Foreign Affairs Committee on March 28th, 2022

[Jennie Chen]

Mr. Chair, I would invite Mr. Patry to address this question.

[Rakesh Patry]

What I would say to that is that we recognize there is still work that needs to be done to effectively operationalize the importation ban. As I noted at the outset, this is a complex endeavour to try to implement. We know there—

[Michael Chong, Conservative, Wellington—Halton Hills, ON]

Sure.

Can I ask you about operationalizing it then? In the United States, the U.S. government has set up a forced labour enforcement task force in order to operationalize the ban on the importation of products from Xinjiang.

Has the Government of Canada set up a similar interdepartmental task force?

[Rakesh Patry]

I wouldn't phrase it as a similar interdepartmental task force, but there is collaborative work that is taking place with a number of departments across government to work on the import ban, and I do know that our colleagues at the Canada Border Services Agency do work closely with their U.S. counterparts as well.

[Michael Chong, Conservative, Wellington—Halton Hills, ON]

It just seems to me that we're not doing a very good job as a country in banning these products. We've had a single shipment banned. We import about 100 billion dollars' worth of products a year from China, and we've only banned one shipment.

If you look at the United States data, about nine billion dollars' worth of cotton was imported annually from China into the United States, and about 10 billion dollars' worth of tomatoes on a pro rata basis. That means that we are importing roughly two billion dollars' worth of tomato and cotton products annually from China into Canada, particularly from Xinjiang. The fact that only one shipment out of several billion dollars' worth of products has been banned seems to me to lead to the conclusion that we're not doing a good job on upholding our treaty obligations under the CUSMA.

The other thing I'll add to this is that, in the last year, dozens of shipments have been blocked by U.S. customs and border officials, and that's based on the fact that they were products that had been tied to forced and coerced Uighur labour. Dozens of shipments have been banned, but we've only banned one.

It seems to me that we are not, as a country, doing a very good job. What I want to know from officials is whether it is a problem in the design of the measures that were announced last January by Minister Champagne or if it is a problem with the enforcement of the measures announced last January. Where is the problem here? It's now been 14 months since the measures were announced. Is it the design of the measures or the enforcement? I'd like to know so that our committee can do our work here and advise the House as to what should happen to improve the situation.

[Rakesh Patry]

I would say a couple of things to this. The first is that I would note that the U.S. has had the benefit of having this interdiction in place since 1930, so it's had a number of decades to work through operational challenges and to ensure that structures, systems and funding are put in place to effectively do it. As I noted, Canada is only the second country in the world to introduce such a ban, and we are working closely with the U.S. in working through what the best practices are and how this can be effectively operationalized.

The other piece that I would note is that the U.S. does have a different evidentiary threshold for the U.S. Customs and Border Protection service versus the Canada Border Services Agency, and that does speak to the withhold-and-release order system that the U.S. uses for the interdiction of the goods versus the approach that the Canada Border Services Agency has to comply with.

I think the critical piece to this is the length of time that the U.S. has had to be able to put this in place, to resource it and to bring it up to scale. We know that there are other countries that are interested in legislation like this. They have been consulting with us and recognize the complexity, scale and scope of trying to introduce something of this nature as well. It will take a bit of time to be able to operationalize it to its full effect.

[The Chair, Liberal, Sven Spengemann]

Thank you very much.

Thank you, Mr. Chong.

The final intervenor in this round is Mr. Zuberi for five minutes.

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

I'd like to thank all the witnesses for being here and underscore how it's very evident that all of us members are on a very similar page when it comes to this extremely important issue.

I'll pick up on some ideas that have come forth, except I'd like to start with the sombre anniversary of Huseyin Celil's being in detention since March 27, 2006, which marks 16 years since he was first detained and was rendered through Uzbekistan to detention, subsequent arrest and sentencing in China. It's 16 years now that our Canadian citizen has not been taken care of, and we're still trying to get him released.

That being said, I'd like to shift focus from a lot of what we've heard to move to the situation of Uighur people overseas. How I see it, Uighurs, as we've heard from the experts, are not being protected by any states on the face of this earth. There are many right now in countries outside of China, including tens of thousands in Turkey and some in Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, Thailand, Egypt and other places. There is pressure upon these countries to deport Uighurs outside of China back to China. We know there is an extradition treaty between Turkey and China that is not yet in effect in Turkey, but there's pressure being applied to bring it into effect.

We know that Saudi Arabia in the past has deported Uighurs to China, and Pakistan has also. Thailand right now is holding several dozen in detention who are choosing to stay in detention because others who were detained in a similar situation were killed. We know that some have been deported from Turkey as well. To my knowledge, we know that two who have a Canadian connection, Canadian families, are being held in Guantanamo.

I'd like to know what we are doing as a country to encourage third countries to not deport Uighur people to China due to pressure.

[Jennie Chen]

Thank you for that question.

We are also aware of these reports and these current dynamics, internationally, and of how China has used the extradition treaty mechanisms to advance their own policies and interests.

While we don't have any representatives here from Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada, I would have to say that we do have, as of June 2021, a new dedicated refugee stream established specifically for human rights defenders at risk. Uighur human rights defenders who have fled China and have sought protection in another country may be referred for resettlement in Canada under this new system.

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

Thank you.

I'd like to shift the focus to domestic issues. You spoke a lot about supply chains.

First, I'd like to recognize that 80% of China's cotton is produced in the Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region, as is 70% of China's tomato products. Most global tomato paste comes from the region in question. We also heard about 45% of international solar panels.... Zooming into Canada, we know that a Canadian company, Canadian Solar, has been accused—for lack of a better term—of using forced labour in the Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region. They are also receiving EDC funding.

