Bill S-211

Fighting Against Forced Labour and Child Labour in Supply Chains Act

An Act to enact the Fighting Against Forced Labour and Child Labour in Supply Chains Act and to amend the Customs Tariff

This enactment enacts the Fighting Against Forced Labour and Child Labour in Supply Chains Act , which imposes an obligation on certain government institutions and private-sector entities to report on the measures taken to prevent and reduce the risk that forced labour or child labour is used by them or in their supply chains. The Act provides for an inspection regime applicable to entities and gives the Minister the power to require an entity to provide certain information.
This enactment also amends the Customs Tariff to allow for aprohibition on the importation of goods manufactured or produced,in whole or in part, by forced labour or child labour as those terms are defined in the Fighting Against Forced Labour and Child Labour in Supply Chains Act .

International Day for the Abolition of Slavery

[John McKay, Liberal, Scarborough—Guildwood, ON]

Mr. Speaker, December 2 marks the International Day for the Abolition of Slavery. Most of us think about the Atlantic slave trade insofar as we think about slavery at all. World Vision estimates that there are multiple more people enslaved now than there were then. Twenty-first century supply chains have brought this scourge to our shores.

This Parliament passed Bill S-211, and the first reporting date was in May of this year. What the reports show is that the supply chains are deeply infected. Of the 6,000 entities reporting, 38% identified disturbing issues. Multiple more did not report at all.

I take some encouragement from the government's willingness to be proactive, but the data needs to be analyzed, needs at least one more reporting cycle, and more entities need to be willing or unwillingly brought into the regime.

Slavery may be as old as humanity, but it does not mean that we need to support it by purchasing its products.

International Trade

[John McKay, Liberal, Scarborough—Guildwood, ON]

Madam Speaker, I must admit I am a little surprised that this is being discussed on the floor of the House today. I would have liked to have prepared a bit more, but here we are.

I am, surprise, surprise, the obscure backbencher who put forward Bill S-211. I thought I would share with hon. members and the public at large the journey, the four- or five-year journey, to this point when we are saying whatever it is that we are saying.

The concept of the bill was introduced to me at least four or five years ago, when World Vision sponsored some British legislators to come to Canada to talk about their version of this kind of transparency bill. I was kind of attracted to the idea. I thought it was a good idea, so I thought to myself, well, let us put together a piece of legislation.

We put together a piece of legislation and, of course, the process being the process that it is around here, the legislation died on the Order Paper, and we had an election, so that went nowhere. Then I did it again in the interim between 2019 and 2021, and it, too, went nowhere.

Meanwhile, both the Conservative Party and the Liberal Party decided that this was something that should be in a platform. If we read the platforms of both parties, the commitments mirror Bill S-211 by some considerable measure. Both the Conservatives and the Liberals thought that transparency legislation would be good.

By this time, we thought maybe we should get a little bit smarter and introduce the legislation in the Senate. Then we would not be hampered by the peculiar rules of the House of Commons, where there is an order of precedence, and if a member is unlucky, their legislation is at the bottom of the order of precedence. However, if the member is lucky, they are at the top and get a chance to run a piece of legislation through the House during a mandate.

Then 2021 came along, and it was in both parties' platforms. We had a draft bill on order, ready to go. Indeed, four cabinet ministers had this kind of legislation in their mandate, and, arguably, this kind of legislation would have fulfilled the mandate obligations in their mandate letters.

We took the bill and made it a stronger piece of legislation than that in England, Australia or California. Canada went from laggard to leader in the process. We started the bill in the Senate this time, as the Senate does not have the peculiar rules of this place, and we were fortunate to be able to get the bill dealt with in an expeditious manner, virtually without amendment. Then it came here.

When it came up on the Order Paper, we had virtually the unanimous consent of members, and I think it was a unanimous vote, to move the bill from the floor of the House to committee.

Then we had other parties, particularly the Bloc and the NDP, wanting to bolt onto the bill a whole bunch of things, which broadly could be described as due diligence. In simple language, due diligence in this case essentially meant that, if one discovers the supply chain flaw, they actually have to fix it. That is in the legislation that is in Germany and in France. It is an appearance of a good idea without actually being a good idea.

The immediate consequence of comparing due diligence in France with Canadian transparency legislation is that it would eliminate 98% of Canadian companies because the threshold for the French legislation was companies with at least 5,000 employees. Canada does not have that many companies with 5,000 employees. Because all the companies below that threshold would not have any obligation to comply with anything, we would have had an appearance of doing something good when the reality was something else, so we resisted the notion that we could bolt on due diligence legislation to this transparency bill.

We did make it a transparency bill on steroids because, unlike what was done with the Australian or English legislation, we brought in obligations to government entities, the theory being that we cannot tell people what to do and then not do it ourselves. If I have a disappointment, as my friend previous alluded to, it is that I wish that, in the final report, the government entities, and they are not just federal government entities but Canadian government entities, would have complied at a more vigorous rate than they ended up doing. However, we put that into the bill.

The other thing that was really unique about this bill that gave it some more teeth was that we obligated the senior leadership of the entity to sign the report. When a CEO or CFO signs a report, it becomes a public document. The consequence of becoming a public document is that various other entities read it. Suddenly, if one is borrowing $100 million, the bank will read their supply chain report. If we had not put that in, one could say whatever they wanted to say. Now one has to have a sign-off from the CEO or CFO and it becomes a board obligation in the same way that, if one files a prospectus, one has to say that the statements in it are true and swear that those statements are true. Therefore, in the ultimate implementation of the legislation, which was over 6,000 entities, there were a lot of lawyers and a lot of compliance officers reviewing these statements for their truthfulness and accuracy. It became a pretty interesting disclosure of a significant amount of data.

When we went to the committee, we lost the support of the Bloc and the NDP, who in my judgment made foolish decisions about bolting onto a piece of legislation something the legislation was not designed for in the enthusiasm to run before one walks or finding perfection before one gets to the good. We then got it to the House for the final debate. The Conservative Party and the Liberal Party supported the bill. The cabinet supported the bill, and it received royal assent in May of 2023.

Then there was a period of time between May 2023 and the coming into force date of January 1, 2024, when guidance was written on how to report. There were extensive consultations with the industry writ large, the entities that would be caught by this legislation. I attended a number of seminars. I know that public safety gave a number of seminars. The information was collated and the drafting of the expectations of the report was put together somewhere about this time last year. That is probably where it ultimately landed.

It came into force on January 1 of this year. The first reporting period was May of this year, and to my surprise, over 6,000 entities responded. The trouble is that we do not know out of how many. Maybe 10,000 entities should have responded. That is one of the flaws in the report.

The report was then tabled in September of this year. I have it on my table here. One thing that is disturbing about it is that 38% of the entities that responded confirmed they had identified that parts of their activities and supply chains carried the risk of forced labour, which means that 38% of 6,000 filing entities say they think they have a problem. These are the entities that responded. We have no information on those that did not respond.

The Speaker and I have spoken personally about this before. Canada has a significant problem with slave products in our supply chains. We are all members of a larger Canadian society, and we need to deal with this issue. I would urge colleagues to urge the government to disaggregate this data so that we know what problem we have. Also, as members have alluded to, we have a problem at the border. It is a real problem, a personal problem, and not only that, but it is becoming an international trade problem. One can be reasonably assured that this will come up in future negotiations for the USMCA and with various other trade groups.

[Randy Hoback, Conservative, Prince Albert, SK]

Madam Speaker, the reality is that the Liberals knew it was a problem a long time ago. They did not need Bill S-211 to bring in legislation that would have done something to reduce the problem of forced labour. They could have taken action similar to what the U.S., Australia and the U.K. have done, but they chose not to.

When they brought in Bill S-211 and they started looking at the benchmarks, 44% of the government departments did not even report. Can the member tell me why that is? That is not acceptable. It is in the legislation that they have to report, yet they have not. Out of the 56% that did report, we know that 17.2% of their supply chains have forced labour in them.

The Liberals know they have a problem. They have had a problem within their own government institutions and their own procurement process, and they have done nothing to fix it. Only two departments have actually taken actions to try to curb this. The rest have put their heads in the sand, and the ministers have done nothing. In reality, they have done nothing to fix this problem. They have the data in front of them. They have had it for years. Where is the legislation? It is November. I still do not see it.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Madam Speaker, I want to pick up on the discussion on Bill S-211 because it was legislation for which both the government and the Conservatives saw merit in passing. Today, we see many fruits from that. We are talking about thousands of companies that have now reported in because of that legislation. Through that, we have a very good sense of the degree of the depth of the issue. As a result, the discussions that preceded the writing of the bill that we will be seeing before the end of the year were well informed.

I am wondering if the member could provide his thoughts on the important role Bill S-211 played in helping Canadians better understand the situation and that there are going to be ramifications.

[Randy Hoback, Conservative, Prince Albert, SK]

Madam Speaker, those are two great questions. I will start off with the first one on Bill S-211. It is not a great piece of legislation. We agree with them on that. The reality is that it is a piece of legislation that gives us some benchmarks and some reporting tools to get a sense of how bad the problem is here in Canada. What we have seen is in the government's own departments, and 17.2% of them have child or forced labour as part of their supply chains. We would not have known that without Bill S-211. They would not have reported it or have been forced to report it. While not perfect, the legislation at least gives us some data we can move forward with and puts more accountability on the minister to see results.

In regard to the temporary foreign workers program, I have many examples of businesses that are using the program that are models. It has worked for both the employees and the employer, and it has been good for everybody involved. There are always some bad actors. There are always some bad examples, and we have to put in place the appropriate rules to get rid of those bad apples so it does not happen again.

[Laurel Collins, NDP, Victoria, BC]

Madam Speaker, I am disappointed to hear the member talk about the piece of legislation the Liberals already passed, and I was disappointed to see the Conservatives vote in favour of it. Bill S-211 was an empty bill and it was criticized by Amnesty International. It was criticized by Human Rights Watch. It was criticized by the international organizations that are working on the ground to try to end forced labour and to ensure human rights are upheld around the world.

I want to ask about contemporary slavery here at home. The United Nations special rapporteur on contemporary forms of slavery has called the temporary foreign worker program a “breeding ground” for this kind of abuse. Some examples are wage theft, excessive work hours, limited breaks and physical abuse. Can the member speak to the urgency of not only addressing the horrific violations around the world but also addressing them here at home in Canada?

[Randy Hoback, Conservative, Prince Albert, SK]

Madam Speaker, I can see that you are upset today, and I do not blame you; Canadians are upset with this debate we are having today. The fact that we are having this debate has Canadians upset because they thought this was being taken care of. They thought this issue was being addressed by legislation. Canadians would not believe what is going on and what has been going on at our borders and how the current government has broken our border system and broken our systems altogether.

I rise today to speak to this very important issue regarding forced and child labour in the supply chains and why the government must do more to rid the country of this problem.

Before I begin, I will give a bit of history. On January 1, the Fighting Against Forced Labour and Child Labour in Supply Chains Act, known as the supply chains act, came into effect. It was not a great bill, but at least it was something. I was happy to see this private member's bill pass, as I voted for it along with nearly everyone in this House. That bill was the first step in Canada's long road to ridding our supply chains of forced labour and child labour. By asking the government departments and private businesses if their supply chains carry a risk of forced or child labour, we can begin to properly measure the size of the problem and take steps toward a solution.

In this scenario, we are just talking about finding a benchmark. We are just trying to see how big the problem possibly could be. I will compare it to what my friend from Dufferin—Caledon, the shadow minister for labour, talked about in regard to what has been going on in the U.S. The Americans are not just identifying; they are actually taking action. We are at least identifying the issue. In the case of the supply chains act, identifying a risk of forced labour means that the government department or business determines there is some possibility that forced or child labour might have been used. However, what was learned by implementing the supply chains act is that Canada was late to the table. Numerous other jurisdictions have already implemented forced labour laws. This list includes the United Kingdom Modern Slavery Act, the California Transparency in Supply Chains Act and the Australian Modern Slavery Act. Many of our closest allies and trading partners drew the world's attention to the problem of modern slavery in supply chains and passed meaningful legislation to work toward a solution, but the current government took nearly six years to finally pass legislation and still fails to meaningfully enact it.

The Canada supply chains act took numerous years to become law. It was first proposed in 2021 and only received royal assent on January 1, 2024. The government was well aware of its pending implementation. In fact, many Liberals voted for this bill, including the Prime Minister himself. With near-unanimous consent by members of the government, supported by His Majesty's loyal opposition, and three committee hearings at the Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs and International Development, the government members cannot plead ignorant to the issue of forced labour in supply chains.

That then leads me to the matter we are debating here today: the government's failure to propose meaningful legislation that rids the supply chains of forced labour once and for all. Today's motion, that the 21st report of the Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs and International Trade presented on Wednesday, October 30 be concurred in, is an embarrassment for the current Liberal government. What we are debating here today is for the government to acknowledge that it has been dragging its heels with respect to implementing meaningful legislation that would combat forced labour.

Unfortunately, Bill S-211, while a positive step forward, is a limited step forward. It was limited in its mandate and, through the reports submitted by the Department of Public Safety, we have learned the Government of Canada and private businesses have a glaring problem. It was not as if the government was not aware of this, though. In the Liberals' budget presented in March 2023, the Liberal government indicated its intention to introduce anti-forced labour legislation by the end of 2024. The Liberals then followed up this spring with a statement and repeated themselves in the latest budget presentation in March, again indicating they wish to present anti-forced labour legislation by the end of 2024. It is now November 19 and there is no legislation in sight.

This is a grave dereliction of duty as it is the government's legislation that is required to fix this problem. Ignorance of the problem here is no excuse; it is simply laziness and incompetence. The Liberal government has been aware of the problem for years. Its own ministers voted on the topic in two budgets in 2023 and 2024. It was indicated that it was a priority for the government and yet, nothing has happened. In the meantime, we have received government reports from the Department of Public Safety demonstrating the scale of the issue and the number of government departments that have identified a risk of forced or child labour in their supply chains. This is unacceptable.

I would like to make clear just how significant the problem of forced labour is in our Canadian supply chains and to do this, it is important to look at the statistics on the matter. Before I jump into those, I would ask my colleagues in the House to remember what we are really discussing here today. Modern slavery is not a singular problem. These are individuals and, in many cases, children who are victims of an abusive system. The supply chains act, Bill S-211, mandates the Government of Canada to prepare an annual report highlighting the prevalence of forced and child labour in the supply chain. With responses by government departments, agencies and private businesses, the Minister of Public Safety is responsible for tabling an annual report to Parliament.

This past September 30, we received the government's inaugural report, and it was not positive. In the report entitled “2024 Annual Report to Parliament on the Fighting Against Forced Labour and Child Labour in Supply Chains Act”, the Minister of Public Safety outlined the degree to which the government sourced supplies that carry the risk of forced labour. This is the report, a very damning report, excuse use my language, to the government, as the statistics will tell us.

In 2024, 17.2%, of government institutions had identified that parts of their activities and supply chains had a risk of forced labour or child labour being used. Almost 20% of the government's own departments identified the possibility of child labour or slavery being used in their supply chains, the people they buy from.

Some 37.9% of government institutions started the process of identifying the risks, but highlighted that there were still gaps in the assessment. That tells us that a good chunk of departments still have not even done a full assessment at this point in time, yet almost 20% of those supply chains are at risk of using forced or child labour.

Some 44.8% had not started the process of identifying risks at all. That means 44% of government departments have not even gone through the process that they are mandated to do. We are getting stats of 17.2% of the supply chains for government without 44% of them even reporting. What is the actual number? It is disgusting, declaringly horrible, and yet the government has done nothing to fix it.

To remedy the glaring issue that 17.2% of government departments that identified risk of forced labour in their supply chains, only two government institutions indicated they had implemented actions to prevent forced or child labour and associated harms from reoccurring. In all the government departments, only two are doing something, meaning there are numerous government institutions that are aware they have forced or child labour problems and have not done anything.

However, what I find even more concerning is that while responding to the questions was mandatory, again 44.8% of government institutions did not even start the process of identifying risks in their supply chain. Ignorance of the law excuses no one. “The head of every government institution must, on or before May 31 of each year, report to the Minister on the steps the government institution has taken during its previous financial year to prevent and reduce the risk that forced labour or child labour is used at any step of the production of goods produced, purchased or distributed by the government institution.” This is a direct quote from Bill S-211. That is what the Minister of Public Safety himself voted for. Why has he not enforced the laws he is mandated to enforce?

To conclude, it is beyond unacceptable that the Liberal government is not giving the attention that is required to remove forced labour from our supply chains. It is beyond unacceptable that the government continues to drag its heels on meaningful legislation that would rid our supply chains of forced labour. It is beyond unacceptable that 17% of government institutions had identified parts of their activities and supply chains that carry a risk of forced labour or child labour being used. It is beyond unacceptable that only two government institutions are trying to do something about it. The fact that 44% of government institutions could just opt out of reporting is also horrible, and it is ridiculous that the minister failed to do his job.

In fact, it is quite telling how little the government cares about removing forced and child labour that its own ministers and departments missed mandatory deadlines and failed to report information they are required to report. Forced and child labour in our supply chains has been identified as a leading issue by our allies. It is time we take it seriously. The impact this has on those who are exploited is unimaginable. Vulnerable people and children are victims of the government's inattentiveness and claiming that it did not know is inexcusable and, frankly, untrue.

It is time the government take the issue of forced labour and child labour seriously, and remove it from the government procurement process and our store shelves. We can see there are lots of things to talk about regarding this issue and there is not enough time. I have not even talked about the implications on trade and what it means to our allies when we are laggards.

The government is going around the world preaching to everybody about something while doing nothing about it here at home. This is another example of the government saying that they are going to do something but never actually accomplishing anything.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Madam Speaker, talk about being misleading. The member is full of something that I cannot say because it would be unparliamentary.

The member tried to give a false impression that the government has done nothing, but what would he say about the the passing of Bill S-211? As a direct result of that legislation, not hundreds but thousands of companies are now registered, raising the profile of the issue so that we can bring forward legislation before the end of the year. Contrast that to Stephen Harper, the member's idol. He did zip, nothing. Oh, I am sorry. Harper's government signed a secret trade agreement with China.

I wonder if the member has the intestinal fortitude to apologize for misleading the House.

[Maninder Sidhu, Liberal, Brampton East, ON]

Madam Speaker, the hon. member mentioned private member's bills. Bill S-211, which was brought forward to the House, brought up the very important issue from my colleague from Scarborough—Guildwood about forced labour . The member has a very good point: With the Conservatives' teaming up with other opposition parties gumming up the House, we are not able to bring forward important private member bills to ensure that we are able to support Canadians or even speak of legislation that can be tabled in the House, should the Conservatives end their delay tactics and filibusters and wasting millions of dollars by gumming up the House and delivering the same speech over and over again.

For the people watching at home, I will say that I get emails saying, “I heard that speech already. Why are we still talking about that?” I think it is important that the Conservatives follow the RCMP and the Auditor General's recommendations, because there is a process in place and the Speaker has ruled on the matter, so we can continue bringing forward legislation and members can bring forward their private member's bills.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Madam Speaker, I have been talking a lot about Bill S-211 as a good, positive first step. I understand that the NDP voted against that particular private member's bill, which was sponsored through the Senate. The government has committed to bringing in further legislation in terms of first reading before the end of the year. I hope it will address some of the concerns that the member has raised. However, it is one thing for us to introduce legislation. We have other legislation that is actually on the Order Paper, some really good stuff. The NDP is actually supporting a lot of it, whether it is the citizenship or the protecting children over the Internet legislation, yet it all seems to be at a standstill. Could he just provide his thoughts in regard to how he believes we could overcome this?

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Mr. Speaker, my question is in regard to Bill S-211. Through it, literally thousands of companies have come forward, as obligated by law, to indicate issues concerning the exploitation of labour. We have seen a very high percentage of forced labour being used in the supply chain. As a result, we are bringing in legislation that will hopefully provide more strength to Bill S-211.

Does the member opposite believe there is any obligation on the Conservative Party to allow legislation to not only be introduced but also voted on, so it can go to committee and go through the system?

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

Mr. Speaker, when we talk about Bill S-211 and the government working at getting the support from the Conservative Party where we were ultimately able to pass the legislation, I understand the NDP and the Bloc were somewhat uncomfortable with the legislation. There has been a very significant, positive impact from that legislation already to date, and we have seen thousands and thousands of companies that have now reported. We know there is a very high percentage of areas where there is forced labour that needs to be factored in and we believe we will have better legislation introduced before the end of the year.

I would remind members of the New Democratic Party that before this administration, absolutely nothing was being done on the issue and it has been a very busy legislative agenda. For the last number of weeks, all we have seen is a great deal of filibustering, preventing legislation from passing any stage by the Conservative Party. We look to our friends within the NDP, who have worked with us in the past, to try to get legislation through. Hopefully, we will get the bill the minister is talking to a first reading, and even get it beyond that. In order to do that, we need to have a partner.

[Laurel Collins, NDP, Victoria, BC]

Mr. Speaker, November 20 is National Day of the Child. It is a day to celebrate and honour children.

However, today, around the world, 160 million children, many as young as five years old, are forced to work and are denied the opportunity to go to school. We have been calling on the government for due diligence legislation, human rights legislation. We have criticized the government's deeply flawed approach.

It was not just the NDP and the Bloc criticizing the government's approach to Bill S-211. It was Oxfam Canada, Amnesty International Canada and Human Rights Watch Canada. They stood together to say that Canada's appalling record on human rights violations abroad cannot be addressed with an empty bill that just pays lip service to this issue.

Now, I hear the government saying that it is going to bring in legislation, but forgive me if I am skeptical and if Canadians are skeptical of more Liberal promises. Will the member commit to truly rigorous accountability and due diligence legislation that will hold these companies liable?

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Mr. Speaker, forced labour is not something new; it has been around for many years. When I listen to the questions and answers, it is a bit much to hear a Conservative talk about forced labour, when Stephen Harper and the current leader of the Conservative Party did absolutely nothing to deal with it. I will be fair: When Senate Bill S-211 was before us, the Conservatives joined us in passing it. At the very least, Conservatives have done some positive things in working with the government and recognizing the issue of forced labour.

It is interesting that we are now having the debate on the issue primarily because of what I have often referred to as a multi-million dollar game the Conservatives are playing. As opposed to other opposition parties participating directly in the filibuster game, they are bringing forward motions for concurrence. I can appreciate the frustration other opposition parties are feeling because day after day for weeks now, the Conservative Party has filibustered, putting the self-interest of the leader of the Conservative Party and the Conservative Party in general ahead of the interests of Canadians.

The filibustering prevents us debating things such as the legislative agenda that would assist Canadians in many different ways, whether it is protecting children against the Internet, transferring military court to civilian court on issues of sexual violence, Canadian citizenship or the fall economic statement. These are just part of the government agenda.

