John McKay

[Committees of the House, June 1st, 2022]

Madam Speaker, I consider myself a friend of the Hon. Andrew Leslie, whose service to the nation is well respected.

In some respects, as my speech indicated, we do not get the seriousness of the threat that Putin-ism presents to us. Ukrainians are fighting for us as well as for their nation. Where we need to get our act together is in supporting them in a real and material way. I like to think, and I take note, and maybe the hon. member would not appreciate it, but the Ukrainian defence minister, in his presentation, noted Canada's defence minister and appreciated her contributions to the fight.

[Committees of the House, June 1st, 2022]

Madam Speaker, it is an honour and a pleasure to participate in this debate.

I will be splitting my time with the member for Saanich—Gulf Islands. I am not quite sure how that got in there, but my colleague from Saanich—Gulf Islands and I are apparently splitting this time, and I am honoured to do so.

As members have heard, a number of us travelled to Vilnius, Lithuania, in the past few days to participate in the parliamentary NATO conference. It was truly one of those extraordinary experiences, which I had the honour of sharing with the members for Saint-Jean, Charlesbourg—Haute-Saint-Charles, North Island—Powell River and Dartmouth—Cole Harbour, as well as Senator Cordy and Senator Bellemare.

As the member for North Island—Powell River indicated, it is an important element of our responsibilities to participate in these meetings, which extend parliamentary diplomacy and extend our values as Canadians as we try to wrestle with some of the most intractable issues in global politics.

When one lands in Vilnius and comes out of the airport, one sees a country that is sort of emerging from Soviet occupation. Some of the buildings are extraordinarily beautiful. Some are clearly classic, and others are this brutal Soviet architecture, which is just kind of falling down. When one gets to the hotel, one is in a revitalized area of the city, and as one emerges from the hotel, one is confronted with the history of the Baltics, the history of Lithuania. As one walks out of the hotel and goes to the main street, on the left are the parliamentary buildings, about three blocks away, where the issues are debated, which is essentially where we were for the three or four days that we were in Vilnius.

I must say that the presentations were absolutely extraordinary. They were pointed, detailed, very useful and very united. Interestingly, one of the speakers there was the defence minister from Ukraine, and, today, he received a threat of assassination. Nothing focuses the mind like that. However, this was the kind of atmosphere in which we spent, peripherally I would say, three or four days.

From the hotel, if one goes left, there are the parliamentary buildings, and if one goes right, about the same distance, three blocks, one gets to the Vilnius version of Lubyanka, which is where the Russians tortured and killed political prisoners. This one in Vilnius is now a museum to the genocide of the Soviet occupation. Our delegation did not have time to tour what has been turned into a museum of genocide, but as I walked down the sidewalk, in this beautiful, old town of the city, with a gorgeous park right across the street, I saw inscribed on the walls of this prison the names of the people who had been tortured and killed in that building.

What is even more extraordinary, when we read the birth dates and the death dates, is that these people were 23, 25, and occasionally 40 years old. Sometimes they were 21 years old, and sometimes they were even a teenager. Their lives were cut off at the beginning of their aspirations to live a full human life. The reality of these brutal occupations of the Baltic nations over the course of history just descends on us. This is where history and geopolitics merge.

The Baltic nations, whether Estonia, Latvia or Lithuania, have always been the highways to Hell, and whether it was German or Soviet occupations, they have been occupied. Lithuania has actually enjoyed relatively few years of independence, so for the average citizen of Lithuania, this is is not an abstraction. It is not an academic discussion at Carleton University or the University of Ottawa political science department. This is reality for these folks, so when we talk about Finland or Sweden joining NATO, that means something, and that is a real security guarantee that, up to now, they have not enjoyed.

They are afraid, and for a darned good reason, of the Baltic Sea turning into a Russian lake because they would then be threatened not only from land borders, but also from the Baltic Sea, much like the Black Sea, which Putin is attempting to turn into a Russian lake. The joining of Sweden and Finland to the NATO alliance puts that whole enterprise in an entirely different light, and it enables citizens in countries such as Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia some measure of guarantee, which we, as Canadian citizens and North Americans, do not even understand. We do not get it.

For the Europeans, World War III has already started. They understand Bucha in a way that we do not understand it, because Bucha is on the main street to Vilnius. It is memorialized in the lives and deaths of those young Lithuanians, so we are, respectfully, quite naive about what this actually means.

My colleagues and I had some extraordinary experiences, but the one experience that really stayed with me was supper with the committee chairs of the Polish parliament, the German parliament, the Lithuanian parliament and a young Ukrainian MP who reminded me, frankly, of my daughter. I asked her how she was coping with this, and she said she was frozen inside because she had lost family and colleagues. She understood this in a visceral way that none of the rest of us do. The other experience that really hit on me was what the rest of us experienced, which was a young Ukrainian MP calling into the conference who had only five minutes. As she spoke, she said that her signal had been tracked and she needed to hang up the phone, and she went to the bomb shelter.

