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Decentralized Democracy

Member of Parliament

Marcus Powlowski

  • Member of Parliament
  • Member of Parliament
  • Liberal
  • Thunder Bay—Rainy River
  • Ontario
  • Voting Attendance: 65%
  • Expenses Last Quarter: $144,359.62

  • Government Page
Context: House Hansard - 74 - May/18/22
Mr. Marcus Powlowski (Thunder Bay—Rainy River, Lib.)
Madam Speaker, I am honoured to speak to Bill S-211 and be part of this in-person and virtual love-in, although I have to say that my good colleagues, and they are good colleagues, from the NDP and the Bloc have been a bit stingy with giving us their love. As some in the House will know, I forwarded a similar bill to this a few months ago. As luck would have it, this bill by Senator Julie Miville-Dechêne rapidly worked its way through the Senate. It quickly became apparent that the best way to get the legislation passed was to support this bill. I do not think it really matters whether the bill originated in the Senate or in the House. Either way, I am happy to support the senator and my fine colleague for Scarborough—Guildwood, who is really the father of this legislation. I am more like the second cousin, twice removed. An hon. member: The grandfather. Mr. Marcus Powlowski: The grandfather. I thank the member for that comment. This bill is obviously about trying to ensure that companies’ supply chains are void of forced labour or child labour. I do not think it is at all surprising that we need such laws given the nature of capitalism, given the global nature of business and given the fact that the rule of law in many countries is rather weak. The nature of capitalism is certainly that companies want to maximize their profits. How do they do this? There are really two ways, generally. They can increase the amount they ask for a product, but in a competitive world there are limits to how far they can go with that. However, they can also decrease the cost of production. If my company makes suits and I sew my suits here in Canada, I would want to ensure that each of the components that goes into making those suits is as cheap as it can be for the requisite quality that people are looking for. That may mean that the cloth is from China, but perhaps the liner is from Indonesia. Maybe the buttons are from Mexico. This is a supply chain. Certainly, each of the companies in the supply chain has its own supply chain. For example, although the cloth may be from Shanghai, the cotton actually comes from Xinjiang province and perhaps the dye comes from Hebei province. Again, in order to maximize profits, companies want to make sure that in each step of the supply chain, they are getting the best bang for their buck. It is in order to maximize their profits. Buying the cheapest option often means they are going to buy a product from a country where labour is cheap, but in such countries, labour standards are often poor if not non-existent. The police and judiciary may be corrupt, inefficient or just not that interested in upholding the interests of the poorest members of society. If this is combined with unscrupulous employers, and the fact that there are often large numbers of very poor people, it creates a ripe environment for the evolution of forced labour and child labour. What constitutes child labour is a question I am not going to go into. Forced labour can be different things. Certainly, it can be the Uighurs placed in prison or internment camps in China and forced to work in their factories. However, more common is something called debt bondage. Debt bondage is when an employee, often from a very poor country, has to pay sometimes thousands of dollars to a third party to get a job, sometimes in a slightly wealthier country. The employee, not having any money, cannot pay back that third party, so the debt comes out of their wages. As a result, they may end up working for years, often in horrendous conditions, in order to pay back that debt. If they do not like it, often it is tough luck. They have a debt and they have an employer who may not be averse to using violence and/or keeping their travel documents, which makes it hard to leave. Let me say that I think the vast majority of Canadians would not support this kind of unscrupulous practice and would not knowingly buy products made by either forced labour or child labour. However, as my colleague for Scarborough—Guildwood has said, we often do not know what kind of labour practices go into the products we buy. I do not know who made my suit or who made my shoes. Furthermore, I think the reality is that a lot of companies and consumers do not really want to look too deeply into the labour practices of the companies that make the products. Herein lies the problem and the need for this law. Let me say that it is not only the pursuit of the almighty dollar that leads to these problems. Sometimes it is government action. Forced labour may sadly be the result of coercive government action. For example, it is estimated that over a million Uighurs in Xinjiang internment camps or prisons are likely used for forced labour. The International Labour Organization estimates that 25 million people globally are victims of forced labour, and 150 million children are victims of child labour. Let me summarize. Many products in supply chains come from poor countries. People there, who do not make a lot of money, make those products, and in a lot of those countries either forced labour or child labour exists. The simple fact is that we often do not know which companies use these deplorable practices, which is again the reason why we need this law. The essence of this legislation is something called supply chain transparency legislation, which requires companies to publicly disclose their efforts to prevent forced labour and child labour. Not only is there a requirement to send reports to the government, but there is also a requirement to make these reports public: to put them on the companies' websites and also to include the reports as part of their annual financial statements. Notably, there is no actual requirement to totally eliminate forced labour or child labour, but there is a very strong requirement that companies say and reveal publicly what they have done to check whether there are such practices within their supply chains, and to say what they have done to address the situation. I know some, who may no longer be here, may say that this legislation is too soft, but I would suggest that this legislation goes a far way in addressing this issue: I think consumers, shareholders and stock markets will not look very favourably upon companies that do not address this issue. I know that I, as a Canadian, and most Canadians, would not want to either buy products from, or own shares in, a company that does these practices. I have been talking about companies, but as has already been mentioned, this act imposes the same requirement on the government, and that is only fair. If the government wants to impose a requirement on a company in the business world, it is only fair that it imposes the same requirement upon itself. We have heard tonight that this bill does not go far enough, and so be it. Perhaps that is true. I certainly agree that the devil is in the details, but this is a vote at second reading to get this to committee where those things can be discussed and debated. It is certainly important to act. Certainly a lot of other countries have, such as the United Kingdom, the United States, France, Australia and Germany. I have to say that I did not know Bob Nault was involved in this to begin with, but I am honoured to be following in his footsteps as a fellow citizen of northwestern Ontario in getting this legislation done. Good for Bob Nault. Thankfully, child labour and forced labour are either rare or do not exist in Canada. This is mostly a problem in developing countries. All Canadians deplore such practices, and would be shocked to know that buying the things they buy may actually help to perpetuate this problem. Although we, as legislators, do not have the ability to legislate in other countries, this fine legislation by Senator Miville-Dechêne and the member for Scarborough—Guildwood will make a difference and help some of the world's most destitute people to make their lives a little better. I would like to thank the members from all parties. I really appreciate the fact that this has such wide support. It is really nice to see.
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