There is also Private Members' Business and there are opposition day motions. I suggest the current debate would have been a great debate for an opposition day motion. I truly believe that, because at the end of the day, forced labour, as I said, is nothing new, even though Stephen Harper and the current leader of the Conservative Party ignored it 100% during their tenure. It would have been a great discussion to have, and in the end it would have been great to have a positive resolution to it.

We have raised the issue in budgets, as has been pointed out. The motion itself went before the standing committee, and I compliment the efforts of the standing committee with respect to the people it listened to and its coming up with a report, but I would remind members that we have made a commitment to bring forward government legislation that would look at improving Bill S-211.

Of course we have to look at why we are having a difficult time getting legislation through the House of Commons, but that is not the fault of the Government of Canada or even the Bloc or the New Democrats. That responsibility falls on the shoulders of the leader of the official opposition. We will continue to look at ways to bring in the legislation that we have committed to.

Hopefully there will be the same sense of enthusiasm as with the first Conservative question when we bring in legislation, and there will be a warmth to the idea to allow debate to occur and possibly even to allow legislation to go to committee and ultimately pass through third reading and be given royal assent. What a wonderful idea that would be, but somehow we have to dislodge the leader of the Conservative Party's belief that Parliament is here to serve him and him alone. We need to understand that Parliament is here to serve Canadians first and foremost, and then we will be able to ultimately do more for Canadians.

On the issue of forced labour, one does not need to expand on the literally millions of individuals around the world who are affected. In virtually every country, there is forced labour being put into place. We need to recognize, as we have as a government, that the government can play a significant role.

There are some people who have absolutely no time for the Senate. I for one see great value in the Senate, and Bill S-211 is a good example of that. When the Senate of Canada passed that legislation through its system, it came to the House of Commons. First reading of the bill took place on May 3, 2022, and second reading was then completed on June 1, 2022. It then went to committee in November 2022. Report stage was completed on March 6, 2023, and third reading was completed on May 3, 2023. Royal assent was given shortly thereafter, and the legislation took effect in January of this year.

That is the type of thing that can take place, not only on Senate legislation but also on government legislation. Now that there is a leader of the Conservative Party who puts his interests first and foremost, the primary difference is that legislation is being put on hold more and more often. This is a direct result of his self-interest.

There are many pieces of legislation before the House and many that are going to be introduced to the House that deserve the merit not only of debate but also of going through the process and ultimately becoming law. I would suggest that Canada is a better society as a direct result of Bill S-211. Think of the results there have been with Bill S-211. Before the legislation passed through the House with the support of the Liberals and the Conservatives, there was nothing really in place to report forced labour.

As a direct result of the bill's getting royal assent and January being the date the legislation came into effect, there have been literally thousands and thousands of businesses or companies that have had to report in on the issue of forced labour in the supply chains. We have now identified that a very high percentage of those that have reported in are raising concerns in regard to forced labour in the supply chain. For the first time, the government actually has a much better sense of the degree to which forced labour is being used here in the Canadian supply chain.

The issue of forced labour is something the government takes seriously. When we were having the trade negotiations with the United States, on the one hand the Conservatives were crying and wanting to capitulate and say, “It does not matter; just get an agreement.” That was the Conservative approach to the Donald Trump first trade discussions that were taking place: Capitulate, do whatever it is that the United States wants and just get an agreement signed.

We worked very hard on CUSMA. Canada has, I would argue, the very best individual abilities in the world in terms of negotiating trade agreements, and I do not say that lightly. No government in the history of Canada has signed off on more trade agreements than the current government has. We do that because we recognize the true value of trade for Canada.

If we want to strengthen Canada's middle class and those aspiring to be a part of it, we have to focus attention on trade. Through that, working with Canadians and working with the different partners, record numbers of new jobs having been created, virtually double the number of jobs that Stephen Harper created in his nine years of governance.

With respect to how the issue has been evolving, we can look at the CUSMA deal and see that within it, we negotiated to prohibit importing goods made by forced labour. Does that mean it is a perfect deal? No one is saying that; there is always room for improvement. When we sit down with President-elect Trump in the future, members can know that we will have Canadian interests in our minds and heart. Unlike the Conservatives, who will advocate to capitulate based on their previous negotiations, we will ensure that the deal is in the best interests of Canadians. We have the record to clearly demonstrate this as a government that has signed off on far more trade agreements not only than Stephen Harper but also more than in the history of Canada.

People understand and know how important trade is between Canada and the United States. When we talk about jobs, we are talking about hundreds of thousands of good-quality Canadian jobs that are dependent on successful negotiations, and Canadians need to be aware that it is the current government and Prime Minister that got and signed off on the trade agreement known as CUSMA with the United States. It was the Conservatives who wanted us to capitulate and give the Americans whatever they wanted. It is because of our experience in dealing with trade agreements that we were able to achieve what we received. Within that, we talked about labour.

Interestingly, the House will remember one of the most recent trade agreements that we signed off on was the Canada-Ukraine Free Trade Agreement update. We will remember that, because the leader of the Conservative Party actually voted against it and instructed his minions to follow suit and vote against it. I withdraw the word “minions” just in case some people are a little offended by it. The Conservatives voted against a trade agreement. What is really interesting is that the very first trade agreement that the Conservatives, from what I can recall, ever voted against was the Canada-Ukraine trade agreement update.

We were talking earlier about a question of privilege about the influence that Russia is having. There is a story about how Russian influencers are trying to say all these bad things about our Prime Minister in an attempt to prop up the Conservative Party of Canada. There is an interesting connection there, and we will have to wait and see.

I would love to see this issue go to the standing committee. I would love the opportunity to see to what degree we would have interference affecting the Conservative Party going into the next election. However, I digress somewhat.

I believe that when we look at where we go from here, whether it is with respect to budgetary measures, legislative measures or dealing with the issue of forced labour, we continue to move forward. That is why the minister has provided assurances, as instructed by the Prime Minister in the form of mandate letters, that we will put into place legislation that will enhance and protect the interests of Canadians. We know the values we have say that we have to look at our supply chains and deal with the forced labour issue. That is something the Government of Canada is prepared to do in a very real and tangible way. That is why we have maintained the commitment that we will, in fact, be bringing in legislation to that effect before the end of the year.

I have three minutes to go. That is not enough time. At the end of the day, we could talk about trade, supply lines and related issues like forced labour, for many hours. As a government, more so than the Conservative government ever did, we understand how, by looking at trade and international trade, we can build a stronger and healthier middle class while at the same time dealing with the social issues that Canadians are concerned about. With respect to issues such as forced labour, in particular in areas like mining and manufacturing, as the Prime Minister has clearly shown, we can do both. The numbers show that, through the policies we have put into place that were driven by budgetary and legislative measures, we have built a healthier middle class, especially in these economic times, which can be a challenge for many of the constituents we represent.

The nice thing is that things are getting better. Interest rates are going down. Affordability is so much better. The inflation rate is below 2%. We are doing, in comparison with other countries, exceptionally well. However, that does not mean that we cannot do better. That is why we have a Prime Minister, a government and members of the Liberal caucus who continue to persist every day in improving conditions for Canadians. That is where our focus is, unlike the self-serving interests and focus of the Conservative leader and the Conservative caucus today.

Having said all that, I move:

That the question be now put.

[Simon-Pierre Savard-Tremblay, Bloc, Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot, QC]

Mr. Speaker, my colleague touched on a number of areas.

We support Bill C‑262. I am a supporter and co-sponsor of the bill, and I thank the NDP for bringing it forward. We support this legislation and, as co-sponsor, I fully and freely endorse it. It is a perfect example of genuine due diligence legislation.

The Conservatives and the Liberals voted for Bill S‑211. As I said at the end of my speech, we are unlikely to see eye to eye on what elements should be included in legislation on importing goods produced using forced labour or on eliminating forced labour from supply chains. I respect that. That is democracy. We will have a chance to debate the issue in due course.

Today, we need to refocus the debate around a simple reminder. The House has to send a clear message to the government that it broke its promise and that it has to bring us something. We keep hearing that governing is all about planning. The government needs to bring us a bill so that we can debate it. Our opinions will probably differ, but we should at least remind it that the promise it made has not been kept.

Regarding Ecuador, my colleague was there, too. A lot of promises were made and a lot of things were said. As I said in my speech, when the Canadian ambassador appeared before the committee, he could not explain or justify the violence there. He could not explain why he went to meet with mining companies, but not with indigenous communities. This situation does need to be monitored very closely. I even had some women from Ecuador come and speak at a press conference a few weeks ago, and they urged us to pay closer attention to what is happening there.

[Richard Cannings, NDP, South Okanagan—West Kootenay, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague from Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot for his speech.

It has been a pleasure working with the member on the international trade file. I am sorry that I am not on that file anymore, but we have been through all of this together.

I am glad he mentioned Bill S-211, which the NDP also thought was completely inadequate. The Bloc and the NDP voted against it, while the Conservatives and Liberals voted in favour. The member supported Bill C-262, brought forward by the NDP member for New Westminster—Burnaby, which would be a significant and great improvement on what the government is doing.

There are so many things I would like to ask my colleague, because I know he has a lot of good things to say about the subject, but I will hone in on one thing that I know the international trade committee was studying, which is the free trade agreement with Ecuador.

The federal government is now negotiating with Ecuador, and it is clear that it wants to put in investor-state dispute mechanisms to protect Canadian mining companies in their fight against indigenous people, against minorities and people living on the land in Ecuador. This goes against the real sense of what Canada should be doing in the world.

[Simon-Pierre Savard-Tremblay, Bloc, Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I am puzzled by my colleague's question, because I did address that point. I devoted several minutes to talking about Bill S-211.

That bill that does not cover all human rights. I would remind my colleagues that the UN recognizes human rights as a whole, whereas that bill addresses only forced labour by adults and children, which I obviously agree with, but which is not enough, and only applies to companies with 250 or more employees and significant revenues. It does not require them to take measures, but merely to report on the measures that have been taken. A company could just write: “We did not put any measures in place, thank you, goodbye, see you next year”.

Evidently, I voted against this bill. I do not regret voting against it, because I knew that this would happen, that we would be told for the next 10 years that they did something and that everything is great now. It is not enough. That bill is entirely useless.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the discussion on this, which we will no doubt be having over the next few hours. I am interested in getting the member's thoughts in regard to Bill S-211, the forced labour bill, which passed and took effect. It does all of us a great service. We know some of the results are very encouraging, and it is a wonderful, significant step forward, given that there was nothing prior to it.

Beyond some of the comments he has already put on the record, could the member explain why he is not content with that, or why he wants to see it expanded?

[Simon-Pierre Savard-Tremblay, Bloc, Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I move that the 21st report of the Standing Committee on International Trade, presented on Wednesday, October 30, be concurred in.

The number of shipments seized at Canadian customs, all regions combined, for use of forced labour is zero. That does not include the one shipment that was seized in 2021 and then released following an appeal by the importer. In comparison, Washington seizes billions of dollars' worth of goods, and all from a single region, Xinjiang.

Canada is absolutely lax. In March 2023, Ottawa released its budget. It announced the government's intention to “introduce legislation by 2024 to eradicate forced labour from Canadian supply chains to strengthen the import ban on goods produced using forced labour.” This is written in black and white on page 171 of the English version and page 192 of the French version. Until proven otherwise, we are in 2024. No bill was introduced before the end of 2023. This is another promise broken and a promise immediately rehashed.

In March 2024, in its new budget, Ottawa indicates yet again its intention “to introduce legislation in 2024 to eradicate forced labour from Canadian supply chains and to strengthen the import ban on goods produced with forced labour.” Again, it is written in black and white. No need to believe me, anyone can read it on page 369 of the French version and page 320 of the English version.

I had this motion adopted in committee to ensure that members could call out this broken promise and find it unacceptable and to stress that time is of the essence. The motion was not supported by the parties, it was adopted by the majority in committee. The Conservatives voted in favour of the motion and so did the NDP. Now, we are moving the motion in the House because there is a month left. The House must clearly state that it considers this inaction to be deplorable and that the use of practices that violate the fundamental rights of workers, vulnerable people and children is totally unacceptable.

I remind you once again that, in March 2023, they said the same thing, that they would present something before the end of the year. I proposed a motion before the Standing Committee on International Trade suggesting that we write a letter to the government to remind it of its commitment to introduce a bill before 2023 and demand an explanation for its inaction. This motion was unanimously adopted, but it was never acted on. The government did not deign to reply.

This same government then shamelessly did a cut-and-paste in its next budget, as if it were business as usual, simply changing “end of 2023” to “end of 2024”. It simply changed the deadline before which it would not even think of lifting a finger. We have had it. Parliament must stand up and clearly state, by adopting our motion, that this will not work this time. Consumers do not want blood on their hands.

I will make a few comparisons. United States Customs and Border Protection has the power to refuse waivers for goods it reasonably believes were manufactured through forced labour. These refusals can target a company, a region or a country.

What follows is important. The onus is on the importers to convince United States Customers and Border Protection that the goods were not made through forced labour. In addition, in December 2021, the United States passed a law preventing forced labour by Uyghurs, which creates a rebuttable presumption that all imported goods, products, items and merchandise grown, mined, produced or manufactured wholly or in part in the Xinjiang Uyghur autonomous region, or by companies that appear on a list prepared by the U.S. government are manufactured through the use of forced labour and are denied entry into the United States.

They take for granted that everything that comes from the list or the region comes from forced labour. The importer bears the burden of proof, because the United States' rebuttable presumption also applies to goods manufactured in or shipped to China and other countries that include materials or inputs manufactured in Xinjiang or that transit that country. The burden of proof is therefore on the importer.

In Canada, we just have the customs tariff as the legislative framework that allows customs officials not to consider goods as banned, but rather to determine the tariff classification of the imported goods. This is done on a case-by-case basis, based on the likelihood that forced labour was used according to the information available at the time of importation. Therefore, giving the Canada Border Services Agency the responsibility of screening goods amounts to assuming that the use of forced labour to produce those goods can be determined by a flashlight inspection of the cargo. That is really what that means. The brilliant result of this approach is that nothing has ever been seized at the Canadian border. The federal government allows companies to act with virtual impunity.

This applies not just to imports, but, if we consider a broader spectrum and perspective, it also applies to behaviours, accountability and due diligence of Canadian firms abroad. In 2023, the House of Commons passed, by a majority, BillS-211. At the time, Ottawa framed this as a bold move, but at the end of the day it has proven to be toothless. The only thing the bill did was introduce a reporting requirement but only for businesses with 250 or more employees with significant active income. They are only required to prepare a small annual report on the measures taken on forced labour and child labour. That is the only matter covered here. Some will say that a business that refuses to produce this report could be fined, and that is certainly true, but there is nothing stopping a business from putting out a report stating that it did not take any measures. It can simply send that off and it has met its requirement, full stop. It can do the same thing the following year too. That is the extent of it. I would argue that this law is as useless as the Senate that created and introduced it. Producing a report, even one stating that nothing was done, does not exactly amount to a due diligence law.

What we have here is a typically Canadian attitude, reflecting the same culture of symbolism. Ottawa would have been completely free to sit on its purported laurels, had there been any laurels to sit on. That is why I voted against this empty shell of a bill at the time, along with my colleagues from the Bloc Québécois and the NDP.

Instead, I am co-sponsoring Bill C-262, which comes from the NDP. We have always said that when the idea is good, we will have no problem supporting it, and so I am pleased to co-sponsor this bill, which covers all human rights and businesses of all sizes. It seeks to involve the affected communities and, above all, it provides recourse to the victims. That is what an actual due diligence law to address the matter would look like.

Ottawa may not carefully screen goods entering the country through its approach, which makes customs officers responsible for seizures and removes the onus of proof from importers, but, as I have just shown, it is no more serious about the behaviours of Canadian firms abroad. This is also evident in the trade agreements submitted to us. Lofty principles are bandied about, but without any obligations attached. Ideas and international conventions are referenced, but there are no obligations or genuine accountability. For example, in the case of the Canada-Ukraine free trade agreement, the only amendment received in committee was mine. It stated that this chapter was fine and good, but the Minister of International Trade should have to report annually to the House on what is going on over there in terms of human rights and corporate behaviour.

The same applies to this office called the Canadian Ombudsperson for Responsible Enterprise. Basically, it is a complaints bureau, a pretty apathetic response to some truly scandalous behaviour. Its mandate is to “review a complaint that is submitted by a Canadian company that believes it is the subject of an unfounded human rights abuse allegation”.

When the position was created in 2018, the Canadian government pledged that this officer would have the investigative powers to require businesses to produce documents and to compel them to testify. Both of these powers strike me as important in the case of an inquiry. I would even say that they are fundamental. As I stand here today, these powers have yet to be assigned.

In fact, the Mining Association of Canada is opposed to this and declared it in a public statement. We take comfort in the fact that the ombudsperson has a lovely website, but we would prefer the office to have the capacity to require entities to produce documents and compel their testimony.

In 2009, a Bloc bill seeking the creation of an extraterritorial activities review commission for Canadian businesses died on the Order Paper. This politically independent commission would not have simply received complaints but would have been able to launch its own inquiries. Even without a complaint, it could have launched its own inquiries and publicly called on the Department of Foreign Affairs to withdraw its support of offending mining corporations. This would have represented a truly effective mechanism. Unsurprisingly, Parliament did not go along with it.

I myself attempted, in my capacity as member, to file a motion seeking the unanimous consent of the House of Commons to establish a genuine institution to monitor the behaviours of Canadian businesses abroad. Needless to say, the motion did not receive unanimous consent.

If I bring up the mining companies, it is because I find them particularly interesting. Even though Canada can be characterized as an imperialistic, colonial and world-dominating country, it is still a sieve, a haven for foreign interests. Today, roughly three-quarters of the world's mining companies are Canadian, and the vast majority of them are listed on the Toronto Stock Exchange, meaning they can speculate on the value of mines. Canada is just a flag of convenience for companies, who need only open a post office box to be considered Canadian. A number of these mining companies are Canadian in name only. To take advantage of Ottawa's lax legislation, any investor can found their company with Canadian joint shareholders, but can conduct mining operations in a developing country.

A number of businesses with questionable behaviours receive financial support from Export Development Canada, whose accountability mechanisms are very limited. Its representatives were questioned in committee. Let us say that they do not exactly dig deep to learn where the money is going. There is also diplomatic support on the part of Canadian embassies.

In a report published in 2022, the Justice and Corporate Accountability Project mentions, for example, serious acts of violence at the Marlin mine in Guatemala. This mine was acquired in 2006 by Goldcorp, a Canadian mining company. There were credible allegations of environmental contamination and harm to human health. According to the report, the activities of certain Canadian public servants in 2010 and 2011 seeking to defend the interests of Goldcorp undermined the efforts of communities, mostly Mayan indigenous communities, to access the inter-American human rights system and its support to defend their rights. Canada is therefore providing both diplomatic and financial support.

While Canada is currently negotiating a free trade deal with Ecuador, we might ask why the Canadian ambassador there has refused to meet with the country's indigenous businesses but immediately agreed to meet with mining representatives. He did not have a problem with that. That same ambassador, who did not seem to appreciate my questions when he came to testify before the Standing Committee on International Trade, frequently rolling his eyes, even rejected the concerns of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights about the troubling unrest in two regions where police repression was especially abusive, particularly to ensure the imposition of Canadian mining investments suspected of having an impact on water contamination and social division.

There is another case, which made the news a few weeks ago, concerning the behaviour of Barrick Gold, another Canadian mining company, in Tanzania. We keep seeing examples of this. It is a serious issue. We hear about the eviction of villagers and other outrageous incidents. In November 2022, legal action was brought against Barrick Gold in Ontario following allegations of brutal murders, shootings and torture committed by police officers responsible for watching the mine. This is the seventh case of human rights violations filed by foreign plaintiffs against a Canadian mining company since 2010.

Since 1997, nine complaints have been filed in Canadian courts against mining companies following allegations surrounding their activities abroad. These cases involve assault, shootings, gang rapes of local indigenous women by the mine's security officers, the use of slaves, and the contamination of a river with mining waste.

During human rights missions to Chile in 2020 and Colombia in 2021, I was able to hear first-hand accounts from affected communities detailing water pollution, air contamination, security militias firing on civilians at point-blank range and evictions of local residents. In Colombia, I personally witnessed a mining company's private security detail directing traffic on a public road. Is this normal? In 2016, a report entitled “The ‘Canada Brand’” found that violence associated with Canadian mining companies in Latin America had led to 44 deaths, 30 of which were classified as targeted.

There is no shortage of terrifying stories. I do not have enough time to go through them all, but there are definitely a lot of them. Another report, released in 2009, noted that “Canadian companies have been the most significant group involved in unfortunate incidents in the developing world” and that “Canadian companies are more likely to be engaged in community conflict [and] environmental and unethical behaviour”. The Canadian Centre for the Study of Resource Conflict reported that Canada held the record for the most violations among developed countries operating mines in developing countries.

A 2016 report by York University researchers documented incidents from 2000 to 2015 that were corroborated by at least two independent sources. It found 44 deaths, 403 injuries and 709 cases of criminalization. There was a widespread geographical distribution of violence, since deaths occurred in 11 countries, injuries were suffered in 13 countries, and criminalization occurred in 12 countries. Interestingly, the report notes that Canadian companies that are listed on the Toronto Stock Exchange do not include reports of violence in their mandatory reports on company performance.

The fight against human rights violations committed for the sake of profit will require a whole spectrum of solutions. I have some ideas I would like to share, even though I know that not everyone in the House will agree with them: requiring importers to prove that their goods were not produced with forced labour; passing real due diligence legislation, like Bill C-262, to crack down harder on Canadian firms operating abroad; offering victims genuine recourse; giving the ombudsperson more powers, in the absence of a real, politically independent commission capable of launching its own investigations, which we think would have been the ideal solution; ending Ottawa's diplomatic policy of complicity; and taking a closer look at where Export Development Canada's money is going in other countries.

These are ideas. Not everyone in the House would agree with them. I have talked to the other parties about this. We will not all agree on what we would like to see in a future bill. However, we can agree that we cannot judge what we have not seen and that, at this point in time, we should have seen it a year ago. I therefore call on the entire House to clearly and strongly remind the government of its promise, which it has yet to fulfill, to table a bill by the end of the year. Consumers do not want blood on their hands.

Ways and Means Motion No. 19—Speaker's Ruling

[The Speaker, Greg Fergus]

I am now ready to provide the House with an explanatory ruling on the admissibility of Ways and Means Motion No. 19. On November 29, 2023, I ruled that the order for consideration of the motion, and the subsequent bill based thereon, be allowed to proceed further.

On November 28, 2023, the House leader of the official opposition challenged the admissibility of the motion. He pointed out that Bill C-318, an act to amend the Employment Insurance Act and the Canada Labour Code (adoptive and intended parents), and Bill C-323, an act to amend the Excise Tax Act (mental health services), both currently in committee, were substantially the same as provisions covered in Ways and Means Motion No. 19, tabled earlier that day.

