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Decentralized Democracy

International Justice Mission Canada

44th Parl. 1st Sess.
November 21, 2022
Context: Bill S-211 (FAAE) - Nov/21/22
Ms. Cheryl Hotchkiss (Director, Strategy and Operations, International Justice Mission Canada)
  • 04:52:36 p.m.
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Thank you. Greetings, committee chair, committee members and fellow witnesses. My name is Cheryl Hotchkiss, and I am from IJM Canada, or IJM. IJM is a global organization seeking to protect people living in poverty from violence. We partner with local authorities in 29 program offices in 17 countries to combat trafficking and slavery, violence against women and children, and police abuse of power. It is now estimated that nearly 50 million people are enslaved around the world. Of these 50 million, 28 million are caught up in forced labour. The combined impacts of COVID-19, conflict and climate change have pushed more people into poverty, making them vulnerable to all forms of exploitation, including forced labour, and pressed parents and families to remove children from schools to work to help their families survive. In countries where there are high rates of poverty, particularly extreme poverty, you will find broken systems caused in part by governments unable or unwilling to provide leadership to creating and maintaining healthy justice and social systems. COVID-19, conflict and climate change cause further degradation of these systems. Unhealthy systems enable all forms of lawlessness, create instability and breed fear. People living in poverty are forced into jobs where they can make a meagre income in risky jobs that often take them away from families, leaving them further isolated and at risk of exploitation. For women in forced labour there's an increased risk of violence, particularly sexual violence. IJM is exposed to this grim reality in our efforts to help the most vulnerable receive protection and support from systems that didn't prevent and maybe even enabled exploitation. We know that an unhealthy legal system needs many actors to improve it and make it work for the most vulnerable so that they can find decent work where there's no fear of violence and exploitation. We believe that corporations have a critical role to play in helping unhealthy systems to improve and effectively protect vulnerable people. We appreciate that corporations are focused on generating good returns for investors and creating products that consumers want. They are not responsible for playing the role that governments should. But they have influence that can encourage and help governments undertake their responsibilities to protect their citizens effectively. This is why for IJM, Bill S-211 is important. We know corporations have a positive opportunity to impact justice system reform. The governments in these countries where there is forced labour need corporations to have stable environments in which to do their work or gather resources they need for their products. Unhealthy justice systems mean an unstable society for everyone, including corporations. Voluntary codes of conduct or individual corporate efforts to address exploitation in supply chains create an unlevel playing field for corporations importing and selling products in Canada. Those who want to address forced labour and child labour in their supply chains bear the costs associated with that on their own and pass that on to the consumers. Bill S-211 will enable justice and labour protection reform. It will do this by creating the conditions where corporations can work together, and will be encouraged to work together, to know what is in their supply chains. We've seen this happen with the Seafood Task Force in Thailand and Malaysia, where companies collaborated to create a level playing field to operate in the wake of similar legislation regarding forced labour in the fishing industry. With that information, they can act on their own or as a collective to press governments to take concrete action to improve justice systems for the most vulnerable, which includes listening to people who've been caught up in exploited labour and forced labour. The bill will provide a collective and impactful deterrent to end forced labour and child labour through the imposition of the import prohibition. This ban levels the playing field for corporations that are making efforts to address forced and child labour in their supply chains to compete with those who aren't taking any action. Finally, it will give Canadians, who care about the impact of their consumer choices, information to help them make better choices and use market forces to improve the supply chains for all products sold in Canada. IJM is encouraged by Bill S-211 and wants the Canadian government to be involved in progressive efforts taken by other G20 nations so that the next ILO report on modern slavery has the numbers going in the right direction—downward. Thank you.
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