Hon. Julie Miville-Dechêne moved third reading of Bill S-211, An Act to enact the Fighting Against Forced Labour and Child Labour in Supply Chains Act and to amend the Customs Tariff, as amended.

She said: Honourable senators, I rise to speak at third reading of Bill S-211, which seeks to fight against forced labour and child labour in supply chains.

I am relieved that this bill has finally reached an important stage in the Senate, given that its progress has been interrupted four times since 2018, first in the House of Commons and then in the Senate, due to elections and prorogations. In short, it followed the usual difficult path of any private member’s bill.

We must not forget that careful consideration of this issue started out in a House of Commons committee, which four years ago called for the elimination of child labour in the supply chains of Canadian-based companies.

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I first want to thank Senator Salma Ataullahjan, who was not only the critic of the bill but the Chair of the Senate Standing Committee on Human Rights that devoted five meetings to the diligent study of this bill.

I was impressed by the diversity of opinions and the witnesses called. The committee heard supporters of the bill but also critical and articulate voices who wanted Canada to go further in the defence of human beings subjected to forced labour, including exploited children.

Here are some of the voices we heard during the committee study of Bill S-211.

The Canadian Chamber of Commerce supports the objectives of this bill but feels it is too harsh in some respects and would like it to apply to fewer businesses.

Taking the opposing view, the committee also heard from Surya Deva, a United Nations expert who believes the bill should go further — in particular, to cover all human rights, to impose an obligation of due diligence on businesses and to give victims direct access to Canadian courts to obtain compensation from companies.

From a pragmatic perspective, lawyer and expert Stephen Pike said that he believes Bill S-211:

. . . is a reasonable, appropriate and evolutionary first step forward, using supply chain transparency reporting to . . . catalyze actions to address these human rights abuses.

I also note that World Vision Canada, an NGO promoting children’s rights with special expertise in child labour, also stated that supply chain legislation could begin paving our constructive path toward tackling the issue of child labour.

There was a clash of ideas, and the committee heard both the perspective of business and that of more committed activists. The comments received suggest that Bill S-211 embodies a certain compromise between the expectations of one and the other. By using the tool of transparency, the law aims to encourage companies to make the necessary efforts to prevent and reduce the risk of forced labour and child labour in their supply chains.

Members of the Human Rights Committee are well aware of the limitations of Bill S-211, but they supported this bill because it goes in the right direction. This is truly a first step, designed to raise awareness for all those who participate in the race to have goods manufactured at the lowest possible price all over the world. For companies that do not report or that provide false or misleading information, there will be penalties.

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I thank Senator Gerba for introducing an amendment that clarifies and strengthens one of the most difficult issues related to implementing this transparency bill. What happens after the company removes the children from the production chains?

Several senators rightly repeated that a child who works can support an entire family. There is a risk that Bill S-211 will indirectly impoverish families, or that it will push children into lower-paying or more dangerous jobs in the informal economy. The amendment that was adopted adds a requirement for a company to report on the following:

For example, this might take the form of compensation for the affected family, including to allow a child to attend school.

Transparency legislation such as Bill S-211 requires companies to report on what it is doing or not doing to eliminate forced labour and compensate the victims. These reports are made public and become tools for human rights advocacy groups and consumers, so they can report offenders or simply switch suppliers.

The good news is that the movement has already begun. The committee was pleased to hear from Jennie Coleman, president of Equifruit, which trades in fair trade bananas. She explained that paying just a few pennies more per pound of bananas can have a direct impact on the working conditions of the children and adults who harvest them. I hope that I can count on the support of my colleagues in the Senate today in order to send this bill to the other place so it may continue through the legislative process and, who knows, maybe even get the government’s attention.

The Minister of Labour, Seamus O’Reagan, has just reiterated that legislation against forced labour is a priority for his government. He promised to review private members’ bills on this issue, including mine, before deciding whether to amend one of them or introduce his own bill. Whichever avenue is chosen, the most important thing for me is that there is a law and that it is passed as soon as possible. Private members’ bills are useful not only if they are passed as they stand, but also because of the pressure they put on the government to legislate without delay.

In my case, it was the first time I had ever sponsored a Senate bill. I learned a lot from Bill S-211. Over the two years that I have been on this journey, I have received valuable support from concerned citizens, advocacy groups, independent and Conservative senators, MPs of all parties as well as the All-Party Parliamentary Group to End Modern Slavery and Human Trafficking. This demonstrates the non-partisan consensus that exists regarding the need to combat these appalling human rights violations. Thank you to everyone.