Concurrence in a ways and means motion constitutes an order to bring in a bill based on the provisions of the motion. This is indeed what happened with the subsequent introduction of Bill C-59, an act to implement certain provisions of the fall economic statement tabled in Parliament on November 21, 2023 and certain provisions of the budget tabled in Parliament on March 28, 2023.

The House leader argued that the two private members’ bills had already been the subject of decisions of the House at second reading. The ways and means motion and Bill C-59 would violate a procedural concept, the rule of anticipation, which he described as the “same question rule”. Quoting from House of Commons Procedure and Practice, third edition, at page 568, the member seemed to suggest that a ways and means motion could not anticipate a matter already standing on the Order Paper and which was contained in another form of proceeding. He asserted that Bill C-318 and Bill C-323 were more effective tools to accomplish the desired intent than Ways and Means Motion No. 19. As such, both these bills should have priority over the motion.

He also cited precedents in relation to bills that could or could not proceed further, based on the fundamental principle that the same question cannot be decided twice within a session.

The member further suggested that Ways and Means Motion No. 19 be put in abeyance pending the outcome of Bill C-318 and Bill C-323, based on the rule of anticipation.

For his part, the parliamentary secretary to the government House leader countered that further consideration of Ways and Means Motion No. 19, as well as subsequent proceedings on an associated bill, was in order. He referenced past precedents about similar bills. He made the point that the provisions in Ways and Means Motion No. 19 contained numerous elements that are not found in Bill C-318 and Bill C-323, which indicates that the principle and scope of the ways and means motion are broader than what is found in either of the bills. As such, Ways and Means Motion No. 19, and the bill based thereon, constituted different questions.

In his intervention, the House leader of the official opposition quoted from page 568 of House of Commons Procedure and Practice, third edition, on the rule of anticipation. The Chair would like to read, from the same page, prior to the quoted passage. It states:

The moving of a motion was formerly subject to the ancient “rule of anticipation” which is no longer strictly observed.

Further down on the same page it says, “While the rule of anticipation is part of the Standing Orders in the British House of Commons, it has never been so in the Canadian House of Commons. Furthermore, references to past attempts to apply this British rule to Canadian practice are inconclusive.”

Even though the notion of anticipation is described in our procedural authorities, and the expression is sometimes colloquially used in points of order and even some past rulings dealing with similar items, it is indeed a very difficult concept to apply in our context.

Establishing a hierarchy between bills and motions, or between categories of bills, and giving precedence to some, may prove difficult, except in very specific cases, detailed in House of Commons Procedure and Practice. Bills and motions are different by nature and achieve different ends.

What the Chair is seized with in reviewing the current matter is the rule forbidding the same question from being decided twice in the same session. It is different from the concept of anticipation and, in the view of the Chair, the one that should apply.

In his submission, the House leader of the official opposition cited various recent precedents, and the Chair thinks it pertinent to describe some of their procedural subtleties.

The first example, from the last Parliament, pertained to two bills not identical, but substantially similar: Bill C-218, an act to amend the Criminal Code regarding sports betting, a private members' bill, and Bill C-13, an act to amend the Criminal Code regarding single event sport betting, a government bill. Both were at second reading and both were very short bills touching the same section of the Criminal Code.

By adopting Bill C‑218 at second reading, the House had agreed to the larger principle of repealing the very portion of the Criminal Code that Bill C‑13 also sought to amend. This sequencing left the House with a situation where Bill C‑13 could not move forward as long as Bill C‑218 continued its course.

The second example, from earlier this session, described a budget implementation bill, Bill C-19, and a votable private members’ bill amending the Criminal Code regarding the promotion of anti-Semitism, Bill C-250. The latter, introduced on February 9, 2022, contained provisions that were subsequently included in Bill C-19, introduced on April 28, 2022. However, of the two bills, the government bill was the first to be adopted at second reading and referred to committee. One of the key differences was that the two bills were not substantially identical. Bill C-19 was much broader in scope than Bill C-250. By agreeing to Bill C-19, the House de facto agreed with the principles presented in C-250. No decision having yet been made on Bill C-250, the Chair ordered that it be held as pending business until such time as royal assent be granted to Bill C-19.

Finally, the member referenced rulings dealing with two votable Private Members’ Business items, Bill C-243, an act respecting the elimination of the use of forced labour and child labour in supply chains, and 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. The two bills had the same objective and only one was allowed to proceed further. The Chair indicated at the time that the case involved an unusual set of circumstances, since normally one of them could have been designated as non-votable by the Subcommittee on Private Members’ Business had the sequence of events been different.

The House leader's main argument hinged on the question of whether provisions contained in Ways and Means Motion No. 19 and therefore Bill C-59 are similar or identical to Bills C-318 and C-323.

Bills C‑318 and C‑323 have been both read a second time and referred to committee, while no decision has yet been made on Bill C‑59. An exhaustive review of its provisions shows that it does contain some similar provisions found in the two aforementioned private members' bills. However, Bill C‑59 cannot be described as substantially similar or identical to them.

Its scope is vastly broader, containing many more elements than what is included in Bills C-318 and C-323, including taxation legislation and provisions requiring a royal recommendation

The bills are similar in part, but are not substantially the same. The principles of Bill C-318 and Bill C-323, as adopted at second reading, are indeed included in the broader Bill C-59, but the reverse is not true. Therefore, the decision the House will take on Bill C-59 will not be the same. Accordingly, there is no procedural reason to stop the bill from continuing its journey through the legislative process.

To be clear, when a government bill and a private member's bill or when two private members' bills are substantially similar, only one of them may proceed and be voted on. Once one of the two has passed second reading, a decision cannot be taken on the other within the same session. Where bills are only similar in part, the effect of adopting one might have a different impact on the other depending on their principle, scope and, of course, which bill is adopted first.

I note that the House leader of the official opposition rose earlier today on a different point of order considering the application of Standing Order 69.1 to Bill C-59. I wish to inform the member and the House that I am reviewing the matter closely and I do intend to come back with a ruling in a timely manner.

Nonetheless, for the time being, the Chair sees no reason to rule that Bill C-59 be put in abeyance. As for the two Private Members' Business items currently in committee, it seems premature for the Chair to intervene at this time.

I thank all members for their attention.

Canada-Ukraine Free Trade Agreement Implementation Act, 2023

[Simon-Pierre Savard-Tremblay, Bloc, Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot, QC]

Madam Speaker, we are already debating third reading of Bill C-57, the Canada-Ukraine free trade agreement implementation act, 2023, which the Standing Committee on International Trade had the opportunity to study. Several of my colleagues here were present during the committee study.

Fundamentally, not much has changed about the reasons for our support. This time, the agreement puts some meat on the bones. The old version was pretty skeletal. This agreement will not make Ukraine a major trading partner for Quebec and Canada, of course. I would say Ukraine will remain a minor, not to say marginal, partner. However, this agreement does put meat on the bones. It is a real trade agreement, whereas the previous version was essentially a declaration of friendship.

We note that there are some promising opportunities for Quebec. Our pork producers will be able to export more to that country. Also, since Quebec is home to many highly reputable engineering firms, there could be some very attractive contracts for them when Ukraine rebuilds. This will also benefit Ukraine economically, and we hope that the rebuilding takes place as soon as possible and that peace is restored quickly.

However, I do want to point out that there is one clause I voted against in committee. I asked that it not be agreed to on division, like most of the clauses, and that we proceed to a recorded division. It is the clause concerning investor-state dispute settlement. I do not understand why, after removing this from the North American Free Trade Agreement, or NAFTA, Canada would go back to negotiating agreements that include such provisions, which place multinationals on the same footing as governments.

Yes, it is written very cautiously. There are exceptions, and it is written far more cautiously than the infamous chapter 11 of the former NAFTA agreement, but the fact remains that this still allows multinationals to take states to court when government measures run counter to the company's right to make a profit.

Take the following case, for example. Ukraine seized property from Ukrainian citizens who were financing and supporting the Russian side. Under the guise of protecting foreign investors, this agreement would make it very difficult for Canada to do the same thing, that is, seize the assets and property of Ukrainian citizens here who support Russia. Our country could expose itself to lawsuits against public property, against the Canadian government, from these investors.

This is unacceptable. We do not understand why it is still in there. When I asked for a recorded vote on this clause, which is in itself undemocratic because it limits the power of the states to legislate and make political decisions, only my NDP colleague, the member for South Okanagan—West Kootenay, voted with me. The Liberals and Conservatives were quick to vote to keep this clause in the bill. The last thing they wanted to do was upset their buddies at the big multinational corporations, of course.

I should also point out that one chapter in the agreement is full of lofty principles that the government likes to brag about. These lofty principles include the fact that companies will now behave responsibly and Canadian companies will behave properly, so there is nothing to worry about. However, these are nothing but lofty principles. Of course, this refers to international concepts, and it is in no way binding. That is why I am very proud to say that the only amendment that was adopted was the one I proposed, the Bloc Québécois's amendment. I will read it:

That Bill C-57 be amended by adding after line 11 on page 6 the following new clause:

“Compliance with principles and guidelines — Canadian companies

15.1 (1) The Minister must ensure that Canadian companies operating in Ukraine comply with the principles and guidelines referred to in article 15.14 of the Agreement.

(2) The Minister must establish a process for receiving and responding to complaints of non-compliance with those principles and guidelines.

(3) On or before January 1st of each year starting in 2025, the Minister must prepare a report that summarizes activities carried out in relation to the Minister’s obligations under this section.

(4) The Minister must table a copy of the report in each House of Parliament on any of the first 30 days on which that House is sitting after the report is completed.”

Thanks to the Bloc Québécois's work in committee, there has been a shift from lofty principles to an obligation of political accountability that is written into the bill. I think that we can be very proud of the work we have done.

That being said, allow me to digress. The issue of Canadian companies respecting all human rights abroad is far from resolved. I want to read an excerpt from budget 2023. It is not partisan, I will read verbatim what is written:

Budget 2023 announces the federal government's intention to introduce legislation by 2024 to eradicate forced labour from Canadian supply chains to strengthen the import ban on goods produced using forced labour. The government will also work to ensure existing legislation fits within the government's overall framework to safeguard our supply chains.

The budget was presented in March 2023. It says “by 2024”.

May I remind the government that it has three days left to keep its promise to introduce legislation before the House adjourns, three days from now? May I remind the government of this, or will it add this to its long list of broken promises?

At the Standing Committee on International Trade, I also moved a motion to send the Minister of Labour a letter to remind him of the commitment in his mandate letter. My motion was adopted, with all my colleagues, including the Liberals, voting in favour. The letter was sent. I am glad. I am looking forward to seeing the government's response. Perhaps we will get a nice surprise. Perhaps when we wake up tomorrow morning, the bill will miraculously be introduced and the government will keep its promise. I just want to remind it that it has three days left.

Of course, the government may say that there was Bill S-211. That bill requires Canadian companies to prepare an annual report. It does not have much to do with respecting human rights. It only deals with forced labour. It does not cover human rights, which, according to international conventions, are indivisible. We are far from that. Under Bill S‑211, a company could comply just by reporting that it took no due diligence measures. All it has to do is submit a report in which it says it did nothing, and it will meet the requirement. The only consequences, the only fines, are for companies that fail to submit a report or that make false statements. Therefore, if the company reports that it did no due diligence, the government would say, “That is fine, thank you, good night”, and move on to the next company. Only companies with more than 250 employees that generate significant active revenue are covered.

Instead, I urge the government to move forward with Bill C-262, which was introduced by the NDP, but which I am co-sponsoring and supporting. It covers companies of all sizes, gets the affected communities involved, encompasses all human rights and, above all, provides meaningful recourse for victims.

Ways and Means Motion No. 19

[Andrew Scheer, Conservative, Regina—Qu'Appelle, SK]

Madam Speaker, I am rising on a point of order challenging the admissibility of Ways and Means Motion No. 19 concerning the fall economic statement implementation bill, which was tabled earlier today by the Deputy Prime Minister. It is my submission that the motion offends the rule against anticipation, sometimes also known as the “same question rule”. That rule is described on page 568 of House of Commons Procedure and Practice, which reads as follows:

The rule is dependent on the principle which forbids the same question from being decided twice within the same session. It does not apply, however, to similar or identical motions or bills which appear on the Notice Paper prior to debate. The rule of anticipation becomes operative only when one of two similar motions on the Order Paper is actually proceeded with. For example, two bills similar in substance will be allowed to stand on the Order Paper but only one may be moved and disposed of. If a decision is taken on the first bill (for example, to defeat the bill or advance it through a stage in the legislative process), then the other may not be proceeded with...If the first bill is withdrawn (by unanimous consent, often after debate has started), then the second may be proceeded with.

The rule against anticipation has been building a significant number of precedents in the past few years in light of the NDP-Liberal government's growing pattern of stealing common-sense Conservative private members' bills to add to their own legislative agenda. While our authorities suggest that such points of order should be raised only when the second question is actually proposed from the Chair, I recognize that in light of Ways and Means Motion No. 19 being an omnibus proposal, exceeding 500 pages in length, you, Madam Speaker, might appreciate having the evening to reflect on the issues I am about to discuss before the government intends to call it for consideration tomorrow.

In the present case, Ways and Means Motion No. 19 includes provisions that the House has already adopted in principle at second reading through two private members' bills.

On September 20, the House passed second reading Bill C-318, an act to amend the Employment Insurance Act and the Canada Labour Code, sponsored by the Conservative hon. member for Battlefords—Lloydminster. The summary printed on the inside cover of the bill reads:

This enactment amends the Employment Insurance Act to introduce a new type of special benefits: an attachment benefit of 15 weeks for adoptive parents and parents of children conceived through surrogacy. It also amends the Canada Labour Code to extend parental leave accordingly.

Last week's fall economic statement on pages 43 and 42 states that:

The 2023 Fall Economic Statement proposes to introduce a new 15-week shareable EI adoption...Surrogate parents will also be eligible for this benefit.

The 2023 Fall Economic Statement also proposes to make amendments to the Employment Insurance Act, as well as corresponding changes to the Canada Labour Code, to ensure that workers in federally regulated industries have the job protection they need while receiving the EI adoption benefit.

Those provisions appear as clauses 342 to 365 of Ways and Means Motion No. 19. While the legislative language used varies, the ultimate policy objective and therefore the principle of the matter remains the same as a close examination of the two passages I quoted reveals.

The second private member's bill stolen by the government this week is Bill C-323, an act to amend the Excise Tax Act, mental health services, sponsored by the Conservative member for Cumberland—Colchester, which the House passed at second reading on September 27. My colleague's bill would amend sections 1 and 7 of part II of schedule V of the Excise Tax Act to exempt psychotherapy and mental health counselling from GST. Clause 137 of Ways and Means Motion No. 19 would do the exact same thing, except that the government refers to “counselling therapy” instead of Bill C-323's “mental health counselling”. That is, I would submit, a distinction without a difference.

Indeed, I would draw the Chair's attention to clause 144 of Ways and Means Motion No. 19 that makes coordinating provisions if each is enacted, which demonstrates the government also sees these as identical measures, but what is especially galling is subclause 144(5), “For greater certainty, if this Act receives royal asset then the other Act [Bill C-323] is deemed never to have produced its effects.” The government would prefer to toss my colleague's important bill down the memory hole. That is just shameful.

Your predecessor, on February 18, 2021, at page 4256 of the Debates, ruled that government Bill C-13 could not be proceeded with further following the House's adoption of Bill C-218, citing the rule against anticipation. In so ruling, the Chair said:

The House is now placed in an unusual situation where a decision was made on one of two very similar bills standing on the Order Paper.

The Chair recognizes that both bills are not identical; they are, however, substantially similar as they both amend the exact same provision of the Criminal Code for similar purposes....

Consequently, as long as Bill C-218 follows its course through the legislative process during this session, Bill C-13 may not be proceeded with.

As for the technical differences between those two bills, the Speaker offered a common-sense solution to reconcile them: “the Chair notes that other avenues would be open to the House to achieve those same ends, such as through amendments proposed to Bill C-218 during the committee's study.”

I would respectfully submit that if the government has any concerns about the drafting of Bill C-318 or Bill C-323, the solution is to bring amendments to committee, not to bigfoot them by throwing them into an omnibus budget bill, but that is exactly what happened here. It is what happened last year when Bill C-250, sponsored by the hon. member for Saskatoon—Grasswood, was scooped up by the government and placed in Bill C-19, a budget implementation bill.

In a May 11, 2022, ruling at page 5123 of the Debates, the Deputy Speaker held:

Bill C-19 was adopted at second reading and referred to the Standing Committee on Finance yesterday. The House is now placed in a situation where a decision was made on one of the two bills that contain very similar provisions....

The Chair recognizes that these bills are not identical, as Bill C-19 is much broader in scope and contains other provisions related to the implementation of the budget.

However, in adopting Bill C-19 at second reading, the House has also agreed to the principle of that bill, and consequently, has agreed, among other things, to amend section 319 of the Criminal Code dealing with hate propaganda. As I explained a few moments ago, these are provisions substantially similar to the ones contained in Bill C-250.

Therefore, the question for the Chair is, should Bill C-250 be allowed to proceed further in the legislative process at this time? In the Chair's opinion, it should not be allowed. The House should not face a situation where the same question can be cited twice within the same session, unless the House's intention is to rescind or revoke the decision.

In the case of Bill C-250, the Deputy Speaker directed that it be held as pending business until the final fate of Bill C-19 could be determined. On September 20, 2022, your predecessor ordered Bill C-250 to be discharged and dropped from the Order Paper, given that Bill C-19 had by then received royal assent. A similar pair of rulings occurred on June 6, 2022, and May 11, 2023, in respect of Bill C-243 in light of its overlap with Senate Bill S-211.

While these rulings are all quite recent, they were not novel. Speaker Michener, on March 13, 1959, at page 238 of the Journals, reached the same conclusion for managing this sort of legislative traffic jam:

Thus I have come to the conclusion that this bill must stand, as well as the other bill in the same terms, or at least in terms for exactly the same purpose, until the bill which was first moved has been disposed of either by being withdrawn, which would open the door for one of these other bills to proceed, or by way of being approved, which would automatically dispose of these bills because the House would not vote twice on the same subject matter any more than it would debate the same subject matter twice.

Standing Order 94(1) empowers and directs the Speaker to, “make all arrangements necessary to ensure the orderly conduct of Private Members’ Business”. That standing order, I would submit, behooves you to safeguard the process of Private Members' Business as much as possible by drawing a firm and bright line for the government to stop poaching common-sense Conservative bills and claiming them as their own.

One final consideration I want to place before the Chair is one that did not arise in the context of the pairs of bills and the precedents I have cited. We are dealing here with a ways and means motion, not a bill. Bosc and Gagnon, at page 568, explain the relevance of this distinction in the role against anticipation:

According to this rule, which applied to other proceedings as well as to motions, a motion could not anticipate a matter which was standing on the Order Paper for further discussion, whether as a bill or a motion, and which was contained in a more effective form of proceeding.

The associated footnote points readers to other authorities for a fuller explanation, such as the U.K.'s Erskine May. That book's 25th edition, at paragraph 20.13, explains:

...a matter must not be anticipated if contained in a more effective form of proceeding than the proceeding by which it was sought to be anticipated, but it might be anticipated if contained in an equally or less effective form. A bill or other order of the day is more effective than a motion....

This principle was explained matter-of-factly by Speaker Casgrain on February 24, 1936, at page 68 of the Journals: “A Bill has the right-of-way and cannot be sidetracked by a Motion.”

In the circumstances, if the precedents and procedural authorities of this House are to be applied consistently, Ways and Means Motion No. 19 must be put into abeyance pending the outcome of Bill C-318 and Bill C-323. I would urge you, Madam Speaker, to so rule.

Pornography

[Arnold Viersen, Conservative, Peace River—Westlock, AB]

Madam Speaker, the next petition is from petitioners from across the country who are concerned with how easy it is for young people to gain access to sexually explicit material online, including violent, racist and degrading explicit material. They comment on how this access is causing a public health crisis and is a cause for public safety concern.

The petitioners note that a significant portion of commercially accessed sexually explicit material has no age verification software, and, moreover, that age verification software can ascertain the age of the user without breaching their privacy rights. The petitioners note the many serious harms associated with sexually explicit material, including the development of addiction and the development of attitudes favourable to sexual violence and the harassment of women.

The petitioners are calling on the House of Commons to pass Bill S-211 and to protect young people from exposure to pornography.

Forced Labour and Child Labour

[John McKay, Liberal, Scarborough—Guildwood, ON]

Mr. Speaker, last month Bill S-211, the Fighting Against Forced Labour and Child Labour in Supply Chains Act, passed in the House and received royal assent. The bill is now law. It is designed to rid our supply chains of slave products.

Simultaneously, in the town of Markham, Shein, a company notorious for selling products made by slaves and child labour at cheap prices, opened up a 170,000-square-foot distribution facility. Ordinary citizens have been protesting on the streets of Markham against having such a company in their community.

It is intended that Bill S-211 will be fully operational by this time next year, and the executives of Shein will have to file a compliance transparency statement to the Government of Canada.

The additional question is this: How did a company of such a notorious reputation get a building permit for a 170,000-square-foot facility in Markham? Does no one care, or is “cheapest product, any place, any time” the law of this land?

Similarities Between Bill C-243 and Bill S-211

[The Deputy Speaker, Chris d'Entremont]

The Chair would like to make a statement regarding the status of Bill C-243, an act respecting the elimination of the use of forced labour and child labour in supply chains, standing in the name of the member for Thunder Bay—Rainy River.

On June 6, 2022, the Chair advised the House of similarities between Bill C-243 and 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.

Both bills have the same objective. They seek to require certain entities to report on measures they take to prevent, and reduce, the risk of using forced labour and child labour in the production of goods and in supply chains.

A long-standing practice prohibits the House from deciding the same question twice during a session. As a result, the Chair ordered that the status of Bill C-243 remain pending pursuant to Standing Order 94(1) and that it not be considered until proceedings on Bill S-211 have concluded.

Bill S-211 was adopted by this House on May 3, 2023. The bill subsequently received royal assent yesterday, May 10, 2023.

Accordingly, the Chair is ordering that Bill C-243 be dropped from the Order Paper.

I thank all members for their attention.

[The Deputy Speaker, Chris d'Entremont]

Order, please. I have the honour to inform the House that a communication has been received as follows:

Rideau Hall

Ottawa

May 10, 2023

Mr. Speaker,

I have the honour to inform you that the Right Honourable Mary May Simon, Governor General of Canada, signified royal assent by written declaration to the bills listed in the schedule to this letter on the 10th day of May, 2023, at 4:59 p.m.

Yours sincerely,

Maia Welbourne

Assistant Secretary to the Governor General

The schedule indicates that the bills assented to on Wednesday, May 10, 2023, were 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—Chapter No. 9, 2023; Bill S-227, An Act to establish Food Day in Canada—Chapter No. 10, 2023; and Bill C-46, An Act to amend the Federal-Provincial Fiscal Arrangements Act and the Income Tax Act—Chapter No. 11, 2023.