That is reality in the Baltic nations and Ukraine. I wish I could convey that to my colleagues and our nation.

[Committees of the House, June 1st, 2022]

Madam Speaker, the hon. member and I were on the same trip, as were the members for St. John's East and Charlesbourg—Haute-Saint-Charles, and I thought that I would like her to comment on the fact that the people of Lithuania raised $5 million in the course of three days to buy a drone.

What does that mean in terms of their response to this brutal invasion by Vladimir Putin into Ukraine?

[Fighting Against Forced Labour and Child Labour in Supply Chains Act, May 18th, 2022]

Madam Speaker, I request a recorded division.

[Fighting Against Forced Labour and Child Labour in Supply Chains Act, May 18th, 2022]

Madam Speaker, I want to thank all of my colleagues who spoke tonight. I particularly appreciated that our friend from the Bloc got over his aversion to the Senate. Good causes require drastic action.

This has been a long journey. It was a four-year journey. For others, it has been longer than that. At this point, it is an achievable bill. It is something that we can get into legislation. I buy entirely the arguments that colleagues are making about improvements. Certainly, on the support for the improvements, I hope it is there and we will carry on with the harmonious state of the House at this point.

Before this radical harmony breaks out any further, I think I should sit down and we can go back to our usual business. I thank my colleagues and appreciate everyone's hard work.

[Fighting Against Forced Labour and Child Labour in Supply Chains Act, May 18th, 2022]

Madam Speaker, in this particular instance, this bill would only aid the Canadian authorities and hopefully help them recognize slave-based product coming into Canada. The member's analysis is perfectly correct. The Americans seize far more goods than we do. Because of that, they probably have a better feel for the entire product lines that are coming into Canada. I am rather hoping that this bill pushes that analysis and pushes the Canadian authorities to seize more product.

However, I understand, and this bill does not deal with this, that there are differences. The American standard to seize is lower than the Canadian standard to seize. The analogy I would draw is the difference between the criminal standard of proof that is beyond reasonable doubt versus that which is on the balance of probabilities. I think that is actually the core problem with our own legislation. Again, I would encourage my hon. colleague and friend, whom I also admire for her work, to bring forth a private member's bill that might suggest something along those lines.

[Fighting Against Forced Labour and Child Labour in Supply Chains Act, May 18th, 2022]

Madam Speaker, may I simply say that this is a modest proposal. It is a first step. I do not want perfection to be the enemy of the good. That is why I am soliciting support at this stage. I would anticipate that future parliaments will have an initiative that may be far more extensive than this, perhaps even from my honourable friend, but I would rather take a few steps at this point and anticipate that other steps will be taken at a future date.

[Fighting Against Forced Labour and Child Labour in Supply Chains Act, May 18th, 2022]

Madam Speaker, first of all, with respect to the all-party group, I too would like to acknowledge the willingness of many colleagues from the Conservative Party and the Bloc, and our friends in the NDP and the Liberal Party, to push forward a couple of important initiatives, with this being one of them. It has been quite effective in its advocacy.

Second, with respect to the inclusion of governments, we have gone through a period of time in the last two or three years when we may have sourced goods which we, in other instances, may not or would not have sourced. They were from dubious sources, shall we say. As I said in my speech, and as my hon. colleague repeated, we can hardly expect the public of Canada or corporate Canada to adhere to standards that we are not prepared to impose upon ourselves. We have, as a government, not just this government, but all governments, an ability to source and examine supply chains that many corporations do not. Therefore, I would like to hope that we as governments become leaders in this field rather than followers.

[Fighting Against Forced Labour and Child Labour in Supply Chains Act, May 18th, 2022]

moved that 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, be read the second time and referred to a committee.

Madam Speaker, I want to thank an abundance of colleagues who have been very instrumental in getting this bill to where it is now. First and foremost I thank Senator Miville-Dechêne, who shepherded this through the Senate of Canada, and my friend and colleague, the member for Thunder Bay—Rainy River, who has been very helpful as well.

I also want to acknowledge other friends, who are in the chamber as we speak. I expect they are supportive of this initiative and I want to thank them. I am rather hoping that just before the end of the hour, the debate will cease and we will move to have a recorded division at the first available opportunity.

First and foremost, I want members to feel the garments they are wearing. Do we know for certain that the garments we are wearing are free of supply chain slavery? When we go home tonight and open a can of tomato paste or a seafood dish, will we be absolutely certain that there is no element of slavery in the supply chain that brought that product to us?

A lot of us take pride in trying to reduce our GHG emissions, so I, like many others, have a couple of solar panel arrays. Am I sure that the components of those solar panels, or the solar panels themselves, are free of supply chain slavery?

