44th Parl. 1st Sess.
November 21, 2022
- 03:58:27 p.m.
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Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.
Thank you very much, Mr. Chair and members of the committee, for providing us the opportunity to offer you our thoughts on the study of this committee on Bill S-211.
My name is Stephen Brown. I'm the CEO of the National Council of Canadian Muslims. I'm joined today by Fatema Abdalla, the advocacy officer for the council.
There are two key submissions I want to provide to this committee.
First and most important is the issue of urgency. We must move swiftly, as there should not be another day in which Canada tolerates the products of forced labour on our grocery shelves.
Second and critical is amending the language of Bill S-211 to clearly indicate that all products arising from East Turkestan, also known as Xinjiang, should not be allowed to come into Canada, subject to a reverse onus provision where companies operating in the area need to demonstrate that those products do not arise as a product of forced labour. Such an amendment is not novel and would bring us into alignment with the current legislative schema of countries like the United States.
We want to be clear. This is a strong bill bolstering transparency obligations pertaining to forced labour risks. We are here to ask you to pass this bill urgently, but with one key amendment. For the three key reasons that I will lay out below, we submit that there are reasons that inexorably compel this House to amend the legislation to ensure that Canada does not tolerate forced labour products from East Turkestan specifically. That is because I'm here on behalf of those who, until recently, were forgotten.
In 2006, our organization called for the Government of Canada to secure the release of Huseyin Celil, a Canadian Uighur activist who has been detained in China and rendered to the concentration camps. We still do not have definitive evidence as to whether he is alive or not. His wife, Kamila, continues to fight and pray for his return.
Let’s start with reason number one. This House passed a motion that, while non-binding, labelled what is happening in China right now as a genocide. There is simply no reason to have any equivocation as to whether the CBSA has to use discretion in ascertaining whether products arising from East Turkestan violate Bill S-211. Rather, based purely on this ground, it offends common sense and, more importantly, our collective humanity to allow products to be coming to Canada from East Turkestan specifically. Therefore, we have a duty to ensure that the ambit of the legislation captures what is happening in East Turkestan clearly as a prima facie case of forced labour.
Second, this brings us to the issue of enforcement. Presently, despite memorandum D9-1-6, the CBSA has been unable to deal with forced labour products arising from East Turkestan. To quote CBSA director, John Ossowski:
Unlike most other inadmissible products, there is no visual clue for a [customs officer] to understand the labour standards by which a particular import was produced. Establishing that goods were produced by forced labour and compiling evidence requires a significant amount of research and analysis in coordination with other government department partners.
The CBSA should not have this level of difficulty in turning back shipments from East Turkestan, and the current context of Bill S-211 will not fix the issue.
Third, amending Bill S-211 would allow Canada to come into line with other jurisdictions when it comes to removing forced labour from supply chains. The United States is a good example in this case, since it has already taken a similar measure by passing the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act, ensuring that all goods, wares, articles and merchandise mined, produced or manufactured wholly or in part in the Uighur region are denied entry to U.S. ports.
We know that you and your colleagues may wonder whether this critical amendment is out of scope or whether it opens a can of worms by raising the question of other specific countries that should be listed. We think both of these concerns are overstated, for reasons I'm happy to expand upon.
We are urging this committee—we're begging you as parliamentarians—to ensure that we take this opportunity of legislation that has strong bipartisan support to give it enough teeth to make sure that Uighur human hair doesn't end up in Canadian pillows. That’s all we're asking today.
Also, I note in closing that we expand significantly on the submissions before you today in our brief, which will be submitted next week.
Thank you very much.
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- 04:09:19 p.m.
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Thank you very much, Mr. Genuis.
I'd also like to thank everybody here for their work on getting this bill to where it is, and the senators who sponsored the bill.
On your question specifically, yes, I agree. The reason why we believe it's so important to mention East Turkestan, in this specific case.... We think there are three key reasons that compel, specifically.
First, we have to remember that the House passed, while non-binding, a motion that labels what's happening right now in East Turkestan a genocide. There's no reason to equivocate about what's happening over there. Everybody knows exactly what's happening.
The second brings us to the issue of enforcement. Given the fact that there's no legislative framework that relieves.... The CBSA has no visible cues to determine what is coming out of East Turkestan. It's very difficult to ascertain what is coming in. How do you source those goods? Having legislation that relieves them of the very onerous process of trying to determine where those products come from or were manufactured, and having a reverse onus provision that places responsibility on companies operating in the region, allows the CBSA to do their job.
The last thing is coming in line with our other partners. The United States, the U.K. and Australia have all passed legislation recently. I think there are many examples of how to do this. There are many reasons why we should do this. The fact that there's a genocide happening over there is clear. We need to give law enforcement the tools to do their job.
Thank you.
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- 04:23:49 p.m.
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Absolutely, MP McPherson. Thank you very much for your question.
The CBSA has actually intercepted one shipment. The United States of America has intercepted about 1,300 since they passed similar legislation. We have a lot of catching up to do.
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- 04:24:46 p.m.
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Different countries have actually taken different models. Some countries in Europe, for example, have placed very onerous responsibilities on companies, but they have a cap at very large companies.
I think the legislation in front of us today takes an interesting approach in that it covers a broad range of companies, including mid-sized companies. However, if we look at the results and at our neighbours to the south, the results speak for themselves. They've seized 1,300 shipments and they're continuing to do more.
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- 04:29:48 p.m.
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Thank you very much for your question.
As many people have heard, we hear anecdotal evidence of some of the practice of slavery happening right now in East Turkestan.
In terms of specific data, I don't have any to provide to you right now, but I can follow up with your office afterwards.
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- 04:30:28 p.m.
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That's an excellent question. It comes back to the main request that we have for amending the bill. I think anything coming out of East Turkestan, any product that's being produced, any business having operations there, should have a responsibility to prove that their products do not contain forced labour.
Right now the situation in East Turkestan is such that it only makes sense to assume that everything being produced there is a result of forced labour, and therefore it shouldn't be on the shelves of Canadian grocery stores.
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- 04:37:02 p.m.
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What we'd like to see is for all companies doing business in this area to be responsible for proving that the products in their supply chains aren't being made with forced labour.
When you read our detailed brief, you'll see that other countries, like the United States, have really good systems. There are lists that detail the evidence that must be demonstrated before goods that are produced can be approved and brought into the country.
Once a company does business in this geographic area, it has a responsibility to prove that all of its products are not the result of forced labour.
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