Senate Amendments to Bill C-11

[Andrew Scheer, Conservative, Regina—Qu'Appelle, SK]

Mr. Speaker, I am rising on a point of order this morning respecting the government's Motion No. 2 concerning the Senate amendments to Bill C-11.

In my view, the notice of motion engages the rule of anticipation and cannot be proposed to the House later today.

Normally such a point of order should be raised when the motion is actually proposed to the House, but given that it is listed on the Projected Order of Business for consideration in an hour's time, the complexity of the issues involved and as a courtesy to you to find some time to prepare a ruling, Mr. Speaker, I wanted to rise as soon as the House opened this morning.

On March 8 and March 9, the House considered a government motion concerning the Senate's amendments, a motion which is now referred to as Motion No. 1 on the Notice Paper, to which my colleague, the hon. member for Lethbridge, has moved an amendment.

Flash forward to Friday evening, when today's Notice Paper was published, we see this new motion, Motion No. 2, from the Liberal government. They are both very long motions, so I will spare the Speaker and the House from hearing them each read out loud.

Suffice it to say, I studied them very closely to see what might be different between them. Lo and behold, the English versions of the motions are absolutely identical. When one refers to the French versions, one spots the difference, which is a single instance of a “1” and a “2”, in Roman numerals, being transposed. That is it.

Let me explain for the House briefly what that means. The Liberal government made a drafting mistake; it got its motion wrong. Now it wants a do-over. If one is a golfer, one might call it a mulligan. All this is on a policy Liberals are mistakenly pursuing on a bill they keep botching and on amendments they keep flubbing, and now a motion they cannot even get right, and those people want to control the Internet.

Setting that aside, I will get back to the procedural concern. The substantive effect of these two motions is identical. Indeed, the text in one official language is identical. The words used in the other official language are all the same. It is just two numbers that are transposed.

Having established these motions are, for all intents and purposes, identical, let me refer to page 568 of House of Commons Procedure and Practice, which explains the rule of anticipation. It reads:

According to this rule, which applied to other proceedings as well as to motions, a motion could not anticipate a matter which was standing on the Order Paper for further discussion, whether as a bill or a motion, and which was contained in a more effective form of proceeding (for example, a bill or any other Order of the Day is more effective than a motion, which in turn has priority over an amendment, which in turn is more effective than a written or oral question). If such a motion were allowed, it could indeed forestall or block a decision from being taken on the matter already on the Order Paper.

It goes on to say:

The rule is dependent on the principle which forbids the same question from being decided twice within the same session. It does not apply, however, to similar or identical motions or bills which appear on the Notice Paper prior to debate. The rule of anticipation becomes operative only when one of two similar motions on the Order Paper is actually proceeded with. For example, two bills similar in substance will be allowed to stand on the Order Paper but only one may be moved and disposed of. If the first bill is withdrawn (by unanimous consent, often after debate has started), the second may be proceeded with.... A point of order regarding anticipation may be raised when the second motion is proposed from the Chair, if the first has already been proposed to the House and has become an Order of the Day.

Though the government House leader might argue that questions about this rule do not come up often, there are a series of precedents through the years that are relevant to the issue before the Chair today.

Mr. Speaker Michener, on March 13, 1959, at page 238 of the Journals, held, in relation to the rule of anticipation concerning nearly identical pieces of legislation:

...I first considered whether the motion should be accepted to stand on the Order Paper at the same time. I am satisfied that this was quite in order, but I came to the conclusion that it would be quite improper to permit a second debate on identically the same subject matter as the subject matter of a debate which was already proceeding. In other words, the House is not going to occupy itself on two separate occasions under two separate headings with exactly the same business. That would not be reasonable, and I can find no support or authority for following such a course. Thus I have come to the conclusion that this bill must stand, as well as the other bill in the same terms, or at least in terms for exactly the same purpose, until the bill which was first moved has been disposed of either by being withdrawn, which would open the door for one of these other bills to proceed, or by way of being approved, which would automatically dispose of these bills because the House would not vote twice on the same subject matter any more than it would debate the same subject matter twice.

Mr. Speaker Lamoureux, on July 7, 1969, said, in a ruling found at page 1317 of the Journals, concerning a government motion to amend the Standing Orders, anticipating a motion to concur in a report of the former standing committee on procedure and organization:

I might say, having taken into account the arguments advanced by members of the opposition, that if the honourable Member for Grenville-Carleton had moved his [concurrence] motion I would have recognized that the rule of anticipation would have given his motion precedence...to the motion that is now before the House in the name of the President of the Privy Council. I would have so ruled...

A much more recent predecessor of yours, Mr. Speaker, considered the matter of two committee instruction motions that varied by a difference of just five words. The Chair ruled, on June 11, 2014, at page 6649 of the Debates:

Upon examination of the section of O'Brien and Bosc, upon which both House leaders have relied extensively for their arguments, it seems to the Chair that the key concept is the question of whether or not the motions are substantially the same.

Upon examination of both motions on the notice paper, it does seem that the motions are substantially the same and that the principles cited by the government House leader as to the practice of the House are persuasive to the Chair. Accordingly, we will not be proceeding with the motion at this time.

The rule of anticipation is a concept which is not unheard of in the current Parliament, or to you, Mr. Speaker, for that matter.

On May 11, 2022, the Deputy Speaker, at page 5123 of the Debates, ruled that Bill C-250, the private member's bill proposed by my colleague, the hon. member for Saskatoon—Grasswood, could not be debated and would be rendered pending, following the second reading of Bill C-19, a budget implementation bill that contained clauses similar to my friend's bill, because:

The House should not face a situation where the same question can be cited twice within the same session, unless the House's intention is to rescind or revoke the decision.

After Bill C-19 had received royal assent, you made a further ruling, Mr. Speaker, on September 20, 2022, at page 7341 of the Debates, to discharge Bill C-250. In doing so, you said:

...there is a long-standing principle to keep or avoid having the same question from being decided twice within the same session

A similar case can be found in your June 6, 2021 ruling, at page 6142 of the Debates, whereby Bill C-243, sponsored by the hon. member for Thunder Bay—Rainy River, could not be proceeded with following the second reading of a Senate public bill, Bill S-211. Bill C-243 has been listed on the Order Paper every sitting day since, under the heading “Pending Business”.

To recap the current case, the government's Motion No. 1 concerning the Senate amendments to Bill C-11 was moved, as I mentioned, on March 8, and then became an Order of the Day. Therefore, Motion No. 2 may only be proceeded with if Motion No.1 has been withdrawn, as the various authorities would observe. Otherwise, proceeding with Motion No. 2 would offend the rule of anticipation and cannot be proposed to the House, as forecasted, at noon today.

Mr. Speaker Casgrain's ruling on February 24, 1936, at pages 67 and 68 of the Journals, explains a possible way forward for the government concerning its Motion No. 1:

The adjournment of the debate, last Thursday on the second reading of Bill No. 2...meant that the question shall again be considered at a future sitting when the order for Public Bills will be reached. This is what is called, in parliamentary procedure, appointing a matter for consideration by the House. [Erskine] May...gives many precedents showing that the discussion of an appointed matter cannot be anticipated by a motion...There is sufficient similarity in the Bill and the Motion to confine them to one debate...The difference in details between the two propositions may be dealt with by moving amendments... but it is not sufficient to justify a duplication of the debate. It is a well known principle that the same question cannot be raised twice in the same session.

The difference between the government's Motion No.1 and Motion No. 2 could be addressed by an amendment to Motion No. 1. It is that simple, really.

All the Liberal government needs to do is allow the debate to continue on the amendment moved by the hon. member for Lethbridge. Once that debate has eventually concluded and the vote taken, the government could, in the event that my colleague's thoughtful amendment is not adopted by the House, of course, once debate resumes on the main motion, move its own amendment to achieve the change Motion No. 2 contains, which would be up to the House to discuss and decide.

If you were to find my point of order to be well taken, Mr. Speaker, it would not be the first major procedural error the government has made in pursuing its flawed policy to control the Internet. On June 15, 2021, you ruled out of order many committee amendments made to Bill C-11's predecessor in the previous Parliament because the Liberals on the Canadian heritage committee had run roughshod over the rules and broke several of them in trying to rush the bill through Parliament before the opportunistic and unnecessary early election the Prime Minister called that August.

Now it seems that the Liberals are equally hasty in ramming their Internet control bill through the House once again. It is almost as if the government is in a rush to clear the decks for something to come.

I hope you will find in favour of my point of order, Mr. Speaker, and I look forward to your response.

International Trade

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Madam Speaker, this is not the first time I have risen on the issue of forced labour and the impact it has had not only on Canadians but throughout the world. We have had a number of debates on this issue. It was not that long ago that we debated Bill S-211.

I know the member for Scarborough—Guildwood, whom I consider a dear friend, has put a great deal of effort into the issue of corporate responsibility and good behaviour for many years. It is well over a decade. I can recall being in the third party with the member when he talked about this, and sitting beside individuals like Stéphane Dion. We understood and wanted to deal with this issue, which is no doubt of critical importance.

One aspect that I always thought of was the way to get corporations to take certain actions as corporations. Individual board members were never really held accountable. There are many aspects in Bill S-211, but one of the aspects I liked was putting more responsibility on the board of directors so we could go after them for forced labour in general. We had very healthy debates on this issue.

What I find interesting is the way the Conservative Party has brought forward what we are debating. If I read the motion itself, which does not take long to read because it is pretty straightforward, it says the committee looks at the bill and comes back with a report. It is pretty straightforward. It states:

That the committee report to the House that it calls on the government to immediately take any and all actions necessary to prohibit the importation of any goods made wholly or in part with forced labour and develop a strategy to prevent the importation into Canada of any goods mined, produced, or manufactured wholly or in part with forced labour.

This report was tabled here weeks ago. I find it interesting that the Conservatives chose today to ask for concurrence in the report as opposed to just accepting it, because after all, I do not think there is anyone in this chamber who does not understand the importance of the issue, whether it is the Prime Minister or members of the opposition wanting to see something done on this file. I suspect the motivation for the debate today has more to do with preventing the NDP from bringing forward a concurrence motion on a PROC report. It is interesting that the Conservatives chose this particular topic. I understand the way the rules work in the chamber, and at the end of the day, I am always happy to talk about an issue that is so very important.

As for the motion itself, I would like to share something with members. I do not need to table it because it is public knowledge. The member across the way who introduced the motion asked what the government is doing. The parliamentary secretary spoke exceptionally well about how Canada, in many different fora, can play a leading role in dealing with the issue of forced labour and the impact it has on our supply chain. The Conservatives were very quick to scoff at that.

It is interesting to hear the Conservatives when they are in opposition versus when they are in government. When I posed a question to the member, I noted it is all fine and dandy to be so critical of the government and to make accusations that are not necessarily founded. I asked what the former government did, the Harper regime. The member mocked the question, of course, because Stephen Harper did not do anything.

I do not have a problem with contrasting that with what we have been able to do and deal with. The parliamentary secretary made reference to our international presence. What people do not necessarily recognize, which we should acknowledge, is that Canada, with a population base of 38 million people, carries an incredible amount of weight when it comes to international policy. We have seen that in many different ways.

I have always been a big fan of Lloyd Axworthy. If we look at the banning of land mines, an issue Lloyd Axworthy championed on behalf of the Government of Canada, and the success we were able to achieve, we again have to put that into the perspective of the world. The same principles apply for a wide variety of different issues, and this is one of those issues. Unlike the scoffing coming from the Conservative benches, I believe in what the parliamentary secretary who spoke before me said when he talked about the influence of standing up and speaking out, even in the presence of China.

We hear a lot about China, because it was the example and has been the example used. Whether it is the Uighurs or Tibetans, we recognize that, yes, there has been a great deal of exploitation. However, the government is not just talking about that on the floor of the House of Commons. We are talking about that internationally, even in the presence of China. That means the Government of China, and often Chinese officials, will be very irritated, but I believe it is a role that Canadians expect because it is a part of our values.

If we look at the sheer immigration numbers and the people who want to come to Canada, it is a very impressive thing. I believe that is because they look at the values and opportunities Canada has to offer, which translates into the House of Commons and the role we play not only domestically but internationally. That is the reason it is important that, whether it is the Prime Minister or a critic from the opposition party, if we have the opportunity to talk about Canadian values, this is the type of value we should be talking about.

The Convention on the Rights of the Child was adopted by the United Nations many years ago. It talks about the rights of children and their protection, and there are things we can do. That is one of the reasons why a few minutes back I made reference to a public document, which the parliamentary secretary made reference to earlier. I actually printed out a copy of it. It is the ministerial mandate letter for the Minister of Labour, authored by the Prime Minister. It provides instructions, and members who are watching or following the debate can easily look into it themselves by doing a simple Google search.

The letter that comes from the Prime Minister states:

As Minister of Labour, your immediate priorities are to work with federally regulated workplaces to ensure that COVID-19 vaccinations are enforced for those workers and to advance amendments to the Canada Labour Code to provide 10 paid days of sick leave for all federally regulated workers. I also expect you to work with federally regulated employers and labour groups, and with provincial and territorial counterparts, to make workplaces fairer and safer for everyone across the country as well as lead our efforts to eradicate forced labour from Canadian supply chains.

To realize these objectives, I ask that you achieve results for Canadians by delivering the following commitments.

Then the letter lists a number of commitments, and this is one of them:

With the support of the Minister of Public Safety, the Minister of Public Services and Procurement and the Minister of International Trade, Export Promotion, Small Business and Economic Development—

I would like to emphasize this.

—introduce legislation to eradicate forced labour from Canadian supply chains and ensure that Canadian businesses operating abroad do not contribute to human rights abuses.

I challenge the member who chose to turn this into a political issue by saying the government has not done anything and who then went on to criticize Canada's border control. That is why I posed the question. In opposition, it sure is easy for the Conservative Party to be as critical as it wants, knowing full well that when it was in government it did absolutely nothing on this file.

Even during a pandemic and many other aspects like a war, we can see that this is a priority of the government. We have different departments coming together to provide legislation. Tell me where the former government had any interest in passing legislation. The Conservatives can talk about this, but their math is all messed up, as pointed out earlier after one member said it is eight years later. Sometimes it takes a little while to clean up the Conservative mess. We went on to have a pandemic, and now a war is taking place, but we have seen other budgetary measures and legislative measures, some of which have already been pointed out by a previous speaker. There is a very clear indication that we are developing legislation.

I will note something interesting in the EU:

On 14 September 2022, the European Commission presented a proposal for a regulation to prohibit products made using forced labour, including child labour, on the internal market of European Union (EU). The proposed legislation fits into the context of EU efforts to promote decent work worldwide.

I do not know all the details of this, but I think it is important for us to recognize that this is not just about Canada alone. Canada does work very closely with its partners, with its allied forces, the EU being one of them. That was referred to in 2022. The Prime Minister's letter to the minister was back in 2021. It does take time, as a great deal of consideration must be factored in. From a good governance, corporate perspective, companies want to ensure that supply chains are being supported by non-forced labour, and those that are prepared to put in that extra effort will ultimately have more security going forward.

I do not believe that Canada is alone. I believe it is working with other like-minded nations in recognizing the harm that forced labour causes. Forced labour takes many different forms. There is exploitation of individuals here today in Canada. When we think about exploitation of labour, we should not believe it is just something beyond our borders. There is a role for provinces in particular, along with the federal government, in looking at what is not only happening abroad but also happening here in Canada.

I know it exists. I have advocated consistently in the past against the exploitation of human beings. It is just wrong, and as parliamentarians we would like to make sure we are making progress in dealing with that. Human smuggling takes place, and it is pure exploitation, whether it is getting an individual into a factory or selling an individual for sexual services. Unfortunately, it is something that happens.

I believe the United Nations said that it could be as high as 10%. Members should not quote me on it, but I believe it is somewhere in that neighbourhood worldwide, with about 10% of the population of the globe being exploited in one form or another.

I mention children more than anything else because that is where my primary focus is, but there are other vulnerable groups, some more than others, that need to be taken into consideration. I like to believe that, as Canada continues to move forward on this file, we will continue to have healthy discussions. My colleague's legislation will be coming forward at some point in the future once the appropriate consultation has taken place.

I believe this is an issue that has been here since well before any of us have been around. I am not just talking about inside the House of Commons. I am talking in life in general. It is something that is not going to be cured overnight. At the end of day, we do have a responsibility, a responsibility that has been taken very, very seriously.

The government has seen the benefits of trade. Canada, more so than most countries around the world, is dependent on trade. It is dependent on exports and imports. It is not like we are a self-sufficient country in producing that does not require the importation of products. We are far from that. That is one of the reasons that, as we move forward, and we will move forward on this file, we do so in a way Canadians can get behind and support.

Interestingly enough, there was reference to the North America trade agreement. We saw, incorporated into that trade agreement, the issue of workers' rights and environmental concerns. As a government, we have signed off on more trade agreements than any other government before us because we recognize just how important trade is to our country. At the same time, we have very much taken a keen interest in the supply chain and getting rid of the exploitation of people. I believe we are going to see more effort on that issue in the coming months and years ahead.

With those few words, I am thankful for the opportunity to share some thoughts and look forward to any questions, if there are any.

[Arif Virani, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of International Trade]

Madam Speaker, building on my friend's intervention, I will take the occasion today to wish all Ismaili Canadians a very happy Navroz Mubarak, the start of the new year and the first day of spring.

I appreciate the speech given by my colleague who sits on the Standing Committee on International Trade with me and who, as I mentioned, was with me in Paris.

First, I want to point out that the only difference between Bill S‑211 and Bill C‑282 from the Bloc Québécois is their place on the Order Paper. There is a chronological order to be followed.

Next, I agree entirely that the regulations, directives and strategies established by the House and the government must apply to every company and every institution, particularly Export Development Canada.

I would like to ask a question about something that was raised in Canada's strategy for responsible business conduct abroad. I am quoting from the document:

The July 2020 amendment to the Customs Tariff prohibits the importation of goods that are mined, manufactured or produced wholly or in part by forced labour.... Furthermore, the government is committed to enacting legislation to eradicate forced labour from Canadian supply chains and ensure that Canadian businesses operating abroad do not contribute to human rights abuses.

[Simon-Pierre Savard-Tremblay, Bloc, Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot, QC]

Madam Speaker, Nicolas de Condorcet used to say that the truth belongs to those who seek it, not to those who claim to own it.

With that in mind, I welcome this motion, and I voted in favour of it when my Conservative colleague moved it in committee. For me, it is a step in the right direction, the beginning of something, a project. I am really glad the Conservatives have moved this motion. The last time I moved a motion to bring in a real due diligence policy seeking to pass it by unanimous consent, I heard a lot of howling from the opposition on my right. I use the word “right” in every sense of the word. I am glad the Conservatives finally woke up a bit, although it took a while.

I also moved a motion on mining companies. The Standing Committee on International Trade has completed its study on mining, but we have not yet adopted the report. We have not yet heard from the Minister of International Trade, Export Promotion, Small Business and Economic Development. When I moved my motion on the subject of mining, the Conservatives also opposed it, so I am pleased that they have come to their senses. It is better late than never, as they say.

I also want to thank the previous speaker, the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of International Trade, Export Promotion, Small Business and Economic Development. Recently, I was fortunate enough to go to Paris with him for the OECD summit, which focused on this particular issue. I am glad to see that the OECD and most countries are becoming aware of the problem. Unfortunately, this meeting turned into a bit of an exercise in one-upmanship. Everyone said they were taking this issue seriously and working hard in their communities to advance this cause. However, there is many a slip 'twixt cup and lip, as the expression goes.

This is a topic that resonates with me because I also tabled a petition in the House last spring, I believe, or early last summer, to bring in a meaningful due diligence policy. I have also co-sponsored bills. Bloc members never judge a bill by its cover. When a bill is good, we support it; when it is bad, we do not support it.

I have co-sponsored two NDP bills. The first is Bill C-262, which has yet to move past first reading. If we are serious about this issue, we need to get on it, we need to make this a priority. The second is Bill C-263, which seeks to establish an office of the commissioner in this matter because an office like that could act as an authority.

Let us take a step back in history. Once upon a time, there was colonization. We call many countries “developing” nations nowadays. They are southern nations, based on the old north-south divide. There used to be something called colonization. Colonial empires, or metropolises as they were called, wanted to get their hands on resources, so they went and took over other lands. They did not all go about it the same way. Some felt that the people on those lands, whom they considered inferior, needed to be civilized. Others took things even further: those people had to be exterminated, unfortunately.

For others still, colonization meant stripping these people of all power and reducing them to insignificance for as long as they did business with them. This was often the British colonization model. The people no longer had any political power, but the colonial powers would pretend that they did. They let them elect leaders with little power, local leaders from their own tribes. This gave them the illusion that they still had power over their lives, which was a complete lie. It was called indirect rule. Then decolonization happened, as we know.

Next came globalization. Starting in the 1980s, we were told that we needed to free up the multinationals and free up capital to ensure that it could be moved from one place to another, without borders, so that profits could be made, because all those profits would contribute to the common good. That was a very bad interpretation of the words of Adam Smith, who is credited with introducing the “invisible hand” theory. In reality, Adam Smith never came up with an invisible hand theory. The invisible hand is metaphor that he used three times to talk about different things. If we look at Adam Smith's work, we see that what he actually said is quite the opposite of what people took from his words in the 1980s and 1990s.

When the Berlin Wall fell, the Iron Curtain also fell. It imploded, collapsed. That led to the rule of unadulterated neo-liberalism. All of the supranational bodies were saying that the time for nations and sovereignties was over, that it was the end for the social safety net. The time for measures and policies was over. Now was the time for capital to be deployed, for it to move from one jurisdiction to another by any means and at any time. It needed to be freed up as much as possible so that anything could be done with it.

Obviously, today, that is no longer the case. We might say that globalization is in crisis, that we are returning to a multipolar world. It appears that there are several environmental and social consequences to these utopias. Among them, there is this idea of having a great global supply chain where every country can do its part. This also has consequences.

Quebec has fared well under free trade. It has been a beneficial experience. We certainly need to continue to diversify our trade partners, but not at all costs. We have seen the human consequences in terms of human rights, obviously, but also the use of forced labour. That is the point of today's motion on the importation of goods linked to the use of forced labour.

If we are going to address the problem, then we need to be serious. With what is referred to as dumping, a product can go through another country that is used as a flag of convenience. Then the product arrives here and we think it was made in places where forced labour is controlled and regulated, when in fact that is often not the case.

The Canadian Network on Corporate Accountability, the CNCA, has made a number of demands. I am going to read them, because I think they are quite comprehensive. According to the CNCA, there are five essential elements in effective due diligence legislation which many Canadian and Quebec civil society groups agree on, and they are the following: require companies to prevent all human rights violations throughout their global operations and supply chains; require companies to develop and implement human rights due diligence procedures, and report on them, as well as require them to consult rights holders; require meaningful consequences for companies that fail to take these obligations seriously and guarantee impacted communities access to effective remedy in Canadians civil courts; be consistent with the United Nations guiding principles on business and human rights and apply this legislation to companies of any size, while possibly allowing small business in low-risk sectors to be exempt; and apply to all human rights, because all human rights are interrelated, interdependent and indivisible.