Hon. Amina Gerba: Honourable senators, third reading of Bill S-211 marks both another step towards its passage and an opportunity for some of us to clarify our position on this bill. My position is clear. I enthusiastically support this bill.

Once passed, this bill will require Canadian businesses with revenues of more than $40 million to file an annual public report concerning their activities and the measures taken to fight against forced labour and child labour in their supply chains.

Dear colleagues, this bill fills a void in our legislation. A number of Western countries have passed laws to address modern slavery, but Canada has not done so until now.

According to UNICEF, 160 million children — yes, 160 million children — or almost five times the population of Canada, are currently being forced to work. According to the data, the majority of these children live in the global south, in areas of the world where poverty dictates disastrous imperatives such as child labour.

Honourable senators, I myself worked as a child. I come from a big family, as is common in the global south. I was born in a small village in Cameroon called Bafia, located about 200 kilometres from the capital Yaoundé. I am the 18th of 19 children. As a child, I had to fight to get anything, and it was so difficult that by the age of eight, I was already required to contribute to our household. I did chores, fetched water, collected wood for cooking in forests that were sometimes far away, and sold produce or other goods in small, makeshift shops.

Esteemed colleagues, most kids my age were required to do this kind of work. On top of that, girls had to be meticulous so that they would be ready for marriage as soon as they hit puberty, at around age 13 or 14.

I am sharing this to illustrate how in Africa, children were and often still are used for labour and as income-earners for the family. That is one partial explanation, at least, for the heavy demographic burden holding back the development of the continent, which is why additional measures are needed to strengthen child labour laws.

Colleagues, according to the World Bank, nearly half of the world’s population lives on less than $5.50 a day. In low-income countries, the extreme poverty level is $1.90 a day.

Many families in the global south have no choice but to put their children to work, no matter what risks these children may face. Bill S-211 must take these realities into account in order to be effective.

During discussions with experts at the Standing Committee on Human Rights, two interventions in particular stood out to me.

Equifruit President Jennie Coleman, who Senator Miville-Dechêne just mentioned, talked about the need for fair trade certification for businesses’ activities. This certification would make products traceable, from harvest to manufacture.

This certification would also help identify and verify the working conditions of the employees involved in a business’ activities and supply chains. If implemented properly, this measure could help detect and sanction businesses that still employ children and promote those that pay producers a fair price and take measures to remediate the loss of income to families. Such a certification requirement could not be part of Bill S-211, unfortunately, but I think businesses should voluntarily submit to it and the government should think of a way to create this type of requirement.

As an entrepreneur and business leader, I often applied for certifications, and I can tell you that it works.

During his testimony, Professor Surya Deva, a member of the United Nations Working Group on Business and Human Rights, told us that because Bill S-211 focuses on the end result, namely transparency in the form of reports, its ability to prevent child labour will be limited. He believes the bill should also include preventive measures that will do more to fight forced labour and child labour.

That is the goal of my proposed amendment. As I mentioned, most of the children in the target countries work to help their families or to survive. This amendment acts on the first of the United Nations’ 17 sustainable development goals, which is to end poverty.

This amendment also touches on corporate social responsibility, not only in normative documents, but in verifiable policies, particularly in identifying any measures taken to remediate the loss of income to the most vulnerable families that results from any measure taken to eliminate the use of forced labour or child labour in its activities and supply chains.

Effectively combatting child labour requires that resources be made available to support victims and their families. An income equivalent to at least the income generated by child labour must be available. Otherwise, the phenomenon will continue in other forms or through other companies that are not subject to the law on forced labour and child labour.

I decided to support this bill for two main reasons: to reinforce the transparency that companies need to maintain in their activities, and to get them to identify the specific measures they have taken to prevent child labour in a concrete and public way.

I also wanted to support this initiative to strengthen the mechanisms that contribute to the tangible and effective respect of human dignity everywhere and for everyone. In 2022, the thought of an eight-year-old girl working herself to death in a textile factory or a ten-year-old boy going down a mine is unbearable. It absolutely flies in the face of our understanding of human dignity.

Honourable senators, we are a country that stands for human rights, a country that stands for fairness and social justice. We are a country that is concerned with the well-being of children. Many Western countries, such as Australia, France and Germany, have passed similar legislation. It is urgent that we catch up to them. I therefore urge you to support this bill to fill the legal void in this regard in our country.

I thank Senator Miville-Dechêne for her initiative and her leadership on this bill.

Thank you.

(On motion of Senator Martin, debate adjourned.)

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