Has there been any investigation done to ensure that they are, in fact, not profiting from forced labour and that we are not unwittingly subsidizing this activity?

[Jennie Chen]

I would invite Mr. Hutchison to address this question.

[David Hutchison]

I'm not in a position to comment on EDC's operations or its clients. EDC is an arm's-length, independent Crown corporation that makes its own business decisions and undertakes its own rigorous due diligence.

I will say that we have been engaged with EDC on the important issue of forced labour and the risk in Xinjiang. That's an ongoing dialogue between Global Affairs and EDC.

[The Chair, Liberal, Sven Spengemann]

Thank you very much.

Thank you, Mr. Zuberi.

Colleagues, we will now go into our fourth round.

Before we start, I would like to flag to you again that I would like five minutes of your time to look at a housekeeping issue with respect to Thursday's meeting. If we stick to the time limit as currently allocated and slotted, we should be able to do the entire fourth round. That should take us to about 12:55 and leave us some time for discussion on that point.

With that in mind, Mr. Chong, you are first. You have five minutes, please.

[Michael Chong, Conservative, Wellington—Halton Hills, ON]

Thank you.

Just to clarify and correct the record, when I said something earlier I misspoke. I said that we import about 100 billion dollars' worth of imports from China a year. What I meant to say is that Canada-China two-way trade is about $100 billion a year. We export about $30 billion and we import just over $50 billion a year, I believe, so two-way trade is approaching $100 billion a year. Nevertheless, we import a lot from China. I think the fact that only one shipment has been blocked is a concern, but I take officials at their word when they say they're working diligently to operationalize the measures that were announced last year in January.

I have another question about cotton imports. As we know, there are complex global supply chains and it's often difficult to determine the provenance of cotton. I know that the U.S. government has been working on a tool to provide to its customs and border agents that will allow those agents to trace the provenance of cotton by using pollen tracing. Apparently pollen from cotton provides a unique genetic signature that accurately identifies where the cotton came from.

It seems to me that with world-leading universities here in Canada such as the University of Saskatchewan and the University of Guelph, where some of this similar research has been taking place, the Canadian government could be collaborating with Canadian researchers to develop tools for CBSA officials to help trace imports such as cotton from Xinjiang. I know there is a researcher, for example, at the University of Guelph who was quoted and interviewed by The Guardian newspaper over a year ago, I believe, who had expressed some frustration that Canadian governments and organizations weren't utilizing some of the tools he had created for tracking the provenance of fish, which is often mislabelled on supermarket shelves. He had been more successful going abroad and getting governments to use his tools than he had here in Canada.

Are officials in the Government of Canada looking at providing CBSA with new tools to help track the provenance of things like cotton being imported to Canada, like the U.S. government has done and like some Canadian researchers are working on?

[Jennie Chen]

I would invite Mr. Patry to address this question.

[Rakesh Patry]

Thank you for the question.

I think the short answer to that would be, indeed, we are looking at different tools and measures that can be adopted to assist the Canada Border Services Agency. We did run a pilot, in fact, using artificial intelligence to try to trace bills of lading and sources of different components within products to see if that can be used to help the Border Services Agency in figuring out the origins of any particular shipment and where it's coming from. That is a pilot we're continuing to assess to see whether it is something that can be feasible.

We do speak with our American colleagues about the different measures they're using to to see if there are things that could be done co-operatively with the Americans. There are discussions in various multilateral and international fora as well about how governments around the world can better collaborate on trying to work with industry in assessing supply chains and figuring out where the problems lie and how deep they are.

[Michael Chong, Conservative, Wellington—Halton Hills, ON]

Mr. Patry, seeing that cotton is such a significant import into Canada and that Xinjiang is such a significant cotton-producing region, have you had any discussions with U.S. officials about the development of this pollen-tracing tool?

[Rakesh Patry]

I haven't had discussions with them specifically about that, and again, I can't say whether my Canada Border Services Agency colleagues have had those discussions. I apologize.

[Michael Chong, Conservative, Wellington—Halton Hills, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Those are all the questions I have.

[The Chair, Liberal, Sven Spengemann]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chong.

Madam Bendayan, you have five minutes.

[Rachel Bendayan, Liberal, Outremont, QC]

Thank you.

My intention was to address the issue that officials raised earlier and that my colleague, Mr. Chong, has just now raised. It is the problems involved in identifying the area of origin of goods.

You mentioned earlier, sir, that this was an issue you were concerned about in particular. I am wondering, in light of the fact that it appears China is trying to make it difficult for us to identify the area of origin of its exports, whether there's an intention, perhaps, to change the way we have drafted our legislation and our advisories in order to take that into account.

[Jennie Chen]

Mr. Chair, I'd invite Mr. Patry to address this question.

[Rakesh Patry]

Thank you for the question.

I can't speak to whether there is any intention or plan to change legislative approaches to it. What I can say is that we continue to work on the operationalization of the ban, including a number of the things that I spoke about earlier on trying to assess better ways of determining origins of shipment and working through different methods that may help the Canada Border Services Agency with that.

[Rachel Bendayan, Liberal, Outremont, QC]

We just heard of one recent example of what the United States is doing specific to cotton. Do you know of any methods or tools that the United States might be using, for example, in relation to tomatoes or tomato paste?

[Rakesh Patry]

No, I apologize. I'm not aware of any specific measures that they may be using on those two products.