On June 22, 2022, I tabled a petition along those same lines:

Whereas:

some Canadian companies contribute to human rights abuses and environmental damage around the world;

people who protest these abuses and stand up for their rights are often harassed, attacked or killed. Indigenous peoples, women and marginalized groups are particularly at risk; and

Canada encourages companies to stop these harms from happening in their global operations and supply chains, but does not require them to.

We, the undersigned citizens and residents of Canada, call on the House of Commons to adopt legislation on due diligence for human and environmental rights that:

would require....

The rest of the petition contains more or less the same formal demands made by the CNCA which I just read. It also aligns with the motion I moved for unanimous consent, which, I would remind members, was rejected by the right in the House.

Let us now discuss the bill in question. I applaud the sponsor, who has attempted previously to bring forward legislation on this matter. There was Bill C‑243, which was withdrawn in favour of the very similar Bill S‑211.

We supported it and we will continue to support it, but it is just not enough, because if we ask ourselves whether the bill helps individuals who are affected obtain justice or redress, the answer is no. Does the bill seek to include communities and workers who are affected? No. Does the bill apply to businesses of all sizes in all sectors? No, it only applies to businesses with over 250 employees and “significant” revenue and assets.

Does the bill apply to all human rights? No, it only applies to forced labour and child labour. Those are hugely important issues, and this is a step forward, but it should go much further. Are businesses required to respect human rights? No, they are only required to report annually on whether they have taken steps to recognize and prevent the use of forced labour, but reporting is not accountability.

Does the bill require businesses to prevent harm? No, it only requires an annual report. Does the bill require businesses to take steps to identify, mitigate, prevent or report human rights violations and environmental damage in their supply chains, because the problem applies to the entire supply chain? No.

There are no compulsory due diligence standards for businesses. Do they face significant consequences if they cause harm or fail to implement due diligence standards? Again, the answer is no.

All the questions I just asked would be answered in the affirmative under the NDP Bill C-282, which I co-sponsored. This bill ticks all the boxes. I therefore encourage the government and the House to refer it to committee for study as soon as possible, because it provides a much better response to what is needed and to the urgency of the situation.

I would also like to talk about Canadian mining companies, which I suggested would be a good subject for study by the Standing Committee on International Trade. First, let me clarify one thing. It is a real stretch to call them “Canadian” mining companies, because they are just using Canada as a “flag of convenience”. Mining companies are often Canadian only on paper. They choose Canada because its lax laws make it ridiculously easy to incorporate here, to present themselves as Canadian companies and to benefit from speculative benefits offered through and by the Toronto Stock Exchange. Canada is just being used as a “flag of convenience”. It is basically a front.

I have seen this first-hand. The Bloc Québécois actually proposed a bill in 2009 that would have gotten to the heart of the issue, as it created an actual review commission that would have been politically independent and would have had the power to conduct its own investigations, without needing a complaint or a political directive. It would not simply have been a symbolic ombudsperson. This commission could have conducted its own investigations and publicly questioned Global Affairs Canada, or Foreign Affairs and International Trade Canada, as it was called at the time, if the department were even seen to support a mining company that was caught violating human rights.

I travelled to Chile and Colombia, and in Colombia, I saw a mining company that was originally Canadian fall into Chinese hands. Speaking of forced labour, we saw a bus full of prisoners arrive from the People's Republic of China. Once the local miners have been squeezed out, one of the arguments often used to gain acceptance for these projects in mining areas is that they will create jobs. However, bringing in prisoners from the People's Republic of China is not exactly creating local jobs. Furthermore, diplomats must not provide unequivocal support for the aggressive tactics used by Canadian mining companies abroad, as Canadian embassies have been known to do. Embassies are being ordered to provide support through diplomacy.

We also need to talk about money. It is important to talk about that, because Export Development Canada has investments in many problematic companies, including Baru Gold, which was mentioned several times. EDC continued to hand out loans to Teck Resources for its Quebrada Blanca mine in Chile, despite the political crisis and brutal repression going on in that country. In 2019 alone, EDC invested between $1 billion and $1.5 billion just in Chile's extractive sector.

Vale was involved in two recent tailings dam disasters in Brazil. At the company's Brumadinho mine, hundreds of people were killed in January 2019 when a tailings dam collapsed. It is also the co-owner of the mine near Mariana, where a similar disaster wiped out an entire village in 2015. Both mines had been built using the riskiest method regulators would allow. Vale's other activities include a railway along which residents are regularly struck by trains, and a mine that was ordered to shut down several times because of the impact it was having on indigenous tribes.

Vedanta Limited, a subsidiary of Vedanta Resources, received between $100 million and $250 million in loans in 2017. In 2018, there was a massacre at a smelter plant in India run by a subsidiary of Vedanta Resources. Police opened fire on a crowd of thousands who were protesting the planned expansion of the Tuticorin plant. Thirteen people were killed and dozens of others were injured.

According to Emily Dwyer from the Canadian Network on Corporate Accountability, who testified at committee, some of the other mining companies that received funding from Export Development Canada and were mixed up in human rights violations include Teck Resources and Kinross.

The mining industry in Canada received $6.524 million in funding in 2022. This is a serious matter.

When we talk about accountability and the origin of goods, we need to be serious and take a closer look.

I will now wrap up my speech in order to debate this issue with the rest of the House. We need some genuinely serious policies on this, such as Bill C‑262 and Bill C‑263, which I co-sponsored, and the bill that the Bloc Québécois introduced in 2009 about a review commission for mining companies.

This needs to be taken seriously, because the ombudsperson is currently nothing but a complaints office and a web site. That is no way to deal with the serious, violent, brutal violations happening around the world.

In closing, I want to wish everyone a happy end to the “no new clothes challenge”. March was dubbed “no new clothes” month. That lines up nicely with the theme we are discussing today.

[Arif Virani, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of International Trade]

Madam Speaker, it is an important issue, as I mentioned in my earlier intervention, that is being discussed today, and it was raised at the trade committee prior to this.

When we talk about the Xinjiang integrity declaration, we are speaking about the issues regarding goods whose provenance originates in a particular part of the People's Republic of China, known by locals as East Turkestan and by the PRC government as Xinjiang. The notion of the integrity declaration is to ensure that the provenance of goods that are coming from that particular area does not originate in forced labour or even slave labour, as has been mentioned by some members opposite, specifically on the part of Uighurs. This is a significant concern, not just for the Government of Canada but for our allies and many liberal and democratic nations around the planet, as it should be. I think the awareness of Canadians and folks around the planet has been accentuated in recent years with the rise of more strident policies on the part of the People's Republic of China and the Communist Party of China.

That is the scope of what we are discussing right now. It is about the declaration itself and what actions are being taken under the declaration.

In order to contextualize the discussion, we need to understand the evolving approach to the People's Republic of China itself. The People's Republic of China is under President Xi, who, as we speak, is visiting with Vladimir Putin, of all people, in an effort to address and shore up the alliance between Putin and Xi. That is a cause of concern for all right-thinking and democratically oriented governments around the planet, particularly those that oppose an illegal and unjustified invasion.

That gives us a sense of where President Xi is in terms of overtly aligning himself with the policies of Vladimir Putin. Those policies include policies of aggression. We are seeing Putin's aggression vis-à-vis Ukraine. We are seeing an aspiring, more aggressive, imperial-based Chinese policy, in terms of potential ambitions with respect to the island of Taiwan, the way China has treated Tibetans in the last 63 years, and the treatment that is being meted out toward Uighurs.

With respect to our policy as a government and as a Parliament regarding this part of China and the position we are taking, I would say we need look no further than the things that have been passed on the floor of this chamber. I am speaking of a motion, about 12 to 18 months ago, with respect to labelling what is transpiring in Xinjiang with the Uighurs as a genocide. That is a very significant conclusion to be drawn by parliamentarians. It is something that parliamentarians voted on in this chamber, and it is an accurate depiction, if the evidence is borne out from what we have thus far. We know that those factual elements that have been laid out, if proven, would demonstrate genocide in terms of international law. That is a significant aspect to consider.

About six weeks ago, we passed yet another motion, entirely unanimously, in this chamber to again address the Xinjiang region. What I am speaking of is a policy and a motion that was presented by the member for Pierrefonds—Dollard, if I have that correct, who is also the chair of the Subcommittee on International Human Rights. It is the idea that, with respect to Xinjiang, what we need to be doing as a government and as a nation is ensuring that individuals who are fleeing that type of persecution have a safe haven here in Canada, and bringing as many as 10,000 Uighurs to this country by 2024. That is a very significant step in the right direction in terms of taking a position as a Parliament and as a government toward the human rights violations that are occurring in the Xinjiang region.

Members heard me outline in my original intervention that we have also taken a very significant orientation shift with respect to our foreign policy. I am talking about the Indo-Pacific strategy. We can talk about what the Americans are doing with their Indo-Pacific economic framework, the IPEF, as it is called in the United States. Canada, the United States and many other nations are veering their orientation and foreign policy that is geared toward Asia away from China and its strident, aggressive policies, including its human rights violations, and toward other nations. The Indo-Pacific strategy is a classic example of that.

Why do I raise this in the context of Xinjiang? It is because the Indo-Pacific strategy speaks directly to this very issue. What am I speaking of? There are several pages dedicated to Canada's eyes-wide-open understanding and approach to China as a strident and more assertive, disruptive nation. What the Indo-Pacific strategy outlines is that with respect to China, what we will do is be more clear, articulate and transparent about holding China accountable for various human rights violations.

I am speaking of the Tibetan Canadians whom I represent and their Tibetan counterparts who remain in the Tibet Autonomous Region, and the human rights violations that have occurred since 1959, and before 1959, with respect to that community for the last 64 years. That is important to underscore in terms of their religious freedom, linguistic freedom and cultural freedom. We are talking about things such as Hong Kong democracy protesters and what has been transpiring over the last two or three years in terms of Hong Kongers daring to rise up and speak out against legislative policy that would restrict their freedom of expression. We are talking about individuals, such as those on the island of Taiwan, who fear for their physical safety and their survival as an independent nation among the community of nations. We are talking about Uighurs who come from East Turkestan, also referred to as Xinjiang by the People's Republic of China, and their rights to physical safety, religious freedom, cultural freedom and cultural liberties, of which they are being deprived in the People's Republic of China as we speak.

Those positions, those components are articulated in our Indo-Pacific strategy, and I think that is important because it shows the orientation of the government vis-à-vis China, and Xinjiang in particular.

Some of the contributions to the debate thus far by the members opposite have included criticisms, indeed in some respects accusations, that the Government of Canada is not raising these concerns with sufficient alacrity, sufficient clarity or sufficient repetitiveness or comprehensiveness, including in international dialogue. Nothing could be further from the case. I know with absolute clarity that the issue of Chinese human rights violations, whether it is with respect to Uighurs, Tibetans or Hong Kong democracy protesters, is articulated at every instance and at every available opportunity by representatives of the Government of Canada, including at bilateral and multilateral meetings, and multilateral forums.

I will give a case-in-point example in which I participated. In February, the OECD held an annual forum on responsible business conduct, which is exactly what we are talking about in this context, and that is about the conduct and comportment of enterprises that operate outside of one's borders. At that forum, I was there as the head of the Canadian delegation, representing the Minister of International Trade, and I went to specific lengths to articulate the positions we are taking as the Canadian government with respect to responsible business conduct. I articulated, specifically, references to the Indo-Pacific strategy and the very Xinjiang integrity declaration that is the subject of this morning's discussion. That prompted a very strong and firm response by the Chinese delegation that was present at those Paris meetings, who effectively indicated as follows.

They told me, in good French, that I was telling lies.

They indicated that I was effectively lying about the state of play in the People's Republic of China.

I was not lying when I was articulating, in an open international forum at the OECD, China's track record of violating the human rights of Uighurs, Tibetans and others, particularly with respect to people who originate from Xinjiang. The fact that those instances are being articulated by the Canadian government should give some comfort to those in this chamber who would argue that we need to be doing more of this. We are doing it. We will continue to do it. We will continue to do it in as many forums as possible.

We have to understand the approach toward Xinjiang within the broader context of our approach to labour issues. This has come up about forced labour in the supply chains, a critical issue. The issue of potential slave labour being in supply chains is also a very critical issue. Canadians need look no further than the mandate letters, which we publish as a government, that are given by the Prime Minister to different members of cabinet.

Canadians who are watching right now could look clearly at the mandate letter that has been provided to the Minister of Labour. The Minister of Labour's mandate letter articulates and provides a direction from the Prime Minister for him to work on a comprehensive piece of legislation that would work to eradicate forced labour from Canadian supply chains. That is something that the minister has been mandated to work on, something that he, his political team and his departmental team are working diligently on. That would include things such as a due diligence standard, standards that Canadian enterprises need to operate under, and also repercussions for transgressing those standards, including for not rooting out forced labour in supply chains.

We have heard a little about Bill S-211, which is being sponsored in this chamber by the member for Scarborough—Guildwood, who has served in this chamber for about seven terms. It originates in the other chamber, in the Senate, from Senator Miville-Dechêne.

Bill S-211 and the mandate given for government legislation to the Minister of Labour demonstrate our government's commitment to eradicating forced labour from our supply chains. While we are looking at this, it is also important to understand the international context, and the international context is a wide one.

In meetings at the OECD, I talked to the actual governmental representatives of about four different nations that have launched into this area of eradicating forced labour from supply chains. People talked to me quite candidly about what is working in northern Europe, what is working with respect to the U.K. Modern Slavery Act and where things could be tweaked.

They talked about how the Dutch, the Germans and the French, for example, are approaching it. These are important conversations that we are having, because what we seek to do with our legislation in Canada is to adopt an international best practice, to pick and choose what works in different jurisdictions and to improve on where there may be obstacles, errors or challenges that those other jurisdictions are coming up with.

That is to indicate to Canadians who are watching today that the idea of eradicating forced labour in supply chains is an important one, but it is also a complex one in terms of getting it right. It dovetails with things such as the size of the company, what companies the due diligence standards apply to and what the penalties are on the back end with respect to those companies.

When we look at eradicating forced labour from our supply chains, we need to zoom out to see what we are doing to ensure proper and responsible business conduct. I will point to several things. We launched the responsible business conduct strategy in April 2022. On behalf of the Minister of International Trade, I was there to launch it with a whole host of civil society organizations. They were very keen to see what we were doing to ensure that Canadian entities working abroad are acting and behaving responsibly and that they are complying with the law and with Canadian values.

Those include things like an attestation clause, which is attached to our responsible business conduct strategy, for Canadian enterprises that are going to work abroad or in various parts of the planet. In order to avail themselves of things like the trade commissioner services and of the very hard-working Canadians who operate in 160 offices around the planet to help Canadian enterprises do business in all four corners of the globe, those entities need to attest formally, in documentation, that they will abide by Canadian values, norms and laws, and also abide by international norms, guidelines and statutes in the locations where they will be doing the work.

That is important and it should go without saying. However, by having a quid pro quo, meaning that without the attestation the entities do not avail themselves of trade commissioner services, we are putting teeth to the notion that Canadian enterprises must conduct themselves responsibly when they work abroad. These are very critical.

As part of the responsible business conduct strategy, we are also developing a due diligence standard, which also dovetails with the work that has been taking place at the Minister of Labour's offices.

There is also a whole host of legislative tools that we have implemented. The list of legislative resources is quite in-depth. We passed legislation that deals with the corruption of foreign officials. It should go without saying, but one cannot be engaged in corruption of foreign officials and in bribery acts when one is a Canadian entity operating abroad.

We passed legislation, the Extractive Sector Transparency Measures Act, that deals with one of Canada's great fortes, which is our mining expertise and our mining know-how in Canadian mining operations operating abroad. In the extractive sector, there must be transparency that is informing the conduct at all times of Canadian entities that are operating abroad.

We passed the Customs Tariff Act amendment, which deals with the entities that would be brought into the country. Directly relevant to the issue that has been raised in today's debate, it is about goods that are being brought into the country and that they must abide by the Customs Tariff regulations and amendments. We put this in place to guard against human rights violations on the part of goods that are entering into the country.

We created the Canadian Ombudsperson for Responsible Enterprise. We created this entity in our first Parliament as a government, circa 2018-19. This is the only office of its kind on the entire planet. To purport, as the members opposite have, that we are not showing leadership on responsible business conduct abroad is categorically false.

The creation of a Canadian Ombudsperson for Responsible Enterprise, whose annual report I tabled moments before this debate started this morning in this chamber, demonstrates what we are doing as a government. We put money where our mouth is to create, fund and staff that office with personnel so they can examine critically the conduct of Canadian enterprises abroad and the kinds of norms, rules and values that are being observed by those enterprises.

We heard interventions by the New Democratic member two or three times in this morning's debate about the garment industry. In regard to that, the Canadian Ombudsperson for Responsible Enterprise, pursuant to her own mandate, initiated a study of the garment industry and Canadian enterprises operating in locations like Bangladesh. That is specifically the work that we feel needs to be done. It is being done right here in Canada, by virtue of legislation that we passed, in an office that we created and that we staffed. Again, this is the only country on the planet that has such an entity. That is critical initiative and critical leadership.

Regarding legislative initiatives, we also legislated UNDRIP and passed it. We have abided by UNDRIP, we have ratified UNDRIP and we have passed legislation that relates to UNDRIP. Why is UNDRIP related to issues of conduct abroad? One cannot deal with responsible business conduct abroad without understanding the impact enterprises have around the planet.

Let us pick a continent, such as Asia, South America or Africa. There are indigenous communities all over the planet affected by the conduct of Canadian enterprises. Let us pick a sector, such as the mining sector, the garment sector, etc. When indigenous communities are affected, we have responsibilities, pursuant to UNDRIP, that inform what can and cannot happen vis-à-vis those indigenous communities. Those communities can and should be availing themselves of the benefits from the resources being extracted from the wealth that is on their land. That is an important legislative component that has not been mentioned by the member opposite in raising this issue of debate.

There are also international commitments that we have not only led on, in terms of signing onto, but that we have also worked to further. I will just raise four. There are the UN guiding principles with respect to responsible business conduct. There are the OECD guidelines on responsible business conduct, which were the subject of the conference I attended in Paris in early February this year, regarding how businesses must comport themselves when they are operating abroad.

My NDP friends will be keen to know that we are very active regarding international legal organization guidelines that dictate labour norms and labour conventions with respect to how businesses must operate and what kinds of protections they need to observe when they are operating abroad. We also have been in the forefront of advocating for sustainable development goals and meeting those sustainable development goals at an international level.

The last piece I will speak to is an industry component of industry leadership on the part of Canadian entities taking the reins themselves. I will point to, as one example, the Mining Association of Canada's “Towards Sustainable Mining”. It is called the TSM initiative, in the vernacular in the industry. TSM is something that has been adopted by nine countries around the planet, so far. It is looking at adding four more.

At the PDAC conference that I just attended in Toronto, which is the biggest mining conference of its kind in the world, that initiative was touted by all of the nations that were there. Many nations were expressing interest in participating in it. This is to demonstrate to Canadians that there is not only a component of what good government is doing and what Parliament is doing, but there is also a component of what industry is doing to ensure that the conduct of its enterprises operating abroad is clear, accountable and transparent with respect to human rights.

Let me bring this back to the Xinjiang integrity declaration. One thing that I agree on with the members opposite in raising this issue of debate is that it is an important declaration and an important. Expedited work needs to be done with clarity on this issue and act on the declaration itself. That is an important initiative, and we need to show leadership not just in creating the declaration but also in acting on the declaration and working to ensure that goods coming in from that part of China are not tainted by the scourge of forced labour, including Uighur forced labour.

That is one of the reasons I decided to run for office and stand in the House eight years ago. It is about taking a human rights lens and applying it to the various policies of the Government of Canada. I felt that it was something that was sorely lacking in the previous government. I will acknowledge that some of the legislative measures, including, I believe, the issue about the extractive sector transparency measures, were enacted by the previous government, so there were some good initiatives made by the previous government.

Since 2015, we have taken that ball and moved it significantly forward by creating the CORE, creating the customs tariff amendment, passing UNDRIP and launching a new responsible business conduct strategy. That is the work I am committed to continuing, with the help of all parliamentarians in the House, to ensure that initiatives like the Xinjiang integrity declaration are fully fulfilled.

[Sébastien Lemire, Bloc, Abitibi—Témiscamingue, QC]

Madam Speaker, I thank my colleague from Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan for his speech and I thank the member for Dufferin—Caledon for his leadership on this issue.

Obviously this raises a number of questions. Which companies and which type of products will be targeted? Will consumers be prepared to pay more? I think that goes without saying when it comes to human rights, but at the end of the day, will consumers be aware of the choices they have to make? Will this have an impact on Canadian companies and their suppliers? Are we prepared to make these choices? I would like my colleague's thoughts on this.

There may also be a connection with Bill S‑211, which is currently at third reading stage in the House after passing all the steps in the process in the Senate. Will Bill S‑211 provide answers to the motion being moved and debated today?

Criminal Code

[Arnold Viersen, Conservative, Peace River—Westlock, AB]

Madam Speaker, I am excited to add my voice to this debate on Bill S-224 as well, and I want to acknowledge the hard work of the sponsor of this bill, Senator Ataullahjan, who worked hard to steer it through the Senate, and the MP for Oshawa, who has been working hard with stakeholders and survivors to advance this bill, since 2019 actually. Both of these members are members of the All-Party Parliamentary Group to End Modern Slavery and Human Trafficking, an organization of which I am one of the co-chairs. I want to thank all of the folks who are members of that organization for their help as well.

Human trafficking is a form of modern-day slavery that turns people into objects to be used and exploited. It is vicious, it is profitable and it is growing here and around the world. I often say that human trafficking is happening within 10 blocks or 10 minutes of where one lives. Even in my large rural riding in northern Alberta, we have had human trafficking cases as well. We know that the vast majority of human trafficking victims in Canada are female, young and indigenous. The reality is that anybody can become a human trafficking victim, so this is a critical issue.

There are many survivors, frontline organizations and law enforcement people working to bring justice for victims and stop human traffickers, but our human trafficking offences are not accomplishing what we want them to do. Here in Canada, we are not fully aligned with the Palermo protocol that Canada signed over 20 years ago. Specifically, within the human trafficking offences in section 279 of the Criminal Code, there is a definition of exploitation that states:

a person exploits another person if they cause them to provide, or offer to provide, labour or a service by engaging in conduct that, in all the circumstances, could reasonably be expected to cause the other person to believe that their safety or the safety of a person known to them would be threatened if they failed to provide... the labour or service.

The problem with this definition is that it places the burden of the offence in the mindset of the victim rather than in the actions of the trafficker, as the Palermo protocol calls for. The actions that traffickers use are threat of the use of force or coercion or threats to other people. They use fraud or deception or the abuse of power or the abuse of vulnerability to enslave another person.

