eyed and transparent about calling out human rights violations against Tibetans, Hong Kong democracy dissenters, Taiwanese individuals and Uighurs.
Does the member acknowledge that this is an important step in the right direction, vis-à-vis more accountability and transparency for China?
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Madam Speaker, it is an important issue, as I mentioned in my earlier intervention, that is being discussed today, and it was raised at the trade committee prior to this.
When we talk about the Xinjiang integrity declaration, we are speaking about the issues regarding goods whose provenance originates in a particular part of the People's Republic of China, known by locals as East Turkestan and by the PRC government as Xinjiang. The notion of the integrity declaration is to ensure that the provenance of goods that are coming from that particular area does not originate in forced labour or even slave labour, as has been mentioned by some members opposite, specifically on the part of Uighurs. This is a significant concern, not just for the Government of Canada but for our allies and many liberal and democratic nations around the planet, as it should be. I think the awareness of Canadians and folks around the planet has been accentuated in recent years with the rise of more strident policies on the part of the People's Republic of China and the Communist Party of China.
That is the scope of what we are discussing right now. It is about the declaration itself and what actions are being taken under the declaration.
In order to contextualize the discussion, we need to understand the evolving approach to the People's Republic of China itself. The People's Republic of China is under President Xi, who, as we speak, is visiting with Vladimir Putin, of all people, in an effort to address and shore up the alliance between Putin and Xi. That is a cause of concern for all right-thinking and democratically oriented governments around the planet, particularly those that oppose an illegal and unjustified invasion.
That gives us a sense of where President Xi is in terms of overtly aligning himself with the policies of Vladimir Putin. Those policies include policies of aggression. We are seeing Putin's aggression vis-à-vis Ukraine. We are seeing an aspiring, more aggressive, imperial-based Chinese policy, in terms of potential ambitions with respect to the island of Taiwan, the way China has treated Tibetans in the last 63 years, and the treatment that is being meted out toward Uighurs.
With respect to our policy as a government and as a Parliament regarding this part of China and the position we are taking, I would say we need look no further than the things that have been passed on the floor of this chamber. I am speaking of a motion, about 12 to 18 months ago, with respect to labelling what is transpiring in Xinjiang with the Uighurs as a genocide. That is a very significant conclusion to be drawn by parliamentarians. It is something that parliamentarians voted on in this chamber, and it is an accurate depiction, if the evidence is borne out from what we have thus far. We know that those factual elements that have been laid out, if proven, would demonstrate genocide in terms of international law. That is a significant aspect to consider.
About six weeks ago, we passed yet another motion, entirely unanimously, in this chamber to again address the Xinjiang region. What I am speaking of is a policy and a motion that was presented by the member for Pierrefonds—Dollard, if I have that correct, who is also the chair of the Subcommittee on International Human Rights. It is the idea that, with respect to Xinjiang, what we need to be doing as a government and as a nation is ensuring that individuals who are fleeing that type of persecution have a safe haven here in Canada, and bringing as many as 10,000 Uighurs to this country by 2024. That is a very significant step in the right direction in terms of taking a position as a Parliament and as a government toward the human rights violations that are occurring in the Xinjiang region.
Members heard me outline in my original intervention that we have also taken a very significant orientation shift with respect to our foreign policy. I am talking about the Indo-Pacific strategy. We can talk about what the Americans are doing with their Indo-Pacific economic framework, the IPEF, as it is called in the United States. Canada, the United States and many other nations are veering their orientation and foreign policy that is geared toward Asia away from China and its strident, aggressive policies, including its human rights violations, and toward other nations. The Indo-Pacific strategy is a classic example of that.
Why do I raise this in the context of Xinjiang? It is because the Indo-Pacific strategy speaks directly to this very issue. What am I speaking of? There are several pages dedicated to Canada's eyes-wide-open understanding and approach to China as a strident and more assertive, disruptive nation. What the Indo-Pacific strategy outlines is that with respect to China, what we will do is be more clear, articulate and transparent about holding China accountable for various human rights violations.