I ask these questions because cotton, solar panels, tomato paste and seafood products have all been traced to slave-like conditions overseas. Report after report and American customs officials indicate that these products and many others are produced by forced labour and/or child labour, and we innocent, or maybe ignorant, Canadian consumers are complicit in this noxious practice.

In 2016, it was estimated that 34 billion dollars' worth of goods sold by over 1,200 Canadian companies were infected by supply chain slavery. A World Vision survey estimates that four billion dollars' worth of food products, primarily from Mexico, including coffee, fish, tomatoes, cane sugar and cocoa, are among the most common products of slave labour.

Cotton from Xinjiang is produced by Uighur slaves. Cobalt from the Congo is mined by children, and it goes into all the electric vehicles we are hoping to produce. In Canada, agricultural workers are particularly at risk, as are hotel maintenance workers.

I could use up my entire time here listing the human rights abuses of our fellow global citizens. The assumption of this bill is that different consumption choices would be made if there was a readily available source of knowledge. Neither I nor anybody else wishes to be the unwitting supporters of slavery. As William Wilberforce, possibly the greatest parliamentarian of the British Westminster system, once said, we may choose to look the other way, but we can never say we did not know.

What is to be done? Bill S-211 is a modest proposal to bring transparency to our supply chains, and if properly implemented, it could actually make a big impact. The preamble defines the issue and cites numerous international labour conventions to which Canada is a signatory. The purpose clause imposes reporting requirements on governments and business entities in Canada.

Part 1 binds government institutions in the bill. As legislators, we could hardly expect the companies of Canada to be bound by this kind of legislation if we are not prepared to bind ourselves. Part 2 binds entities producing or selling in Canada with similar reporting obligations as governments. The business entities must either be listed on the Toronto Stock Exchange or meet two out of three criteria: $20 million in assets, $40 million in sales or 250 employees.

The next part of the legislation sets out the annual report, what it needs to say and who can sign it. We see this as a rough equivalent to a letter to the auditor. We then outline the authority of the Minister of Public Safety, including his or her right to examine and seize records and the ability to compel compliance.

The final section deals with offences and punishment. Some may query why the $250,000 fine is so low. The reason is that we feel that transparency and accountability is far more of a sanction. In other words, the real teeth in the bill are the abilities to name and shame. The bill would also allow for the imposition of a fine levied against the directors and not just the company.

Part 3 proposes an electronic registry that is publicly accessible, along with a report to Parliament and a five-year review thereafter. It is almost a certainty that future parliamentarians will want to improve and strengthen this bill, as we all gain some experience with it.

Finally, I want to review the journey of this bill. I, as well as other members, have been around here long enough to remember our friend Bob Nault. The journey of this bill began in his office when he introduced us to British parliamentarians who had just implemented a bill such as this in 2015, which was subsequently improved upon in 2019. The Australian Parliament passed a similar bill in 2018. France has an extremely tough bill, but it applies only to very large corporations. In 2019, the Netherlands passed a child labour due diligence act, and six months ago, Germany did much the same.

In the last election, both the Conservative and Liberal parties made platform commitments to introduce legislation to “eradicate forced labour from Canadian supply chains”. Four ministers have similar commitments in their mandate letters. In the 42nd Parliament, the foreign affairs committee submitted a report and a recommendation for such a bill.

Eighty-seven per cent of Canadians say that they want something done, and 75% of respondents from the Schulich School of Business said that a transparency law would drive change and benefit their businesses. This is an idea whose time has come, and it may be that the Canadian public is actually way ahead of us.

I will end with what my good friend Senator Miville-Dechêne had to say as she concluded her remarks in the other place. She said, “I would say that S-211 seeks to make a modest contribution to a broader and longer-term objective”. This is, according to the senator, namely aligning our businesses “and economic activities with the imperatives of social and environmental sustainability.” She says, “Canada has made many commitments internationally, but we have yet to [translate] them in our [national] legislation.”

It is worth repeating that we are a little late. Senator Miville-Dechêne continued, “Canada is a rich, free and modern society” committed “in principle” to the defence of human rights. She says that if we are unable to act forcefully “to limit modern slavery practices in our supply chains, we...risk...losing the moral [stature] that we cherish”, and we would look like “hypocrites”. She states that does not want that.

So said my friend, Senator Miville-Dechêne, and I second her sentiments.

I am looking forward to questions, and I am also looking forward to an early referral of this bill to the foreign affairs committee. As I said, I look forward to what colleagues might say. I am thankful for their time and attention.

[Business of Supply, May 12th, 2022]

Madam Speaker, I chair the national defence committee. We have just done a threat analysis study. I think it will be an excellent report. However, we were distracted. The distraction was, naturally, to Ukraine, Europe and NATO. The threat of the Indo-Pacific was not dealt with nearly as well as it should have been.

I am assuming that your committee is much like our committee, challenged for time and challenged for resources, and not able to deal coherently with some pretty important issues.

That is the reason that I think this is not a bad idea.