UBC law professor Janine Benedet testified at the committee and said that the challenge with the existing definition of the Criminal Code is that:

we've adopted a definition that is much narrower and much harder to prove than the definition of trafficking that you will find in the Palermo protocol.

The definition of exploitation in Canada requires a proven threat to safety, and does not extend to keeping someone in prostitution through the exploitation of a condition of vulnerability, which is part of the Palermo definition.

...police and prosecutors are shifting trafficking cases over to these other offences, because it's so difficult to actually prove the very narrow and strict definition of trafficking [that is in our law].

As I have stated before, the burden of proof should never be on the mindset of victims, many of whom are not even initially aware that they are being trafficked. Police officers have told me over and over how they have met victims whom they know are being trafficked, but because the victims do not live in fear of their traffickers, the officers' options are very limited. I have met with survivors, NGOs and law enforcement across Canada, and the one issue that comes up at every meeting is that we need to be in full alignment with the Palermo protocol. This bill is critical to Canada's efforts to target and apprehend pimps and traffickers.

To emphasize the difficulty in securing convictions over existing trafficking offences, I want to share the conviction statistics from Stats Canada, which notes, “Less than half of detected incidents of human trafficking result in the laying or recommendation of charges.” For a 10-year period, between 2011 and 2021, the majority, 81%, of completed adult criminal court cases involving at least one human trafficking charge were stayed, withdrawn, dismissed or discharged. During the same time, only 12% of these cases resulted in a guilty decision. Putting it another way, only one in eight completed human trafficking cases resulted in a guilty decision.

Finally, every human trafficking case is half as likely to result in a finding of guilt as a case involving sexual offence or a violent crime. This is tragic. Canada is failing the victims of human trafficking and our law enforcement officers, who work so hard to investigate and apprehend these traffickers. This is not a new problem. Survivors and NGOs have been speaking out about this for years.

Back in 2014, a report entitled “Ending Sex-Trafficking In Canada” from the National Task Force on Sex Trafficking of Women and Girls in Canada recommended our alignment with the Palermo protocol, and every year, the U.S. trafficking in persons report, on its file in Canada, urges Canada to amend its Criminal Code to include a definition of trafficking as exploitation as an essential element of the crime consistent with international law.

The Conservative Party of Canada has had this in our platform since 2019, and a few years ago, the Alberta government launched a nine-point action plan to combat human trafficking. The implementation of that was spearheaded by my friend Paul Brandt, who chaired the Alberta Human Trafficking Task Force. He has done an incredible job. The first priority of the action was to adopt the Palermo protocol definition of trafficking.

Canada needs to do much better in its fight against human trafficking, and the bill is an important start. The tragic reality of human trafficking is that it has not been a priority for this government. For example, bills such as Bill S-224 and Bill S-211 are the result of individual MPs and senators who worked hard to address the gaps experienced by survivors and stakeholders.

A lot of work has been done to support this and has been driven by the All Party Parliamentary Group to End Modern Slavery since we launched in 2018. Our goal is to ensure that Canada is free from all human trafficking and to increase awareness around that. We have four co-chairs, one from each official party, and we recognize the immense value of working across political lines to combat human trafficking. That is why, three years ago, we were able to get the House of Commons to finally recognize February 22 as Human Trafficking Awareness Day.

However, when we look at the legislation that the government has introduced over the past eight years regarding human trafficking, it is taking Canada in the wrong direction. Government legislation has blocked consecutive sentencing for traffickers after it has been adopted by Parliament. It reduced some of the human trafficking offences to hybrid offences, meaning that traffickers get away with as little as a fine. More recently, the Liberals have extended house arrest to some human trafficking offences. Who benefits from all of these changes? It is pimps and traffickers. I would also note that the government allowed the national action plan to combat human trafficking to expire in 2016 and refused to bring forward anything for almost four years until weeks before the 2019 election.

The Liberals' 2019 national strategy to combat human trafficking says a lot of good things, but it is just that: It says a lot of good things. Unlike the Conservative Party national action plan, the strategy has no targets and no measurables. That is why, four years after it being announced, the survivor-led advisory committee on human trafficking has still not been set up. The voices and lived experiences of victims and survivors are essential for this success. I am hoping that we can get that set up soon. Canada must have a zero-tolerance approach to human trafficking that centres on the voices of survivors.

While we often talk about sex trafficking in Canada, we know that forced labour is also very tragic and happens here in Canada. Victims of forced labour can be found in restaurants, the agricultural industry, the mining sector, live-in caregiving situations and manufacturing. Just two weeks ago, the York Regional Police announced that 64 men and women from Mexico were trafficked to work in Ontario. I want to thank the police for their hard work on these things and the officers who apprehended these traffickers and rescued these victims.

Around the world, now more than ever, there are more than 50 million people in some form of slavery, which is up from 40 million pre-COVID. It is more than the population of our country, and more than ever in human history. Worldwide, slavery is a multi-billion dollar industry that generates more than $150 billion annually. This is why I am so pleased to support the bill before us today so we can end human trafficking here and around the world.

Human Trafficking Awareness Day

[John McKay, Liberal, Scarborough—Guildwood, ON]

Mr. Speaker, February 22 is National Human Trafficking Awareness Day. Whether it is forced labour, forced marriages, sex trafficking, organ trafficking or cybersex, it is hidden in plain sight right here in Canada.

Statistics Canada reports that in 2019, 97% of human trafficking victims were girls and women, 89% were below the age of 35 and 50% were indigenous. Human trafficking is vicious, profitable and growing. All Canadians have the opportunity to make a difference by doing the following: listening to survivors; learning the signs; advocating for change; supporting Bill C-308; and supporting Bill S-211, which will have its third reading on March 6.

Not all modern slavery involves human trafficking, but all trafficked persons are slaves. On National Human Trafficking Awareness Day, let us take the necessary steps to end this scourge in our country.

Criminal Code

[Garnett Genuis, Conservative, Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, AB]

,

seconded by the member for Pierrefonds—Dollard, moved that the bill be read the third time and passed.

He said: Mr. Speaker, I am very pleased to be speaking today to Bill S-223, the next, and hopefully the last, in a long line of bills that have been proposed here and in the other place to begin the fight against the horrific practice of forced organ harvesting and trafficking.

I want to thank the member for Pierrefonds—Dollard for seconding the bill and recognize the incredible work done by Senator Ataullahjan as well, who proposed the bill. I have the honour of carrying that work on in this place.

The bill would make it a criminal offence for a person to go abroad and receive an organ taken without consent. Bill S-223 would also create a mechanism by which a person could be deemed inadmissible to Canada for involvement in forced organ harvesting and trafficking. The bill recognizes the basic moral principle that killing people or exploiting them for their organs is wrong everywhere and should be stopped everywhere.

Efforts to combat this practice have been ongoing in Canada's Parliament for close to 15 years, and the time that has elapsed underlines the sad reality of how long it takes to pass good private members' bills, even when everyone agrees. However, Bill S-223 has now made it further than any of its predecessors. Having passed the Senate and now been reported back from committee without amendments, the bill only needs to complete this third reading stage and receive royal assent before becoming law. Thanks to the member for Bow River trading with me today and the member for Simcoe North trading the second hour slot on Wednesday, the bill will complete debate this week and should pass its final vote in time for Christmas.

In the past I have always given uncharacteristically short speeches on the bill, trying to engineer an early collapse to debate to move the bill along more quickly. However, given that we now have the security of a second hour for debate lined up and a tight time line to move forward in any event, I will use the opportunity to now, for the first time, to lay out my views on this subject in the level of detail that the full time allows.

The bill responds to one particularly egregious human rights violation, but it would also take an important step toward the embracing of a vital principle of human rights more broadly; that is, the idea of the universality of human rights and of the responsibility of nations to prudentially use the means at their disposal to protect fundamental human rights, not only within their own nations but for every human being in every corner of the globe.

Bill S-223 would apply criminal prohibitions against organ harvesting and trafficking beyond Canada's borders. It recognizes that organ harvesting and trafficking is not just wrong in Canada as a result of particularly Canadian values or a particularly Canadian social contract. Rather, it recognizes that organ harvesting and trafficking is wrong because it denies the universal principle of inherent human dignity and value, a principle that should be understood and applied universally. In this sense, the bill seeks to continue the process of innovation around the principle of national sovereignty that began in 1948 with the promulgation of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

Today, I would like to make the case for the importance of embracing this continuing process of innovation, though with appropriate balance and with necessary parameters.

The principle of national sovereignty comes most sharply from Peace of Westphalia, which ended 30 years of war in the Holy Roman Empire in 1648. National sovereignty emerged as a necessary practical compromise from the new reality created by the Protestant Reformation. Prior to the Reformation, western Europe had a kind of moral and religious unity, with the Pope as spiritual leader and the Emperor as a temporal ruler whose practical jurisdiction varied from place to place, but who expressed a kind civilizational unity of the western Christian world.

The Reformation ended that unity and led to generations of wars, with most of the Catholic powers struggling to restore that civilizational unity and with the Protestant powers, with the periodic help of France, seeking to break the power of the Pope and Emperor and create a reality in which nation states could be their own authority in most areas. The Peace of Westphalia, more from exhaustion than decisive victory, marked the end of this period of religious wars and the beginning of the period of nation states.

Notably, this was not the beginning of some great flowering of individual freedom, liberty and human rights. The division of Europe into blocs meant that Catholics were persecuted in Protestant nations just as Protestants were persecuted in Catholic nations, and later as Catholics were brutally persecuted in anti-religious revolutionary France. Westphalia was not about saying that individuals could believe and do what they liked; it was “cuius regio, eius religio”, the religion of the ruler shall be the religion of the state. Under these circumstances, religious persecution continued for hundreds of years, and nations, though less inclined to fight wars over religion, fought wars that reflected the aspirations of rulers, no longer checked or mediated by super-national structures that reflected civilizational unity.

The 18th and 19th centuries saw the rise of new universalist movements. The French Revolution and later Marxism were great threats to existing structures and ideas of national sovereignty, because they made universal claims about the kinds of power structures that should exist, instead of accepting the Westphalian idea that it was up to the local political authorities to decide how a place would be governed.

These movements were obviously different, but a common thread can be discerned in the thinking of political universalists of both the pre-Reformation and the Revolutionary type. They believed that, insofar as there is such a thing as truth, insofar as there is such a thing as human nature and insofar as there is a resulting right and wrong way for a people to be governed, efforts should be made to apply these principles universally. There is intuitive logic to the idea that truth and justice for human beings in one place should be the same as truth and justice for human beings in another place.

There are more modern arguments made for the rejection of this kind of moral universalism that propose the general subjectivity of truth. I will comment more on these arguments later. For the time being, we should note that the emergence of national sovereignty as a principle in European politics did not arise from the rejection of absolute truth in religious and political matters. Rather, it arose from the practical recognition that such universals could not be practically enforced through warfare, at least not at any acceptable cost. The idea of national sovereignty was seen as a necessary political compromise to preserve some measure of peace and security.

It is hard to say how well national sovereignty actually worked at achieving its objectives. One can never test counterfactuals, but we can never know what would have happened in Europe if this piece of political technology had not been invented. Certainly, Europeans kept fighting wars of various kinds after 1648, but the return of the broadest and most devastating European wars tended to align with the emergence of new universalist ideologies.

Following the last of these total European wars, nations came together to try to shape a new kind of settlement. This included the formation of the United Nations in 1945 and also the signing of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights exactly 300 hundred years after the signing of the Peace of Westphalia.

Many of history's human rights declarations, especially prior to 1948, were calls to arms or efforts to justify a violent revolution. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights was radical insofar as it asserted the universality of various fundamental human rights, but it was also conservative in the sense that it was the project of nation states, within a framework that still recognized nationality with sovereignty, it did not legally bind the state signatories to actually uphold the rights therein, and, of course, it did not contain a call to armed enforcement by the people.

This provided a somewhat contradictory foundation, and international human rights law has continued to evolve and grow since 1948 on that foundation that recognizes both national sovereignty and universal human rights as being of great importance.

Notwithstanding the evident tension between these concepts, international diplomacy and law today recognizes that we cannot and ought not dispense with either. An absence of recognition of national sovereignty would lead to perpetual conflict between nations representing irreconcilable philosophical systems. This was the background prior to the Peace of Westphalia and a reality intermittently renewed by the rise of universalist revolutionary and totalitarian movements.

However, the absence of any limits on national sovereignty aimed at protecting universal human rights would create a reality in which we would look the other way when nations would commit the most dastardly crimes toward their own people. Any moral person who believes in justice and universal human dignity must, at a certain point, refuse to consent to allowing certain evils to be committed in the name of national sovereignty. Even if the only consideration is national sovereignty, history shows us clearly that nations that show capricious disregard for the rights of their own people quickly become a menace to their neighbours.

Recognizing the necessary tension between national sovereignty and international human rights, the approach of many nations has sadly been to talk the talk of international human rights, but not to put in practice meaningful mechanisms to enforce such rights.

The clearest example of this approach is the approach taken to the crime of genocide. Canada is a party to an international convention that seeks to define and make illegal the crime of genocide, regardless of assertions of national sovereignty. I strongly support this idea in principle and in practice. Slaughtering a group of people in an attempt to eradicate them is a horrific denial of universal human dignity of the person, and we should do what we can to prevent it. However, unfortunately, while assenting to the idea in principle that genocide should be an international crime, the Government of Canada has been reluctant to actually recognize any acts of genocide while they are progress. It claims that its obligation to act in response to genocide is triggered by a determination by some undefined competent international authority, even if such authorities are easily manipulated by the state committing genocide.

Additionally, this line from the government is fundamentally out of step with our actual legal obligations under the Genocide Convention. Our obligations, as a signatory to the convention, are to uphold that convention, which includes our responsibility to protect victims of genocide, regardless of national sovereignty and regardless of determinations by UN bodies. This is the legal obligation that we have assumed.

I also acknowledge the reality that it is not prudential to send in our troops in every case where genocide is happening. However, rather than burying our heads in the sand and denying the existence of genocide, the government could seek to clearly define the nature and also the limitations of how we would operationalize a responsibility to protect.

In my view, we need to develop real tools for practically integrating a commitment to universal human rights with a commitment to some form of national sovereignty. If an individual is involved in a violation of international human rights and if the nation state in which the person lives elects not to punish them or even condones their actions, national sovereignty limits our ability to punish this criminal. However, without resorting to means that are imprudent and likely to lead to even greater violence, we should still seek ways to punish those involved in human rights violations beyond our borders and thus deter criminals from committing these crimes.

Enter Bill S-223, a little bill with a big idea. It is the idea that we should use the means reasonably at our disposal to punish violations of fundamental human rights that happen beyond our borders. We could do this by punishing Canadians who are complicit in these acts of violence and by shunning foreigners who are involved in such violence. In light of the emergent reality of global connectivity, these kinds of limited tools are still meaningful and begin the process of deterring crime that happens beyond our borders.

It is a good thing that, if we agree it is always and everywhere wrong to do such and such a thing to a human being, we try to come up with some mechanism of accountability for these crimes that is prudent and that does not return us to the kind of world that existed between the Protestant Reformation and the Peace of Westphalia.

This idea of actively applying international human rights principles extraterritorially is about us doing what we can under the circumstances to advance justice. A commitment to this principle is why I have worked hard on this bill and also why I strongly support similar legislative mechanisms, such as the increasing use of Magnitsky sanctions, the adoption of Bill C-281, which is the international human rights act, and the adoption of Bill S-211. I support these legislative efforts to promote justice beyond our borders, because my children here in Canada are no more or less human than Uighur children, Rohingya children, the young nephew of my assistant who faces a hard winter in Ukraine or Kian Pirfalak, a nine-year-old boy who was murdered by police while attending a pro-freedom protest in Iran.

In conclusion, I want to return to a question I raised earlier: the case for universal moral claims in a world made up of diverse cultures and political traditions.

Every society since the dawn of time has tried to regulate itself with doctrines of something like morality. It is impossible for people to live together in a community if they do not regulate their interactions in some way. Furthermore, it is in our nature as beings to try to live rationally, to try to explain the decisions we make with reference to some good or goods.

However, while there has never been a society without some kind moral doctrines, and while those moral doctrines have sought to protect the lives and security of certain individuals, most societies have excluded certain groups or individuals from that protection. They have sought to protect an in-group without protecting an outgroup, seeking to narrow the definition of what it is to be human and perhaps allowing the exploitation of the outgroup for some advantage.

The core of my political philosophy is a simple commitment to universal humanism. It is the idea that we should not think in terms of in-group and outgroup when making decisions about fundamental human rights. If we are to speak authentically about human rights, then these are rights for all humans, regardless of age, environment, citizenship, skin colour or any other factor. Throughout history and still today, there are many who seek to limit the human family for their own convenience, but I believe that a person is a person.

Naturally there are certain kinds of rights that do flow from exchange. A worker has a right to wages. That is a right particular to the worker. A citizen has certain rights that accord with the obligations they have taken on to the nation in which they live. However, when we speak of human rights, these are rights that do not exist because of exchange. Rather, they are rights that flow from the universal nature of the human person.

Ideas of rights and justice are philosophical propositions that cannot be proven scientifically. All doctrines of human rights have their roots in something like faith: in the embrace of propositions that are not scientifically verifiable. However, the idea of universal human rights flowing from a universal humanness can be supported by observing how it accords with the universal aspirations of all people.

Today, as we speak, the people of China and the people of Iran are taking to the streets bravely demanding change. As we speak, incredibly, both of these totalitarian governments are at least feigning in the direction of concession. Also, the people of Ukraine have resisted and continue to heroically resist Putin's invasion, even as more and more Russians bravely express their own discontent.

I am proudly here today endorsing this universal movement for freedom and justice, to say that a person is a person no matter where they live and to say that we can and should prudentially work to affirm and give greater meaning to the idea of universal human rights.

International Day for the Abolition of Slavery

[John McKay, Liberal, Scarborough—Guildwood, ON]

Mr. Speaker, December 2 marks the International Day for the Abolition of Slavery.

Slavery has been a blight on humanity since the dawn of time. Canadians unwittingly participate in this scourge by purchasing products made by slaves. We can hardly decry the plight of these slaves if we simultaneously create a market for their products. A transparency bill works on the theory that sunlight is the best disinfectant. Yesterday, Bill S-211 returned to this place for its final reading. Is it enough? Should we stop here? Of course not. The bill is merely a marker on this journey.

However, I hope colleagues will reflect on the legislative genius of William Wilberforce. When the legislative path to the abolition of slavery was blocked, he got the trading of slaves abolished instead, thereby making the ownership of slaves worthless. Shortly thereafter, the British Empire abolished slavery forever.

On this occasion of the International Day for the Abolition of Slavery it is important to remember that sometimes one has to do indirectly what cannot be done directly.

Foreign Affairs and International Development

[Ali Ehsassi, Liberal, Willowdale, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I have the honour to present, in both official languages, the eighth report of the Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs and International Development in relation to 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.

The committee has studied the bill and has decided to report the bill back to the House without amendments.

Forced Labour and Child Labour

[Arnold Viersen, Conservative, Peace River—Westlock, AB]

Mr. Speaker, the next petition I am presenting is from Canadians across Canada who are very concerned about the issue of modern slavery. It appears that today, more than 50 million people are caught up and enslaved in modern slavery, and many of the products we buy here in Canada are affected by this form of slavery.

Approximately 20 million people are in forced labour today, and it is estimated that over 1,200 companies operating in Canada are at risk of selling or using products that are produced by child labourers or forced labourers. Approximately 20 billion dollars' worth of goods are imported each year that are at risk of being produced through modern slavery. Large companies at this point are not required to report measures taken to prevent modern slavery in their supply chains. Canada has committed to target 8.7 of the 2030 United Nations goals to eliminate all forms of child slavery by 2025.

The folks who have signed this petition are calling on the House of Commons to quickly pass Bill S-211, an act to fight against forced labour and child labour in supply chains and to amend the Customs Tariff. I note that this bill is at committee right now and is in its final stages. The petitioners are calling for Parliament to quickly pass it.

Uighurs and other Turkic Muslims

[Garnett Genuis, Conservative, Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, AB]

Madam Speaker, I thank the sponsor of this motion and everybody who is joining us for this debate. I know there are many people present in the precinct and following along online.

I have the honour of being the co-chair, along with my friend, the mover of this motion, of the parliamentary friendship group for Uighurs. That is one of many reasons that I am proud to speak in support of Motion No. 62 and express the support of the Conservative Party for this motion. I expect that when it comes to a vote, we will be able to speak united and with one voice.

I think there is a critically important role for the official opposition, which is to support the government in the areas we agree with and challenge the government when there are gaps in the response.

This issue is deeply personal for me. It is not hard to tell that I am not of Uighur background myself, but my grandmother was a Holocaust survivor. She was a Jewish child who grew up in Germany and hid out, and many of her family members were killed. I was raised with an awareness of the grievous injustice that had been visited upon her extended family. She was in a position, as a vulnerable child and a member of a persecuted minority, where she was not able to speak out about her own situation, but she survived the war because people who had a voice and had an opportunity to speak had the courage to speak out against what was happening, the injustices that were happening.

I have a big portrait on the wall in my office of Blessed Clemens von Galen, who was the bishop of the Munster area of Germany where she was. He was a bold, fearless critic of the Nazis, someone who had a position of privilege within that society and used his position to speak out against injustice.

A couple of years ago, my sister and I took a trip to Berlin. We were looking at the sites of deportation. What strikes Canadians when they go to Europe is how much closer everything is together. We are used to wide open spaces. We saw the streets through which Jews were brought to a train station and where they were being sent away, and what struck me was the apartment buildings that are close by where people, everyday Germans, would have been living. They would have been able to look down and see their former neighbours and people from their community being pushed and herded away to their deaths.

When I was there with my sister, we talked about this, and I wondered what these people were thinking, the ones who could see what was going on. Perhaps they had a mix of perspectives and knew it was wrong but were afraid in some way of the consequences of speaking out for truth and justice. What were they thinking? Why did they not do more?

At the end of the Second World War, we made a promise to my grandmother's generation of “never again”. Never again would we allow people to be slaughtered because of their ethnic or religious background. We would do everything possible to make genocide a crime and stop it everywhere. However, in the seven years I have spent as a member of Parliament, we have recognized and responded to not one but multiple cases of ongoing genocide. It is clear that we have failed to deliver on the promise we made to my grandmother's generation.

I think about those apartment buildings and the people who could see the injustice happening in front of them. Today, we have satellite imagery. We do not need to be in apartment buildings directly above what is happening. We can see the photographs. We can look at the numbers and see the precipitous drop in birth rates as a result of forced abortion, forced sterilization and systemic sexual violence targeting the Uighur community.

I owe it to my grandmother and to those like her to use the voice I have now to speak out against contemporary injustices, recognize the failure to live up to that promise of “never again” and do all we can to respond.

