Thank you, Mr. Chair.
My name is Diane Brisebois. I am the President and Chief Executive Officer of the Retail Council of Canada.
Mr. Chair and members of the committee, thank you for the opportunity to speak again this year, as we did in May of last year.
As many of you know, RCC is a not-for-profit industry association representing more than 45,000 storefronts across Canada. Our membership includes independent merchants, regional and national chains, mass merchants, big-box retailers, and online merchants. Our membership represents all categories of retail, including general merchandise, grocery, and drugs.
As you know, the one-year anniversary of the tragedy at Rana Plaza just passed last Thursday. Over the past 12 months, RCC has been actively engaged in addressing the issue of worker and building safety in Bangladesh, which is a top priority for the retail industry.
As I mentioned last year, our members believe that any successful effort to correct the situation in Bangladesh requires support, shared responsibility, and action, not only among retailers and consumer brand companies, but also with factory owners, the Bangladeshi government, factory workers, NGOs, unions, and other stakeholders. We are committed to working collaboratively with all of these groups toward long-term solutions.
Several RCC members have launched their own projects to help improve working conditions following the tragic collapse of the Rana Plaza industrial building. Collaborative initiatives, such as the alliance and the accord, have also been put in place to provide industry with tremendous opportunities to tackle complex security challenges and to strengthen the effectiveness of measures for improving the safety of workers in Bangladesh.
RCC works with all its members to raise standards and foster concrete change, either through our members' independent initiatives, or in conjunction with the alliance and the accord.
Much like the Department of Foreign Affairs, Trade and Development, we support both the Accord on Fire and Building Safety in Bangladesh and the Alliance for Bangladesh Worker Safety in equal measure.
Our support of both initiatives reflects the fact that our members are participating in both of them. As a trade association representing the entire industry, it is not our role to dictate to our members which initiative they should join. That decision must be made by the individual companies based on the needs of their business and the other factors that impact them.
In addition, we believe that the fire and building safety problem in Bangladesh is a complex one that does not have just one solution. There is a range of political, economic, legal, and cultural factors to consider. As such, we are concerned that endorsing just one initiative would limit the solutions on the ground at this time.
We've been coordinating efforts in Canada between the accord and the alliance as much as possible. We have provided feedback to both efforts to ensure that they work together and that their efforts align with Canadian retail needs from the perspective of both large and small companies.
We've also hosted the management of both the accord and the alliance to provide an opportunity for them to talk to Canadian retailers directly. As much as possible, we've also engaged with stakeholders that deal directly with both initiatives, other NGOs, the Government of Canada, and in Bangladesh, international retailers, the International Labour Organization, among others.
We've also actively participated in joint advocacy with our peers in Canada and the U.S., including the Canadian Apparel Federation, the American Apparel & Footwear Association, the United States Fashion Industry Association, the National Retail Federation, and the Retail Industry Leaders Association, on several topics of interest, including letters to the Bangladesh government on reducing tariffs for building and fire safety equipment, on labour strife in Cambodia, and over the usage of cotton from Uzbekistan, where forced and child labour are a serious problem.
We've also been sharing various tools, resources, and intelligence with our members and other stakeholders, including with our peers in the Department of Foreign Affairs, Trade and Development; NGOs; and as mentioned, many other trade groups.
We applaud the work that the Canadian government has undertaken in Bangladesh, including active work on the ground in collaboration with other governments, support of various charities to aid injured workers, contributions to ILO programs and, more recently, High Commissioner Heather Cruden's role on the advisory board of the alliance, to facilitate alignment of activities between the accord and the alliance.
We look forward to further collaboration with you and will continue to offer whatever assistance we can in solving this very urgent and complex issue.
Merci. Thank you.