I am speaking of the Tibetan Canadians whom I represent and their Tibetan counterparts who remain in the Tibet Autonomous Region, and the human rights violations that have occurred since 1959, and before 1959, with respect to that community for the last 64 years. That is important to underscore in terms of their religious freedom, linguistic freedom and cultural freedom. We are talking about things such as Hong Kong democracy protesters and what has been transpiring over the last two or three years in terms of Hong Kongers daring to rise up and speak out against legislative policy that would restrict their freedom of expression. We are talking about individuals, such as those on the island of Taiwan, who fear for their physical safety and their survival as an independent nation among the community of nations. We are talking about Uighurs who come from East Turkestan, also referred to as Xinjiang by the People's Republic of China, and their rights to physical safety, religious freedom, cultural freedom and cultural liberties, of which they are being deprived in the People's Republic of China as we speak.
Those positions, those components are articulated in our Indo-Pacific strategy, and I think that is important because it shows the orientation of the government vis-à-vis China, and Xinjiang in particular.
Some of the contributions to the debate thus far by the members opposite have included criticisms, indeed in some respects accusations, that the Government of Canada is not raising these concerns with sufficient alacrity, sufficient clarity or sufficient repetitiveness or comprehensiveness, including in international dialogue. Nothing could be further from the case. I know with absolute clarity that the issue of Chinese human rights violations, whether it is with respect to Uighurs, Tibetans or Hong Kong democracy protesters, is articulated at every instance and at every available opportunity by representatives of the Government of Canada, including at bilateral and multilateral meetings, and multilateral forums.
I will give a case-in-point example in which I participated. In February, the OECD held an annual forum on responsible business conduct, which is exactly what we are talking about in this context, and that is about the conduct and comportment of enterprises that operate outside of one's borders. At that forum, I was there as the head of the Canadian delegation, representing the Minister of International Trade, and I went to specific lengths to articulate the positions we are taking as the Canadian government with respect to responsible business conduct. I articulated, specifically, references to the Indo-Pacific strategy and the very Xinjiang integrity declaration that is the subject of this morning's discussion. That prompted a very strong and firm response by the Chinese delegation that was present at those Paris meetings, who effectively indicated as follows.
They told me, in good French, that I was telling lies.
They indicated that I was effectively lying about the state of play in the People's Republic of China.
I was not lying when I was articulating, in an open international forum at the OECD, China's track record of violating the human rights of Uighurs, Tibetans and others, particularly with respect to people who originate from Xinjiang. The fact that those instances are being articulated by the Canadian government should give some comfort to those in this chamber who would argue that we need to be doing more of this. We are doing it. We will continue to do it. We will continue to do it in as many forums as possible.
We have to understand the approach toward Xinjiang within the broader context of our approach to labour issues. This has come up about forced labour in the supply chains, a critical issue. The issue of potential slave labour being in supply chains is also a very critical issue. Canadians need look no further than the mandate letters, which we publish as a government, that are given by the Prime Minister to different members of cabinet.
Canadians who are watching right now could look clearly at the mandate letter that has been provided to the Minister of Labour. The Minister of Labour's mandate letter articulates and provides a direction from the Prime Minister for him to work on a comprehensive piece of legislation that would work to eradicate forced labour from Canadian supply chains. That is something that the minister has been mandated to work on, something that he, his political team and his departmental team are working diligently on. That would include things such as a due diligence standard, standards that Canadian enterprises need to operate under, and also repercussions for transgressing those standards, including for not rooting out forced labour in supply chains.
We have heard a little about Bill S-211, which is being sponsored in this chamber by the member for Scarborough—Guildwood, who has served in this chamber for about seven terms. It originates in the other chamber, in the Senate, from Senator Miville-Dechêne.
Bill S-211 and the mandate given for government legislation to the Minister of Labour demonstrate our government's commitment to eradicating forced labour from our supply chains. While we are looking at this, it is also important to understand the international context, and the international context is a wide one.
In meetings at the OECD, I talked to the actual governmental representatives of about four different nations that have launched into this area of eradicating forced labour from supply chains. People talked to me quite candidly about what is working in northern Europe, what is working with respect to the U.K. Modern Slavery Act and where things could be tweaked.
They talked about how the Dutch, the Germans and the French, for example, are approaching it. These are important conversations that we are having, because what we seek to do with our legislation in Canada is to adopt an international best practice, to pick and choose what works in different jurisdictions and to improve on where there may be obstacles, errors or challenges that those other jurisdictions are coming up with.
That is to indicate to Canadians who are watching today that the idea of eradicating forced labour in supply chains is an important one, but it is also a complex one in terms of getting it right. It dovetails with things such as the size of the company, what companies the due diligence standards apply to and what the penalties are on the back end with respect to those companies.
