Evidence of meeting #88 for Subcommittee on International Human Rights in the 42nd Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was labour.
A recording is available from Parliament.
1:25 p.m.
Advocacy Director, Children's Rights, Human Rights Watch
Should I answer now, or are you—
1:25 p.m.
Advocacy Director, Children's Rights, Human Rights Watch
—asking me additional questions? Okay. Thanks for that.
I would agree with the authors that transparency alone is not enough, that you do need to motivate companies to fully investigate their supply chains all the way through. For example, in our current engagement with the jewellery industry, we've been looking at whether or not they know where the gold and the diamonds they use for their jewellery is coming from. It's shocking to us how few of them can actually trace their gold and their diamonds to the mines where they originated. If they don't know where the gold and the diamonds are coming from, they have no way of knowing whether they've been responsibly sourced.
What often happens with these long and complex supply chains is that companies will look basically to their direct suppliers for assurances, and what we're seeing is that too often they will simply accept assurances that, “Oh, of course, what we're selling you is responsibly sourced. There's no child labour. There's no forced labour.” The company stops there and doesn't really demand credible evidence from their direct supplier that they have also gone to their subsuppliers to ensure that human rights abuses are addressed.
That's one reason that we're interested in legislation that doesn't just address the transparency aspect, but also puts forward the steps that companies need to take to assess the human rights risk throughout every stage of their supply chain, and then address it when it occurs. That would be a more robust piece of legislation.
If I can just add one more thing on tackling child labour, I agree with Aidan absolutely that education is key. The International Labour Organization has been tracking global child labour rates for over 20 years. Aidan spoke specifically about some of the figures on child slavery, but on child labour globally, the numbers have been improving. There were an estimated 245 million children engaged in child labour in the year 2000, and the most recent estimates are that it has dropped to 152 million, a drop of almost 100 million.
In its assessment, the ILO identifies four key reasons for that, or key components of an effective child labour strategy. One is exactly what Aidan was speaking about in terms of ensuring access to free and quality education. As enrolment goes up, child labour goes down.
A second program that's been very effective is what they call “cash transfer programs,” whereby a government will identify the poorest families and provide them with monthly stipends. These stipends will help them meet their basic needs and reduce the need for children to go out into the workforce. It also is often an incentive to keep children in school. We've seen very positive results in a number of countries.
The third criterion the ILO says is important is strong child labour laws, with good enforcement, and the last is good regulation of business in a country.
I would reinforce what Aidan said about also looking not just at supply chains and legislation related to businesses, but also where Canada is placing its foreign aid, and making sure that it's investing in the kinds of programs that are most effective.
1:30 p.m.
Liberal
Marwan Tabbara Liberal Kitchener South—Hespeler, ON
You mentioned, Ms. Becker, in your statement that these industries police themselves. As you just mentioned right now, you need states to impose mandatory legislation. That would bring more of a positive outcome, and probably you can achieve more effectiveness within industries and within the supply chains. Would you agree?
1:30 p.m.
Advocacy Director, Children's Rights, Human Rights Watch
Yes, I would. When you have voluntary initiatives, what you end up with is companies adopting policies that look good on paper or developing industry associations that give them a bit of a fig leaf to make them look like they're doing something. There are individual companies that are very sincere in wanting to do the right thing and have taken some really strong steps, but then it creates an unlevel playing field where the companies that aren't interested or don't care do nothing, and it almost penalizes the companies that want to do the right thing, whereas if you have mandatory expectations that have been set through legislation, then everybody's on the same level playing field and has the same expectations. You can expect more transparency, better behaviours, better policies, better practices. I think we've been seeing that with the legislative initiatives we've seen so far.
1:30 p.m.
NDP
Cheryl Hardcastle NDP Windsor—Tecumseh, ON
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you, Dr. McQuade and Ms. Becker, for your very thoughtful presentations today.
I want to concentrate mostly on what we've seen so far with legislation that is emerging on this issue and what we can learn from different countries and their examples.
Ms. Becker, you talked a little about how one of the problems that exists right now with the legislation is that it's too narrow. For instance, it may just address conflict minerals.
How do you think we should be approaching this issue? Do you think that when we're addressing due diligence legislation on modern slavery and forced labour issues, since child slavery is in such a large spectrum, should we be putting all this together with potential human rights violations that occur in other areas? What would you suggest we could do with that problem?
1:35 p.m.