The first step should be a recognition of the crime of genocide, because in the history of jurisprudence following the Second World War, we tried to establish this crime of genocide and establish a responsibility to protect. Individual nations that are a party to the genocide convention have an obligation. It is not just an obligation where there is conclusive proof of genocide, but an obligation when there is evidence that genocide may be occurring.

Those obligations exist for individual states who are parties to that convention. Those obligations do not depend on whether some international body determines it to be a genocide. Those obligations are for individual states who are signatories to the genocide convention. Canada is a signatory, so Canada has obligations. We have a responsibility to act to protect when we see a genocide happening or when there is evidence to suggest that there may be a genocide happening.

This testimony was clearly given by former justice minister Irwin Cotler at the Subcommittee on International Human Rights when we studied this question. He made clear in his testimony that not one but all five of the possible conditions of the genocide convention have likely been transgressed in the case of Uighurs. The evidence was clear then, and the evidence is more clear now than it was then. When this Parliament first voted on the question of genocide recognition, it was before some of the new information that has come out since and various other tribunals that have made all the more clear the situation we are in.

The problem is that, since nations have recognized that they have an obligation to respond to genocide and that they have an obligation to protect in the case of genocide, those same nations have become reluctant to acknowledge that a genocide is taking place, because when they acknowledge that a genocide is happening, then they are legally obliged to act. However, whether or not they are willing to admit that they know, they do know because the evidence is clear. To paraphrase William Wilberforce, we may choose to look away, but in the face of the evidence, we may never again say that we did not know.

The evidence has been there, yet again this week we had a motion before the House on genocide recognition. Everyone who voted, voted in favour of genocide recognition, but the cabinet still abstained. This is extremely important because, if the government had voted in favour of that motion, it would be recognizing the legal obligations it has under the genocide convention, but it still failed to do that. I salute members of all parties who have been prepared to take that step nonetheless, but it would be that much more impactful if the cabinet, if the Government of Canada, was prepared to take that step.

The House of Commons, by the way, has led in the world. We were the first democratic legislature in the world to recognize the Uighur genocide, and many other legislatures followed. Ironically, while our legislature has led, the government has not yet taken that step.

Nonetheless, there are still so many more things that we can do and we need to do. Now we are seeing myriad private member's motions and bills coming from various parties that respond to the recognition that at least individual members have, if not the government, that a genocide is taking place. We have Motion No. 62, which seeks to advance targeted immigration measures to support Uighurs. We have various pieces of legislation, such as Bill S-211 and Bill S-204, that seek to address forced labour. We have proposals, such Bill C-281, which would strengthen our sanctions regime and allow parliamentary committees to nominate individuals for sanction.

We see this flurry of activity now from members of Parliament and senators using the power that we have as parliamentarians to respond to this recognition of genocide, but the ultimate power rests in the hands of the government. It is the government that has to act, even in the case of the motion before us, which is a non-binding motion that makes a recommendation to the government. It is an important tool to encourage the government to act.

Of course, the government did not have to wait for Motion No. 62, and it does not need to wait for it now. The motion contains a timeline that is fairly generous to the government, fair enough, but I would challenge the government to take up its responsibility. Individual members of Parliament are doing what we can to be a voice for the voiceless to recognize the reality, and the government must as well.

I believe that every single member of this cabinet who has looked at the evidence knows that a genocide is happening and knows that they have an obligation. It will be to their eternal shame if they do not act on that knowledge as soon as possible.

[Sameer Zuberi, Liberal, Pierrefonds—Dollard, QC]

moved:

That, given the motion adopted unanimously by the House on February 22, 2021, recognizing that a genocide is currently being carried out by the People's Republic of China against Uyghurs and other Turkic Muslims, in the opinion of the House, the government should:

(a) recognize that Uyghurs and other Turkic Muslims that have fled to third countries face pressure and intimidation by the Chinese state to return to China, where they face the serious risk of mass arbitrary detention, mass arbitrary separation of children from their parents, forced sterilization, forced labour, torture and other atrocities;

(b) recognize that many of these third countries face continued diplomatic and economic pressure from the People's Republic of China to detain and deport Uyghurs and other Turkic Muslims leaving them without a safe haven in the world;

(c) urgently leverage Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada’s Refugee and Humanitarian Resettlement Program to expedite the entry of 10,000 Uyghurs and other Turkic Muslims in need of protection, over two years starting in 2024 into Canada; and

(d) table in the House, within 120 sitting days following the adoption of this motion, a report on how the refugee resettlement plan will be implemented.

Madam Speaker, I am very pleased to be here in the House with all members today. I would like to acknowledge that we are gathered on Algonquin territory.

Today is an important day. We will be discussing an important program that is within Motion No. 62, a motion to welcome 10,000 Uighur who are facing genocide within China right now, at this moment in time.

This motion calls for the Government of Canada to resettle 10,000 Uighur as of 2024 from third countries. Why third countries? It is because we cannot welcome, unfortunately, Uighur who are currently undergoing the genocide within China, but we can provide safe haven for vulnerable Uighur within third countries. These third countries primarily include countries from north Africa and the Arab world, but not exclusively. There are several other countries where Uighur people are living and are present.

We have heard a lot of testimony from survivors at committees and at the Subcommittee on International Human Rights. In the past we have heard horrifying nightmare stories of people being abused in unspeakable ways, of women being violated and men too. We heard about forced labour. There are over a million people currently in forced labour camps. We heard about children, numbering in the hundreds of thousands, being separated from their families when they should be in the care of their moms and dads.

We know that 20% of the world's cotton is produced in China, likely tainted by forced labour. We know that 35% of tomato products are also tainted by forced labour because they come from the Xinjiang Uighur autonomous region. We know that 45% of polyurethane, which is the base material for solar panels, as the world tries to go green, is also tainted by forced labour. This is wholly and entirely unacceptable. This is something that we, as a country and as a human family, must stand up against.

We had a motion from the benches opposite in February 2021 that called on the House to recognize that a genocide is in fact occurring. Thankfully the House voted unanimously and spoke with one voice on that matter. Not a single person voted against it. We unanimously voted to recognize that a genocide is in fact occurring toward the Uighur people.

This issue is not a partisan issue. For those who make it such, shame on them. They know who they are. This is an issue about people who are dying, who are being violated and who are being mistreated. We said after World War II that this would not happen again. After Bosnia and Yugoslavia, we also reconfirmed that intent. After what happened in Rwanda, we did the same, and with the Rohingya again. Now we know, a genocide is occurring.

What are we going to do? We heard the reports. We know the reports. Many of us have read the reports, over 50 pages long, from Michelle Bachelet, the former United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights. She said that these allegations of the Uighur people are well-founded, and they also may amount to international crimes, including crimes against humanity. These are high crimes in international law, as is genocide.

The international community, in 2005, said that these types of international crimes must be prevented. Therefore, each and every country has a responsibility to protect when we see crimes against humanity occurring, or the threat of them occurring. When we see genocide occurring or the threat of genocide occurring, we, as a human family, as a collective of countries and as Canada, all have a responsibility to protect.

Our responsibility is engaged and we must act. One way in which we can answer this is by voting for this program to welcome 10,000 Uighurs here in Canada. We have a proud tradition in our country of welcoming refugees and asylum seekers. This is a proud Canadian tradition.

This program will not halt the genocide. It will put a slight dent in it. This program will not answer our obligation, the responsibility, to protect. It will in part answer it. This is something that speaks to our tradition. This is something that we can do, should do, must do.

In the past, we have welcomed many different people who have been fleeing for their lives from genocides, from crimes against humanity. Recently, we can think of Yazidis, Syrians and Afghans. We can think of Hongkongers. We created some special pathways. We can do this again, now, today.

I will share some facts about the Uighur people. Who are they? We hear the term but we do not know who they are.

Like all people, they are a proud people. They live in the western part of China, what they have traditionally called East Turkestan, what we know in international law as Xinjiang Uighur autonomous region.

Xinjiang has a particular meaning. It means “new frontier” in the tongue of the majority of people within China. It is approximately, as I mentioned, one-sixth the land mass of China. It also has many vast deserts and mountains. It historically has been part of the ancient Silk Road trade route that connected China, that allowed for trade to occur to Europe and the Middle East. That trade route is being revived, but with a modern update, with highways and the free flow of goods.

That is why the supply chain issue is a big question. The current belt and road initiative runs through Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region.

As I mentioned earlier, 20% of the world's cotton is produced there. Eighty per cent of China's cotton actually comes from the region. I will repeat that for all of us who buy cotton. Eighty per cent of Chinese cotton comes from Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, as does 35% of tomato products, pasta and pizza.

I love pasta and pizza. Contrary to first impressions, I am actually one-quarter Italian and one-quarter Sicilian. I joke sometimes that my colour comes from my Sicilian side. It is a bad joke, but I say it sometimes.

We know that approximately 45% of the base materials for solar panels come from that region also. Minerals, such as gold, silver and zinc come from there. It is very mineral-rich.

There has been atomic testing also in the region since the 1960s. In addition to all of the horrors that we heard, these things are occurring.

These horrors are real, so real, as I mentioned, that the former high commissioner of human rights, Michelle Bachelet, said that these allegations are well-founded.

Thankfully, in addition to my motion, we had a preview this week in the House when we were discussing and then voted to concur in the immigration committee's report, which called for immigration. That report unfortunately, or fortunately, did not specify something. That report that we all unanimously concurred in this week said that we should create special immigration measures for Uighur people and other Turkic minorities, but we did not specify what those measures should be.

This motion does exactly that. It completes what happened earlier this week, when we said, “Let us do this.” This motion says how. This motion is precise. It is specific. It is time-bound. It is what we need.

In addition to this, we thankfully have a number of initiatives in the House, and I would like to see them all pass and made into law.

First is Bill S-211, which is on forced labour. It is a very important bill. Thankfully, our foreign affairs minister has said that we support it. She said that in August, when replying to Michelle Bachelet's report that there may be crimes against humanity occurring within the region, so already our foreign affairs minister has said such. This initiative started in the Senate and now is in the House. It is actually heading to committee.

We also have a second initiative on organ harvesting: Bill S-223, which is also an important piece of legislation. Organ harvesting does occur within Xinjiang Uighur autonomous region, but not exclusively there. We know that Falun Gong, or Falun Dafa, practitioners have been subject to this in the past. It is well documented.

These are a number of the initiatives that are in progress and happening right now. They are initiatives that we should all be supporting.

Our government has done a handful of things. We have implemented Magnitsky sanctions against four individuals and one entity that are active and responsible for these crimes. This was done in advance of the genocide motion of February 2021. We also have a number of advisory opinions for companies operating within Xinjiang Uighur autonomous region. As an advocate, I would like always to see that strengthened, and that must be strengthened through Bill S-211.

I would like to highlight something. While we are speaking squarely about the crimes against humanity and genocide occurring within China, we need to be careful not to fall into unconscious bias about Asians and Chinese people. That is very important, as we advocate clearly and unambiguously, to not to fall into that. At the end, I personally have, on this issue, no qualms, if and when the government in China were to stop doing what it is doing, I personally would not speak on this issue, but only if and when China does stop doing what it is doing. However, until then, all of us, including myself, must speak on this issue.

I would like to impress upon the House how we united behind my motion. I want to share something. My seconder is Rachel Bendayan, a colleague of mine in the benches.

Citizenship and Immigration

[Arnold Viersen, Conservative, Peace River—Westlock, AB]

Oh boy, do I ever, Mr. Speaker. I think I would need a whole other speech just to address that.

What I would point out is that there is currently a bill in front of the foreign affairs committee, Bill S-211, that deals with supply chain reporting. It deals with big companies that operate in the west or in Canada. In particular, they would have to do a report on the impacts of their companies on human trafficking and forced labour. That is for sure a bill I would like to get passed.

The other thing is what the Americans are doing. They are identifying the province of Xinjiang as a place where forced labour is a problem, so for any products that are coming out of that area, there is a reverse onus and companies must prove that forced labour is not being used in their products. That is another initiative that I could get behind, and I look forward to the government moving on that.

[Heather McPherson, NDP, Edmonton Strathcona, AB]

Mr. Speaker, as always, it is a great honour to stand in this place and represent the people of Edmonton Strathcona.

I find this to be such an important debate for us to have, but I have to say that I am disappointed that it is happening in this manner and not when more parliamentarians can join in and there can be more people to participate in the discussion. After so many years, I think the genocide happening against the Uighur people is something every parliamentarian in this place must take with the utmost seriousness, and I worry that it is not being taken as such this evening.

I am a relatively new member of Parliament and have only been in this place for three years. One of the very first things that happened after I was elected was an appointment to the international human rights subcommittee. As I think I have brought up before in this place, my whole career has been about international development, foreign affairs and sustainable development around the world, so I was appointed to be the New Democrat member on that subcommittee. I was so happy to have that opportunity, because I feel like in my heart I have spent most of my career trying to fight for the human rights of people around the world, and this felt like an opportunity to do that and perhaps take it to the next level.

One of the very first studies we undertook looked at the genocide of the Uighur people in China. I have two brothers who are very rough and tumble with me, and I was beaten up many times as a child when I was growing up. I have lots of cousins too. I think of myself as a relatively tough and robust person, but the testimony I heard from expert witnesses, Uighurs and people who experienced the genocide was the most harrowing thing I have ever heard to date. The stories of rape, of forced sterilization, of people being surveilled and of the very systematic and cold attempts to erase a people were horrific for me to hear. It was very difficult.

Of course, I am only hearing these stories; I am not experiencing them, so I always try to imagine what it must be like to be somebody from Xinjiang who is dealing with this and is not seeing the world stand up for them and not hearing people in Canada and around the world say that they are not going to tolerate this. How difficult must it be for the Uighurs not only in China but in Canada to know their loved ones are experiencing this genocide?

When I come to this debate, that is what I bring. I bring the testimony that I heard at the international human rights subcommittee. I bring all of the stories I heard in many meetings with members of the Uighur community and with many members of the community who fight for human rights.

I think this is a vitally important debate and it is vitally important that we are all here, but it was disappointing for me that we did not vote to have a debate on the report that came out of the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights. There was no opportunity for that debate to happen.

Of course, we know the Uighurs have raised concerns about these issues for years. We know they have been calling for more action not only from Canadian parliamentarians but from other parliamentarians for years. In fact, the recommendations that came forward from the report of the Subcommittee on International Human Rights were very clear. We asked that the Government of China be condemned for its “actions against Uyghurs and other Turkic Muslims in Xinjiang”. We asked to “work with allies and multilateral organizations to help international observers gain unfettered access to Xinjiang”. We asked to “provide support through international overseas development assistance to civil society organizations especially in countries that are geopolitically important to China's Belt and Road Initiative”.

We asked to “recognize that the acts being committed in Xinjiang against Uyghurs constitute genocide and work within legal frameworks” of what that meant. We also asked to “impose sanctions under the Justice for Victims of Corrupt Foreign Officials Act on all Government of China officials responsible for the perpetration of grave human rights abuses against Uyghurs and other Turkic Muslims.”

We brought forward these recommendations, but we have not seen the level of action from the government that I think all of us in this place should be demanding. We have not seen the empathy and care that I think we have seen for other conflicts.

One of the things I struggle with the most in this place is that we are often in a situation where we are asked to prioritize human rights, to amplify the rights of one group of people over the rights of another. I do not know how to do that. I do not know how as parliamentarians we can do that. Of course, we need to provide whatever support is necessary to help the people in Ukraine who are struggling with a genocide of their own from the Russian Federation. We need to ensure that the people in Ukraine can flee violence, that they can come to Canada and seek safety here and that they are protected and cared for 100%.

However, as parliamentarians, we need to recognize that being from Ukraine does not make someone's life more valuable than being from Afghanistan, being a Uighur from China, being from Yemen, being from Palestine or being from Tigray. We need to recognize that Canada has an important role. We are a country of such opportunity and such wealth, and we have an important role in this world to open up our doors and welcome those who are fleeing violence, those who are fleeing persecution and those who are fleeing genocide. That is such a fundamental role for Canada. That is how many of us ended up here.

I am, in fact, a settler in this country. My family came when the Scots were being persecuted in Scotland. Canada opened its doors and welcomed us here, and, of course, generations of McPhersons, and I am also a McCoy, have flourished in Canada. Providing that opportunity for people around the world is what Canada is all about and what we need to be able to do.

I support the idea of bringing Uighurs here and ensuring that Uighurs are able to flee genocide to come here, but I have deep concerns. I think everybody in the House, including members of the government, must recognize that IRCC is broken. Immigration services with the government are broken. If anyone in the House does not agree that this is a problem, they are not listening to their constituents. They are not listening to the fact that we have massive delays and massive problems.

In Edmonton, Alberta, 636 students who were approved to study at the University of Alberta could not do so this fall because they could not get a study permit. It cost the University of Alberta $6 million. These are people who wanted to come here to study. I therefore have some concerns about the IRCC's capacity to actually welcome all of the newcomers we need to be welcoming in Canada. Absolutely there are people who are suffering around the world, and the Uighurs have been suffering for years. For years they have been calling for attention to this horrific genocide. However, Canada needs to do better at welcoming people into our country. We need to be better at doing the work of government to ensure that people can come here.

For me, I do not want to say that we need to limit how many Ukrainians, Afghans, Tigrayans or Syrians come to Canada so we can make sure that Uighurs are able to come. There needs to be something done so that all people fleeing violence have access to come here, are able to be treated with respect, are able to be protected and able to be brought here. I have this deep worry that there is a Peter-Paul mentality with the government.

In August 2021, we were going to welcome a huge number of Afghans into our country. Then, of course, the horrific war started in Ukraine, and we were going to welcome an unlimited number of Ukrainians into our country. That is great, but we do not have the capacity to do that right now.

My worry is how we are going to get there. How can we work with the government? How can all of us in this place work with and reinforce to the government how important it is that it fix our broken immigration system so that we can be the country that so many Canadians believe we are, and certainly that so many Canadians believe we should be.

There is another thing I want to raise. In terms of immigration, there are things that we can do, things that need to happen and things we can expedite to make sure that Uighurs are protected, but there are other things we can do to help the people in Xinjiang who are being persecuted right now. There is legislation before the foreign affairs committee, Bill S-211, that looks at forced labour. My opinion, and members may say this is always the NDP opinion, is that the bill does not go far enough. It would not do near enough to protect people from forced labour, slave labour or child labour around the world.

My dear colleague, the member for New Westminster—Burnaby, brought forward Bill C-262, which is an excellent example of what forced labour legislation could look like. It aligns very much with what is happening around the world, in Germany, the EU, France, Australia and the U.K. This country is at least a decade behind other countries in ensuring that we have good forced labour legislation in place.

It has been in mandate letter after mandate letter, which used to mean that action would be taken, but it does not appear to mean that any longer. I look at things like that and ask how we can make sure that Canada is not complicit in supporting forced labour, that we are ensuring that the cotton, the tomatoes and the products that come into Canada are not produced with forced or slave labour. What can we do to make that better?

There is one last thing I want to talk about today. Here is what I am struggling with in the House of Commons right now. I worry that what we are doing in this place is politicizing human rights. I worry that we are using it as a tool to cause shenanigans or gum up the work of government, and if that is the case, we should be so deeply ashamed of ourselves. Human rights are of such fundamental importance that, when they are used as a tool to gum up the work of government, it demeans every member of Parliament. When we use human rights as a trick to force things through or to stop things from going forward, we should be ashamed of ourselves.

When we talk about human rights in this place, we need to be honest with ourselves and talk about human rights across the board, because it is not okay that the Liberal Party or the Conservative Party refuses to talk about human rights in Yemen, as both of them are complicit in the selling of arms to the regime that is propping up that war.

It is not all right that neither one of them will talk about human rights in Palestine. Children in Palestine are being murdered, and neither of the parties will talk about that. That is not all right. They do not get to pick and choose human rights. They do not get to choose that the people being murdered in Tigray matter less than other people. They do not get to choose that the Uighurs do not matter because we have an economic relationship with China. That is not now human rights work. For every one of us in this place, if we believe in protecting human rights, then a human right is a human right is a human right.

It does not matter if it is a child in Palestine. It does not matter if it is a child in Yemen. It does not matter if it is a woman in Xinjiang. It does not matter if it is a woman in Ukraine. If we have a feminist foreign policy, and if we believe in human rights, all human rights matter.

I am deeply afraid that in this place we are choosing to politicize human rights. We are choosing to use human rights to forward our agenda and gum up the works of Parliament. About that, I am deeply worried.

There is a genocide happening against the Uighurs in Xinjiang. There is a genocide happening in China right now. Parliamentarians have an obligation to stand up to protect the people being persecuted. We have an obligation to welcome those people to Canada. It is not even an obligation. It is a privilege to welcome those people to Canada.

I will always stand in this place and fight for human rights. I will tell members that I will fight for all human rights, not just some of them.

[Garnett Genuis, Conservative, Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, AB]

Mr. Speaker, it has been a pleasure to work with the member's colleague from the Bloc on many of these issues. His colleague proposed the amendment. He talked about this in relation to an Olympic boycott, which was, I think, one potential way of the international community sending a strong signal. Unfortunately, that signal was not sent early enough with sufficient magnitude to achieve the result that his colleague and other members of this House were advocating for.

There are many different things we can do legislatively to push for justice for Uighurs. I really appreciated the speech given by another one of the Bloc member's colleagues on Bill C-281, which is an important international human rights piece of legislation. We have Bill S-211 and Bill S-223 as well, which are both before the foreign affairs committee and are unfortunately waiting to move forward. There are also the immigration measures, the concurrence motion and the motion to be debated later this week. There are many different things we can do.

I wonder if the member would like to comment on the breadth of areas where Canada's Parliament could take action and on the fact that we can make a difference through the steps we take here in Canada's Parliament, even to impact injustices that are half a world away.

Forced Labour and Child Labour

[Arnold Viersen, Conservative, Peace River—Westlock, AB]

Madam Speaker, the next petition I want to present is from Canadians from across the country who are in support of Bill S-211, the supply chain reporting bill. They state that modern slavery is deeply embedded within our Canadian economic supply chains. Approximately 152 million children are in child labour and 20 million adults are in forced labour. Approximately 20 billion dollars' worth of goods imported each year are at risk of being produced through modern slavery. They also state that large companies are not required to report measures taken to prevent modern slavery in their supply chains.

As such, these petitioners are calling on the House of Commons to pass Bill S-211, an act that would enact the fighting against forced labour and child labour in supply chains act and to amend the customs tariff, and when and if it is passed by the Senate, for it to be sent to the House for consideration.

Citizenship and Immigration

[Garnett Genuis, Conservative, Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, AB]

Madam Speaker, we will see how the vote on this proceeds tomorrow. Following that vote, there will be votes on other measures.

