Not even remotely.
Corporations sourcing anything from China need to be able to ensure that their supply chains are meeting their own due diligence and corporate social responsibility standards. Due diligence companies, including Mintz Group, for example, have had their Chinese staff arbitrarily detained. They've been put under severe pressure simply for suggesting that they might get involved in that kind of due diligence inspection in Xinjiang and other sensitive areas in China.
Forced labour is built directly into the EV supply chain. The evidence base is substantial. Sheffield Hallam University's report documents Uyghur labour transfers feeding automotive supply chains used by every major western and Chinese OEM. The U.S. Department of Labor has confirmed those findings and incorporated them into enforcement. Six UN special rapporteurs warned in 2023 that state-directed labour transfers in Tibet, where the lithium in BYD and CATL battery cells is predominantly sourced, may constitute forced labour. There are also recent examples from Brazil and Hungary of labour conditions that were described as analogous to slavery being used by contractors in those countries. That's just to give you a few examples.
Canada would not be maintaining our own labour standards if we were bringing these companies in. It would be importing supplier-based standards. That's the fundamental problem, unless you have a much more effective regime and prohibition on goods.