When we look at eradicating forced labour from our supply chains, we need to zoom out to see what we are doing to ensure proper and responsible business conduct. I will point to several things. We launched the responsible business conduct strategy in April 2022. On behalf of the Minister of International Trade, I was there to launch it with a whole host of civil society organizations. They were very keen to see what we were doing to ensure that Canadian entities working abroad are acting and behaving responsibly and that they are complying with the law and with Canadian values.
Those include things like an attestation clause, which is attached to our responsible business conduct strategy, for Canadian enterprises that are going to work abroad or in various parts of the planet. In order to avail themselves of things like the trade commissioner services and of the very hard-working Canadians who operate in 160 offices around the planet to help Canadian enterprises do business in all four corners of the globe, those entities need to attest formally, in documentation, that they will abide by Canadian values, norms and laws, and also abide by international norms, guidelines and statutes in the locations where they will be doing the work.
That is important and it should go without saying. However, by having a quid pro quo, meaning that without the attestation the entities do not avail themselves of trade commissioner services, we are putting teeth to the notion that Canadian enterprises must conduct themselves responsibly when they work abroad. These are very critical.
As part of the responsible business conduct strategy, we are also developing a due diligence standard, which also dovetails with the work that has been taking place at the Minister of Labour's offices.
There is also a whole host of legislative tools that we have implemented. The list of legislative resources is quite in-depth. We passed legislation that deals with the corruption of foreign officials. It should go without saying, but one cannot be engaged in corruption of foreign officials and in bribery acts when one is a Canadian entity operating abroad.
We passed legislation, the Extractive Sector Transparency Measures Act, that deals with one of Canada's great fortes, which is our mining expertise and our mining know-how in Canadian mining operations operating abroad. In the extractive sector, there must be transparency that is informing the conduct at all times of Canadian entities that are operating abroad.
We passed the Customs Tariff Act amendment, which deals with the entities that would be brought into the country. Directly relevant to the issue that has been raised in today's debate, it is about goods that are being brought into the country and that they must abide by the Customs Tariff regulations and amendments. We put this in place to guard against human rights violations on the part of goods that are entering into the country.
We created the Canadian Ombudsperson for Responsible Enterprise. We created this entity in our first Parliament as a government, circa 2018-19. This is the only office of its kind on the entire planet. To purport, as the members opposite have, that we are not showing leadership on responsible business conduct abroad is categorically false.
The creation of a Canadian Ombudsperson for Responsible Enterprise, whose annual report I tabled moments before this debate started this morning in this chamber, demonstrates what we are doing as a government. We put money where our mouth is to create, fund and staff that office with personnel so they can examine critically the conduct of Canadian enterprises abroad and the kinds of norms, rules and values that are being observed by those enterprises.
We heard interventions by the New Democratic member two or three times in this morning's debate about the garment industry. In regard to that, the Canadian Ombudsperson for Responsible Enterprise, pursuant to her own mandate, initiated a study of the garment industry and Canadian enterprises operating in locations like Bangladesh. That is specifically the work that we feel needs to be done. It is being done right here in Canada, by virtue of legislation that we passed, in an office that we created and that we staffed. Again, this is the only country on the planet that has such an entity. That is critical initiative and critical leadership.
Regarding legislative initiatives, we also legislated UNDRIP and passed it. We have abided by UNDRIP, we have ratified UNDRIP and we have passed legislation that relates to UNDRIP. Why is UNDRIP related to issues of conduct abroad? One cannot deal with responsible business conduct abroad without understanding the impact enterprises have around the planet.
Let us pick a continent, such as Asia, South America or Africa. There are indigenous communities all over the planet affected by the conduct of Canadian enterprises. Let us pick a sector, such as the mining sector, the garment sector, etc. When indigenous communities are affected, we have responsibilities, pursuant to UNDRIP, that inform what can and cannot happen vis-à-vis those indigenous communities. Those communities can and should be availing themselves of the benefits from the resources being extracted from the wealth that is on their land. That is an important legislative component that has not been mentioned by the member opposite in raising this issue of debate.
There are also international commitments that we have not only led on, in terms of signing onto, but that we have also worked to further. I will just raise four. There are the UN guiding principles with respect to responsible business conduct. There are the OECD guidelines on responsible business conduct, which were the subject of the conference I attended in Paris in early February this year, regarding how businesses must comport themselves when they are operating abroad.