Advocacy Director, Children's Rights, Human Rights Watch
We would welcome legislation that has a broader focus, because if it's narrowly focused just on slavery and forced labour, you're going to miss out on a lot of child labour situations, for example, or other human rights violations that occur.
I'll confess that I'm not an expert on much of this different national legislation, but the French due diligence law is intriguing because it does take a broader approach and puts expectations on companies to conduct due diligence in their supply chains on a broader range of issues.
A minute ago I mentioned that we'd been engaging with jewellery companies. There's been a lot of attention over the years on conflict diamonds and on gold that fuels conflict. We found a lot of the jewellery companies that we talked to are very focused on making sure that they're not buying gold or diamonds from the Congo, for example, because of all the attention there. There has also been forced labour in Zimbabwe. There is child labour in gold mining in many other countries. I think taking a broader approach in what companies are expected to do will have a much broader impact on the ground in rectifying or remedying some of these abuses.
1:35 p.m.
Special Advisor, Former Director, Anti-Slavery International
Yes. First of all, I think the fact that you're discussing due diligence as opposed to simply transparency is an extremely important step, because that will encourage and compel businesses to think about these issues much more broadly.
I'm somewhat skeptical that the issue of child labour can be dealt with by criminalizing it. I think the due diligence approach is an important one, but then the key question is how you encourage businesses to take approaches that are fundamentally community development approaches if we wish them to address the issues of child labour. These types of approaches are much more in the sphere of the not-for-profit sector. That's a more subtle challenge that requires this question of how we may coordinate it with aid also.
The other element that Jo highlighted, which I very strongly endorse, is the idea of refusing access to Canadian markets of goods that are tainted with child or forced labour, as the United States has done. This is a very important step, because a lot of countries across the world are developing a competitive advantage for their economies based on low-cost labour, which includes child labour, forced labour, and other forms of labour exploitation. Until there is a compelling reason for them to change that economic model, they will carry on doing as they have been doing.
A lot of the issues across the world that are causing child labour and child slavery and other labour abuses exist because governments are not implementing the laws they have passed. India has much fine anti-slavery law on its books; it simply doesn't implement it, and there's no compulsion from outside in international trade that it should do so, because it and other countries in Southeast Asia have access to markets while carrying on these practices. I think it's important to think about what the influence of Canadian law can be internationally in trade and the international political economy as well as how it's going to affect specific Canadian companies.
1:35 p.m.
NDP
Cheryl Hardcastle NDP Windsor—Tecumseh, ON
Is it safe to say, then, that both of you recommend sanction mechanisms be built into any new legislation?
1:35 p.m.
Special Advisor, Former Director, Anti-Slavery International
Jo may have a slightly different take on this. I personally would suggest there should be an office within the Canadian government that has the power to exclude from Canadian markets goods that are tainted with child, forced, or slave labour. That should be a discretionary power, because some businesses will be working very hard at resolving these issues, so that should be taken into account. I think it should be something that makes it clear to countries that are tolerating these abuses that there could be a consequence to them in terms of the way they're taking up their economic model.
1:40 p.m.
Conservative
The Vice-Chair Conservative David Sweet
Ms. Becker, we have about 30 seconds left. Do you want to make an addition to that?
1:40 p.m.
Advocacy Director, Children's Rights, Human Rights Watch
Yes, sure. I think any law related to mandatory human rights due diligence should include a compliance component that provides penalties for companies that don't comply. That's certainly an incentive. Then there should be a block on the import of goods. It wouldn't necessarily penalize the companies, but just say that if these goods are made with child or forced labour, they are not allowed into Canada. In the United States, it's a complaints-based system that's enforced by the customs agency that implements the law.
1:40 p.m.
Conservative
1:40 p.m.
Liberal
Iqra Khalid Liberal Mississauga—Erin Mills, ON
Thank you, Chair, and thank you to our witnesses for your very compelling testimony.
Dr. McQuade, you had spoken about providing perhaps incentives to companies to encourage them not to endeavour in hiring children, and in using child labour, but I want to pick your brain a little bit about the flip side of that coin. A lot of these children are coming from families where they are the sole breadwinners in that household, where there's extreme poverty and that family has no other choice but to send their kids out to work. What kinds of incentives can be provided to families to break that cycle? I know we talked about education and awareness, which is slow in terms of its progress, but are there any initiatives that can be taken with respect to providing incentives for families?
Dr. McQuade, start if you like, and then Ms. Becker can add any comments she may have.
