Thank you.
I agree, obviously, that forced labour is a problem in many parts of the world. I think we need multiple different tools. Personally, I think there are big problems with Canadian enforcement, but the U.S. also has a legislative tool—the Uyghur Forced Labour Prevention Act, which was passed with strong bipartisan support in the United States—that we don't have here.
In terms of the specific text of the bill, I've been hearing a lot of feedback and suggestions for amendments. I'll raise one area for amendment to seek your feedback on it. There seems to be some ambiguity for those who are reading the bill about what would qualify as an “entity”, in particular whether the financial thresholds are for Canadian assets or assets held globally. Does a company qualify or not under this bill based on what their Canadian assets are or based on what their global assets are?
Then I have a related question. For entities that don't qualify above the threshold, one proposal I heard is that the government could publish a list of problematic source companies. That would allow small businesses that don't have the resources and aren't required to do the level of supply chain research that's envisioned in the bill to nonetheless do what they can by consulting that government public entities list.
That seems like a good idea to me. I wonder if you could comment on, (a), the threshold, and (b), a possible amendment that would require the government to publish a list of known problematic sourcing companies that would allow all businesses to avoid them.