There are sometimes instances where the government may not want to proceed with something but also not want to talk about it. For example, we have the issue of forced organ harvesting and trafficking before the foreign affairs committee. We think we should move that issue forward. I will give the Liberal members credit that every time the issue has been brought to a vote in the House, they have voted in favour of that bill, yet we are not seeing a will to move it forward. If the foreign affairs committee had been going forward, I would not be here in the House speaking on this issue, but at the foreign affairs committee testifying on Bill S-223. However, the chair cancelled that meeting arbitrarily without consulting with other parties, which meant I was not able to be there and we were not able to move the bill forward.

I hope members of the government will reflect on why that meeting was cancelled, because bills like Bill S-223 are important bills on forced organ harvesting and trafficking that should be moving forward at the committee and are not. There are other bills, like Bill S-211, where a lot of work is required but things are being slowed down.

[Garnett Genuis, Conservative, Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I move that the sixth report of the Standing Committee on Citizenship and Immigration, presented to the House on Friday, April 29, be concurred in.

I appreciate the opportunity to open debate, a debate that I understand will be, by unanimous consent, continuing this evening, on the sixth report, which deals with the ongoing injustices facing Uighurs and other Turkic Muslims and the work that we need to do as a House in response to it.

I am grateful for the work of the immigration committee. This is a unanimous report that highlights many important issues, and I want to start the debate by reading points from the report into the record and then discussing them.

The report states:

In light of the fact that Uyghurs and other Turkic Muslims in China face an ongoing genocide, and in light of the fact that those in third countries are at continuing risk of detention and deportation back to China, where they face serious risk of arbitrary detention, torture, and other atrocities, the committee calls on the government to:

a) extend existing special immigration measures to Uyghurs and other Turkic Muslims, including the expansion of biometrics collection capabilities in third countries and the issuance of Temporary Resident Permits and single journey travel documents to those without a passport;

b) allow displaced Uyghurs and other Turkic Muslims in third countries, who face risk of detention and deportation back to China, to seek refuge in Canada;

c) waive the UNHCR refugee determination;

d) and the government provide a comprehensive response by letter to the committee within 30 days.

This motion follows an important step taken by the House about a year and a half ago when the House voted to recognize the Uighur genocide. It was a unanimous vote of all who voted in this place. As members will recall, cabinet abstained and still has not declared its position, but the vote that will take place on this motion, because it is a vote to agree with this report, will provide cabinet and the government with another opportunity to declare their position with respect to the Uighur genocide.

I reflect as well on the fact that much of this conversation was started in the House with the recognition of the genocide motion, but there has been much more discussion in the international community and evidence that has come out since. Just recently, there was the report of Michelle Bachelet. There were significant efforts to influence that report and there were significant limitations with respect to the work she was able to do, but, nonetheless, very damning conclusions came out of that report.

Various analyses have shown forced sterilization, systemic sexual violence targeting Uighur women, people being taken away and put in concentration camps, clear violations of the UN definition as it pertains to genocide and states that are party to that have an obligation to recognize and respond in those cases. This report recognizes and reaffirms that.

The focus of this report is on other measures that the House and the government need to take in response to these events. I want to focus on the ones in this report, as well as other additional measures that can and should be taken.

Following that recognition, even while the government has still not declared its position, other members of Parliament have been trying to put forward constructive initiatives that respond to the question of what Canada can do to advance the issue of justice and human rights for Uighurs. There have been a number of different areas where proposals have been put forward in the House.

This report speaks on additional immigration measures that have been put forward, and I know that later this week we will be having the first hour of debate on Motion No. 62. I should have made note of my colleague's constituency name before, but my colleague from somewhere in Montreal is proposing that and we will be debating that for the first hour on Wednesday. We are seeing a number of different initiatives on the immigration front.

We recognize the reality that Uighurs in China obviously often struggle to get to safety, but, increasingly, the efforts of the Government of China to have influence beyond its borders are creating greater and greater challenges, escalating pressures on refugees who have fled, maybe thought they were in a safe place and are now facing intimidation and persecution that is being pushed on the countries where they are resident as a result of pressure from the Government of China.

As it relates to third countries, it is worth mentioning the case of Huseyin Celil, who is a Canadian citizen detained in China. This was a case where he did not travel to China. Mr. Celil was in Uzbekistan, but was taken from Uzbekistan and sent back to China, where he has been detained for over a decade and a half. Underlining that is the fact that we need to recognize how CCP pressure on third countries can lead to people being sent back and facing human rights violations in the process.

Canada can be a place of safety for these folks in the Uighur diaspora who have left China but who are still facing the risks of potential persecution and repatriation in the countries where they are.

That is why Canada should be looking at strengthening special immigration measures. Our view on this side of the House is that we need to recognize the important role played by private sponsoring organizations and a strategy for responding to persecution and supporting victims of human rights abuses should involve collaboration between governments and private sponsoring entities.

We need to recognize that there may not be resources within those private sponsoring entities to cover all of the needs that exist, and there could be vehicles for joint sponsorship. There could even be cases, perhaps, where the government provides the funding but organizations on the ground here in Canada play a specific role in welcoming newcomers.

All of the data suggests that those who are privately sponsored have a greater level of success once they are here in Canada, so we should look for opportunities in the process to engage private sponsors, such as mosques, churches, synagogues, faith groups, community groups and civil society, to help people acclimatize to coming to Canada. We recognize that this is not just a question of state policy, but the process of welcoming refugees is a collective effort that all Canadians can be involved in. I think, in many cases, people from different backgrounds and different experiences want to be involved, and they certainly get a lot out of it.

I want, as well, to discuss some of the other measures that we need to be taking about, coming out of where we were a year and a half ago.

I have sponsored a private member's bill in this place that comes from the other place, from Senator Ataullahjan. Bill S-223 is a bill that would combat forced organ harvesting and trafficking. The bill would make it a criminal offence for a person to go abroad and receive an organ taken without consent. This is a private member's bill that would have Canada doing what it can to combat this horrific practice of forced organ harvesting and trafficking.

I do want to note that, unfortunately, the progress of Bill S-223 has been stalled. It has been sitting before the foreign affairs committee for months and months. We have not been able to get it adopted and sent back to the House. In fact, I was not originally scheduled to be here in the House right now. I was scheduled to be testifying before the foreign affairs committee, but at the last minute, the meeting scheduled to conduct hearings on Bill S-223 was cancelled by the Chair. That has further delayed the process of bringing this bill forward.

The bill to combat forced organ harvesting and trafficking is pertinent now because we are hearing more about Uighurs being victims of this practice, but it is something that has been going on for decades. In particular, the Falun Gong community has highlighted the abuse of forced organ harvesting and trafficking and how it impacts their community.

It has actually been 15 years that parliamentarians have been working on a bill to combat forced organ harvesting and trafficking. Borys Wrzesnewskyj was first to bring one forward. Irwin Cotler also had a bill.

Since I was elected in 2015, I have been working on this with Senator Ataullahjan through the last three Parliaments. This bill has passed the Senate three times, twice in its current form. It has passed the House once in its current form. It has been studied multiple times by Senate committees and by a House committee, so I think it is time that we finally get it done, if we are able to end the logjam around it at the foreign affairs committee. It should not be about any one individual. This is a bill that will save lives if it is passed. I hope we are able to get it done.

A lot of work, as well, has been done on this issue of forced labour. There are significant concerns about how Uighurs are victims of forced labour and, in general, how Canada's laws to combat forced labour are totally inadequate. There is much more work that needs to be done. Another bill before the foreign affairs committee, also with an unclear timeline around it, is Bill S-211, a bill from a colleague on the government side. It has broad support in the House, and Conservatives supported fast-tracking it at second reading, but it is, again, not moving forward at the moment.

We need to move forward with these bills that are currently before the foreign affairs committee. Bill S-223 and Bill S-211 are two excellent bills. One is on organ harvesting, and the other is aimed at addressing an issue of forced labour.

Bill S-211 would create a reporting mechanism. It is an important step forward, but the other thing we need to do is recognize that in the Uighur region, for example, there is a very significant, very large issue of forced labour. I support measures, such as the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act in the United States, a bipartisan piece of legislation, that would recognize the particular issues in that region, and perhaps in other regions, where there are really significant and coordinated state-pushed efforts to have forced labour. We need to specifically designate those regions.

We need to look at, for instance, Bill S-204, a bill put forward by Senator Housakos that is not in the House yet. It is still in the other place. That bill would impose a ban on the import of any goods coming out of Xinjiang or East Turkistan, the region where Uighurs are in the majority. The goal of this is to recognize the reality that so much of what is produced and exported in that region is tainted by slave labour. We need to have an approach that recognizes the particular risks in this region and targets that region as well. That is another issue that we need to move on legislatively and there may be other measures we can consider that involve the designation of specific regions. This would target the specific regions in the world where we know there is a very high level of forced labour and a high risk that goods coming out of there will have involve slave labour.

There are many mainstream brands that people will be familiar with, that they may use products from, that import products from that part of the world. It is very concerning. The government announced a new policy on combatting these imports, but, in fact, there was only one shipment that was ever stopped and it was subsequently released. Therefore, we are clearly lacking in this area, and there is much more work that needs to be done.

In terms of some of the legislative proposals that are coming forward, I want to also recognize Bill C-281, a bill that had its first hour of debate recently and has its second hour of debate coming up soon. It is from my colleague in Northumberland—Peterborough South.

Bill C-281 is the international human rights act. It contains a number of measures that would push forward Canada's response on international human rights, including requiring the minister of foreign affairs to table an annual report regarding the government's work on international human rights, include listing, as part of that report, prisoners of conscience, which is of particular concern.

It would also create a mechanism by which individuals could be nominated for sanctions under the Magnitsky act and a parliamentary committee could pass a motion suggesting that someone be sanctioned under the Magnitsky act. If that motion were to pass, the minister would be obliged to provide some kind of a response. This parliamentary trigger mechanism for Magnitsky sanctions has been adopted in other countries. It is very important because a Magnitsky sanctions tool, though a powerful tool, still leaves the discretion entirely in the hands of the government.

There have been many countries around the world where there are serious human rights abuses, and the government has actually failed to sanction anybody from that country. There has been very limited use of Magnitsky sanctions in response to the Uighur genocide. That is why I support this proposal from my colleague to have a parliamentary trigger mechanism, so that a parliamentary committee could, if not compel the government to sanction someone, at least compel the government to provide some kind of a response with respect to why they are or are not considering moving forward with a sanction.

These are some of the measures that we have moved on, from the act of recognition by Parliament a year and a half ago to now, trying to propose concrete, constructive measures that would see Canada play a greater and greater role in combatting this ongoing injustice. We have talked, of course, about the immigration measures that are called for in this report as well as immigration measures that have been put forward in other initiatives that we have seen. We have talked about the issues of forced organ harvesting and trafficking and the legislation that has been put forward on that.

We have talked about different kinds of trade measures, such as those contained in Bill S-211 from Senator Miville-Dechêne, as well as Bill S-204 from Senator Housakos. Bill S-211, which is the general reporting mechanism requiring companies to be involved in reporting on these issues, also has the designation of particular regions of concern and the issues that come out of those. Then there are the other measures in the International Human Rights Act from my colleague, in Bill C-281.

As such, we have seen many different legislative initiatives. I guess one thing to acknowledge that they all have in common is that they are all private members' initiatives, so we are seeing a flurry of activity from individual members, many from our side, many from the Senate and some from other parties as well. However, we have not really seen any government legislation that is aimed at closing the gap, and I think members understand the processes of this House and the long and arduous journey every private member's bill has to make. I have seen it myself in the work I have done on the organ harvesting and trafficking issue. I work on a piece of legislation, and every time it is actually voted on it is unanimous, yet there are so many steps it has to go through, little amendments here and there, that it ends up not getting done.

We are in the third Parliament in which I have worked on this bill, and it has been attempted in two previous Parliaments as well, so there is this long journey private members' bills have to go on, and the risks are the same for other good private members' bills that are responding to urgent and present human rights concerns. That is why the government should take a look at some of these initiatives and maybe consider putting forward proposals that advance them through government legislation.

There is so much more that needs to be done on this issue of forced labour, like even getting it out of government procurement, never mind addressing the import of products of forced labour that come into the private sector. We are relying on private members' legislation to do that job, and we should support these private members' bills, but the government should be willing to lead on this and provide really comprehensive solutions.

One of the areas the government can particularly lead in combatting the injustice facing Uighurs is in working more closely with our allies on combatting the importation of products made from forced labour. There is obviously a lot of tracing and data work that is required in terms of blocking out products made from forced labour from coming into Canada, and this is why we can benefit from sharing information with our allies. If we have consistent laws and are sharing information around forced labour, then we can be more effective working in collaboration.

In fact, we have already started down this road by recognizing as part of our trade deal with the United States and Mexico an obligation around combatting forced labour, but Canada needs to now live up to that obligation. We can share information. We can adjust our policies to really strengthen the work that is required to prevent products from forced labour from coming into this country.

In conclusion, I want to recognize the incredible work that has been done by the Uighur community in particular, but more broadly by other communities, like the Muslim community in general and many other communities that are coming alongside as allies in support of justice and human rights, who have been advocating on these various points related to the injustices the Uighurs have faced.

The information has very clearly been exposed, despite the best efforts of certain actors to suppress it. It is now widely known: the existence of a campaign to put people in concentration camps, forced sterilization and systemic sexual violence. The subcommittee on international human rights two years ago heard brutal testimony from survivors about what had happened, and I reflected at the time on this quote from William Wilberforce, who said, “[Y]ou may choose to look the other way but you can never again say you did not know.”

Members of Parliament answered that call; the subcommittee on international human rights was unanimous and the House was unanimous, but the cabinet has still been silent and unclear, so this motion would provide the cabinet with an opportunity to vote again on the question, since this motion would reaffirm a recognition of the genocide.

It would also go further. We are not waiting for the cabinet; we are pushing forward with measures that are required in terms of pushing for additional immigration measures, and I have talked about the need to combat forced organ harvesting and trafficking, the need to bring in new trade measures and the important additional measures in Bill C-281.

I hope members will support this concurrence and the other measures that are urgently required to stand with our Uighur brothers and sisters, who face so much injustice in China as well as threats even after they have fled.

Forced Labour and Child Labour

[Arnold Viersen, Conservative, Peace River—Westlock, AB]

Madam Speaker, the next petition is from Canadians from across the country who are supporting Bill S-211. They state that modern slavery has deepened in the last two years. They are looking for the Canadian government to pass a bill that would ensure Canadian businesses are not participating in child forced labour.

Approximately 50 million people around the world are currently stuck in forced labour and approximately 20 billion dollars' worth of goods imported into our country each year are at risk of being produced through modern slavery. They also state that large companies are not required to report these measures to prevent modern slavery in their supply chains.

The petitioners call on the House of Commons to pass Bill S-211 quickly, which is an act to enact the fighting against forced labour and child labour in supply chains act and to amend the Customs Tariff. If and when this is passed, it would greatly improve our impact in the world.

Similarities Between Bill C-243 and Bill S-211

[The Speaker, Anthony Rota]

I would like to make a statement concerning similarities between two bills that are currently before the House.

Bill C-243, An Act respecting the elimination of the use of forced labour and child labour in supply chains, standing in the name of the member for Thunder Bay—Rainy River, received first reading on February 8 last and was added to the order of precedence on February 9, 2022.

As for 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, standing in the name of the member for Scarborough—Guildwood, a message from the Senate was received on April 29, 2022, informing the House of its adoption. It then received first reading and was added to the order of precedence on May 3, 2022.

These two bills have the same objective, to require certain entities, including federal institutions, to report on the measures that they take to prevent and reduce the risk of using forced labour or child labour in the production of goods or in their supply chains.

The case before the House involves an unusual set of circumstances. Normally, in the case of private members' bills, the Subcommittee on Private Members' Business would designate as non-votable a bill that is essentially the same as one higher up on the order of precedence. However, as it states at page 1144 of the third edition of House of Commons Procedure and Practice:

In the case of a private Member’s public bill originating in the Senate, the only ground on which such a bill can be designated non-votable is its similarity to a bill voted on by the House in the same Parliament.

Since Bill C-243 had not been voted on when the Subcommittee on Private Members’ Business reviewed Bill S-211, the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs, on the recommendation of its subcommittee, designated the bill votable in its report to the House of May 11, 2022. Thus, two similar items are listed on the order of precedence for Private Members’ Business.

Since Bill S-211 was adopted on June 1 at second reading and referred to the Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs and International Development, the House now finds itself in a situation in which a decision has been made with respect to one of two bills containing similar provisions and seeking the same objective.

There is a long-standing practice that prohibits the same question from being decided twice by the House during the same session. In adopting Bill S-211 at second reading, the House agreed to the principle of that bill and, thus, has also made a decision on the principle of Bill C-243.

On May 11, 2022, in a ruling found at page 5,125 of Debates, the Chair considered a similar situation concerning two other similar bills. At that time, it was determined that the House should not find itself in a situation in which it was called on to decide on the same question twice in a single session.

Standing Order 94(1) grants the Speaker the authority to make all arrangements necessary to ensure the orderly conduct of Private Members’ Business. In accordance with this authority, the Chair is ordering that the status of Bill C-243 remain pending and that it not be considered. This leaves open the possibility that Bill C-243 may be reinstated in the next session, pursuant to Standing Order 86.1, should by any chance Bill S-211 fail to be enacted in this session.

I thank all members for their attention.

Opposition Motion—A Special Committee on the Canada-People's Republic of China Relationship

[John McKay, Liberal, Scarborough—Guildwood, ON]

Madam Speaker, I am splitting my time with the member for Avalon.

I consider it an honour to offer a few thoughts on this debate, and I appreciate it being brought forward onto the floor of the House today. May I say, as a starting proposition, that I regard the government of China as an asymmetrical, existential threat to Canada unlike any of our other potential opposition. I also take the view that we, as Canadians, are exceedingly naive about the ambitions of the Communist Party of China, and I also take the view that the Chinese government knows a great deal more about us than we know about it.

I thought it would be helpful if I went through my week and talked about the various times this issue had come up. This week was science meets Parliament, and I had an absolutely fascinating conversation with a scientist from the University of Toronto who is a leading scientist on the CRISPR technology for gene editing and gene splicing. He was brilliant. It was fascinating, and the mind leaps to all kinds of possibilities; however, on second thought, not all of these possibilities are to the betterment of humankind.

When I asked the scientist about Chinese involvement, he said that this was open source technology and that there was an exchange of research, but I got the distinct impression that the knowledge flow seemed to be one way. We are in a situation where Canadian brains and Canadian taxpayers' money funds leading-edge research and someone else benefits. Then, the someone else who benefits turns it into commercial technology and sells it back to us. It is not a happy cycle. This is a serious, serious issue in the academic community.

Second, last night was Taiwan Night at the Chateau Laurier. I cannot imagine that anyone walked away from that evening thinking that the Ukrainian issue was anything other than the number one threat to the disturbance of world order. I can also not imagine that anyone would walk away from that night not thinking that a potential Chinese invasion of Taiwan was anything other than the number two threat to world order. This is our eleventh largest trading partner, and fifth largest trading partner in Asia. It shows that this is a threat that we think is kind of over there, but in fact it is quite relevant to us.

I just point out as an illustration the speed with which the independence of Hong Kong was simply rolled up, regardless of the millions of Hong Kongers who took to the street to protest their rights and their freedoms, which have now effectively been lost. Can we be so naive as to think that the Chinese government wants to do the same thing in Taiwan?

The third item was the election of yet another Marcos in the Philippines. The name Marcos stands for infamy and for rapacious greed. The Marcos family, over the generations, has looted the Philippines of its wealth and then sold off the assets to the highest bidder. China must be delighted with that outcome. No longer is it going to be challenged on building a military island in the South China Sea, nor is it going to be challenged by the severely outgunned Philippine navy in the South China Sea. This is simply a terrific outcome, as far as China is concerned.

The fourth incident just this week was that I had a conversation with someone who everyone in this chamber would know, and his comment was, “China does not regard Canada as a serious player.” This was in the context of how we take care of our own security, and the multiplicity of covert and overt intrusions into Canadian society and life by the Government of China.

Regarding the fifth incident, members will know that last week there was an opportunity to speak with the governments in exile from Tibet. Some members here might even have Tibetan interns working with them. Does anyone actually believe that Tibet is a free and independent country? That is perfectly the way the Chinese government likes it.

Sixth, it is my intention next week to initiate debate on Bill S-211, which was alluded to by my friend. The simple summary of the bill is that Canadian companies and governments would have to examine their supply chains and certify they are free of forced labour. This week, I was asked by one of my colleagues about solar panels being sold in Canada, and whether either the panels or components were infected by slavery. The concerning answer is that there is a strong likelihood they were.

The day before that, I was in a conversation with one of Canada's leading journalists, and he asserted that 90% of the cotton products coming out of Xinjiang are produced by slaves, likely Uighurs.

That was just my week. That is the concern that Canadians are expressing to me in various forms.

I would also commend to the House's attention a book I just finished by Peter Frankopan, a professor from Oxford, called The New Silk Roads. In it, the author outlines all of the initiatives around the world the Chinese government has taken with respect to the new silk roads. The fly cover says:

All roads used to lead to Rome. Today they lead to Beijing.... In the age of Brexit and Trump, the West is buffeted by the tides of isolationism and fragmentation. Yet to the East, this is a moment of optimism as a new network of relationships takes shape along ancient trade routes.

It is a very clear-eyed analysis of what is going on in the world, literally under our noses. We naturally look to our American colleagues for leadership, but as many have rightly pointed out, the American leadership is fractured along partisan lines and self-consumed by difficulties within its political orbit.

Some of the deals that have been consummated under the silk road initiative have been disastrous for many other countries. One of the classic examples of this is Sri Lanka. Sri Lanka was dominated by the greedy and kleptocratic government run by the Rajapaksa family, which indebted the nation through vanity projects and then was forced to sell off the country's assets at discounted prices.

As I wind up, I want to thank my colleagues for bringing this debate forward. It is a serious debate, and it is something that needs to take place. I therefore will be supporting the idea of a standing committee.

[Garnett Genuis, Conservative, Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, AB]

Madam Speaker, I mentioned a number of items in my speech that we should address, but the member mentioned at the end of her question an important point that I did not address directly: the issue of forced labour in our supply chain. The government has been behind on action on this. We could be doing more to collaborate with other countries. There are other countries that have stronger regimes in place.

Personally, I am very supportive of something like the bipartisan Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act that has been passed in the United States, which seeks to designate the area of East Turkestan. Perhaps we could envision a framework where regions could be specifically designated as being of particular concern, where there are high levels of slave labour.

There are various bills before the House right now that seek to deal with issues of slave labour. I see we are going to be debating Bill S-211 in this place very soon. These are important pieces of legislation for us to discuss and move forward on, but as well we should consider frameworks that are a bit different from that framework: frameworks such as the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act, where we specifically identify regions with high levels of slave labour and place particular restrictions around trade involving those regions.

Message from the Senate

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, Carol Hughes]

I have the honour to inform the House that a message has been received from the Senate informing this House that the Senate has passed 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.

This bill is deemed to have been read the first time and ordered for a second reading at the next sitting of the House.