1:40 p.m.
Special Advisor, Former Director, Anti-Slavery International
Sure.
I think you have your finger on one of the most complex issues in relation to child labour, which is that very often the families who send their kids into child labour don't have any other choice or certainly don't feel they have any other choice. This goes back to Jo's reference to cash transfers specifically helping the poorest families who have been compelled to send their children into labour. Cash transfers are one way in which child labour can be reduced.
Another way in which child labour can be reduced is through provisions of decent work for adults. Businesses can think about this as well. Companies that have been involved and have engaged most directly with the issue of child labour have begun to recognize that they have an interest in behaving to a certain extent like development funders, because the communities, particularly in cultural communities that they are sourcing from, need to be sustained and developed in order for particular commodities to be sustained from those communities. They realize there's a self-interest in that, and part of that then can become recognizing that there must be a need for reducing child labour within those communities. This is a significant Rubicon for any business to cross, particularly whenever one looks at some of the other pressures that bear upon business.
The standard, most overwhelming, ethical position for business executives is Milton Friedman's creed that the only ethical responsibility of business is to maximize profits for shareholders within the law, but if the law is inadequate in terms of protecting human rights of workers, then the risks of abuses become much higher, so one would need to shift one's perspective on what your ethical responsibilities are.
In addition to that, oftentimes business executives feel compelled to make sure that they are turning profits for shareholders within a quarter, within a year, depending on the regulatory environment in which that's occurring. Perhaps if some provision was thought about in relation to investment or reinvestment within aspects of supply chains in order to establish sustainable growth models and particularly anti-child labour and anti-child slavery models within the communities from which they're sourcing, that might give businesses the incentives they need over and above their reporting requirements, which would encourage them to invest in more imaginative ways.
1:40 p.m.
Conservative
1:40 p.m.
Liberal
Iqra Khalid Liberal Mississauga—Erin Mills, ON
If you can keep it to 30 seconds, Ms. Becker, I have another question.
1:45 p.m.
Advocacy Director, Children's Rights, Human Rights Watch
Okay.
Some of these interventions can be very low cost, and you've put your finger on poverty as the main driver. For example, we found that free lunches at schools are often enough to lower child labour rates, because families know that if they send their child to school, they'll get at least one good meal a day.
These cash transfer programs that Aidan and I have both been speaking about can also be very low cost. In Morocco, they found that $7 per child per month was enough to dramatically reduce child labour rates and increase school enrolment. Just providing a small stipend for poor families can make a big difference.
1:45 p.m.
Liberal
Iqra Khalid Liberal Mississauga—Erin Mills, ON
Ms. Becker, how do you collect data? Specifically, you talked about cash transfers. How do you identify these children, and is there kind of a collaboration piece between organizations and governments nationally and internationally?
1:45 p.m.
Conservative
The Vice-Chair Conservative David Sweet
You can squeeze that in when you answer another question or you can provide it in writing afterwards.
Go ahead, Mr. Reid.
1:45 p.m.
Conservative
Scott Reid Conservative Lanark—Frontenac—Kingston, ON
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I just want to respond to Dr. McQuade's reference to Milton Friedman and Milton Friedman's observation that the sole ethical responsibility of a member of a board of directors or the professional management of a company is to maximize the return to shareholders. That's a partial statement of what Friedman said, and I agree with Friedman on this, by the way. The rest is that it is to do so within the confines of the law and the rules with which that company operates, and it is the obligation of society to change those rules to ensure that the ethical rules are also moral rules. That is to say, it's not up to the company to do that as much as it is up to us to do it, we who design policy.
With that in mind, I want to say that it seems to me that in some sectors—and I point to mining as an example—the rules that have been adopted by our stock exchanges in Canada ensure that you cannot issue a new bond issue, for example, if you aren't following certain standards. You have to replant a certain number of trees; it's five for every one you remove in your mining operation. You must keep tailing ponds environmentally safe beyond the lifetime of the mine, and there are spot checks by international agencies to enforce this sort of thing.
It is easier to do that with tailing ponds and reforestation efforts than it is with child labour rules, but this strikes me as being one of the most effective ways of ensuring compliance, and I wanted to ask if you had any thoughts as to how the same kind of oversight mechanism could work in the realm of child labour and other forms of forced labour.
I'm not sure who to throw that open to. I guess I want to start with you, Ms. Becker. Anyway, maybe I can do that this round, as well.