My NDP friends will be keen to know that we are very active regarding international legal organization guidelines that dictate labour norms and labour conventions with respect to how businesses must operate and what kinds of protections they need to observe when they are operating abroad. We also have been in the forefront of advocating for sustainable development goals and meeting those sustainable development goals at an international level.
The last piece I will speak to is an industry component of industry leadership on the part of Canadian entities taking the reins themselves. I will point to, as one example, the Mining Association of Canada's “Towards Sustainable Mining”. It is called the TSM initiative, in the vernacular in the industry. TSM is something that has been adopted by nine countries around the planet, so far. It is looking at adding four more.
At the PDAC conference that I just attended in Toronto, which is the biggest mining conference of its kind in the world, that initiative was touted by all of the nations that were there. Many nations were expressing interest in participating in it. This is to demonstrate to Canadians that there is not only a component of what good government is doing and what Parliament is doing, but there is also a component of what industry is doing to ensure that the conduct of its enterprises operating abroad is clear, accountable and transparent with respect to human rights.
Let me bring this back to the Xinjiang integrity declaration. One thing that I agree on with the members opposite in raising this issue of debate is that it is an important declaration and an important. Expedited work needs to be done with clarity on this issue and act on the declaration itself. That is an important initiative, and we need to show leadership not just in creating the declaration but also in acting on the declaration and working to ensure that goods coming in from that part of China are not tainted by the scourge of forced labour, including Uighur forced labour.
That is one of the reasons I decided to run for office and stand in the House eight years ago. It is about taking a human rights lens and applying it to the various policies of the Government of Canada. I felt that it was something that was sorely lacking in the previous government. I will acknowledge that some of the legislative measures, including, I believe, the issue about the extractive sector transparency measures, were enacted by the previous government, so there were some good initiatives made by the previous government.
Since 2015, we have taken that ball and moved it significantly forward by creating the CORE, creating the customs tariff amendment, passing UNDRIP and launching a new responsible business conduct strategy. That is the work I am committed to continuing, with the help of all parliamentarians in the House, to ensure that initiatives like the Xinjiang integrity declaration are fully fulfilled.
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- Mar/21/23 10:54:01 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, if my life is ever on the line and I have an untenable case, I am going to get in touch with the member, because he tried to take a lot of information to create a case that the Liberals have done something, when the absolute result is nothing. It is like writing a 20-page paper on a particular topic, getting an F, and the teacher says that the topic was something else, so of course I got an F.
The issue is whether the government has actually intercepted any goods made from the Xinjiang region of China where we know forced labour is being used. The answer to that is no. The member said the Liberals talked about it, that he went to a conference and he had a stern word with a representative for the PRC.
That is great, but the United States has created a rebuttable presumption that goods from the Xinjiang region are based on forced labour. It is rebuttable. If a company can prove the goods are not, they can come in. In addition, the U.S. has put together a list of entities they know, so it is two things that are going on.
This is not hard. It is really simple. I can give the member both of these things. Will the Liberals just do it? Will they take this list, put together the list and create the rebuttable presumption that goods from Xinjiang are being made with forced labour and therefore are not importable into this country? Will they do it?
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- Mar/21/23 10:56:57 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, I appreciate the question from the Bloc member. This type of question highlights the pervasiveness and complexity of the situation.
We could talk about the fact that clothing is produced with cotton from Xinjiang, China. However, when we consider our computers, telephones and other goods, such as furniture, we should know these goods are all tainted by the scourge of child and slave labour around the world.
The complexity of the situation requires that we study the matter several times and develop, as the Minister of Labour is doing, a bill that applies to any region in the world and any type of product—not just clothing, but also computers and telephones, for example.
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- Mar/21/23 11:23:17 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, the member for Dufferin—Caledon did his job and looked into the matter. He submitted a written question to the government. Question No. 1112 asked whether the Canada Border Services Agency had intercepted any goods from the Xinjiang region of China that were made or produced using forced labour, and, if so, how many times since 2016.
The answer was zero. Because that answer came from the government, I would like the committee whose report we are debating in the House to look into that.
Since we know the answer is zero and no products have been intercepted at our borders since 2016, what more can we do, as opposition members, to force the government to direct the CBSA to do its job?
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- 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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- 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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- 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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- 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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