Evidence of meeting #44 for International Trade in the 45th Parliament, 1st session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was list.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Senior Assistant Deputy Minister, International Trade and Chief Trade Commissioner, Department of Foreign Affairs, Trade and Development
That's correct. We have not produced a list or published a list at this stage.
Conservative
Jacob Mantle Conservative York—Durham, ON
What has CBSA been using for the last five or six years to inform its enforcement of the import ban?
Director General, Traveller, Commercial and Trade Policy Directorate, Canada Border Services Agency
In terms of the list as envisioned under the legislation, there is no public list. There is a target list that we have internally. Again, I'm not on the operational side, but I understand there are fewer than 1,000 but more than a dozen, so there are several hundred entities that are listed. We review import data against those to see whether or not those companies are importing goods directly into Canada. Where they are, targets are sent to the front line in order to detain the goods for redetermination or inspection upon arrival.
Conservative
Jacob Mantle Conservative York—Durham, ON
You mentioned that the list includes entities. Is it solely entities? Does it include goods, regions or countries?
Director General, Traveller, Commercial and Trade Policy Directorate, Canada Border Services Agency
In terms of...?
Conservative
Director General, Traveller, Commercial and Trade Policy Directorate, Canada Border Services Agency
We can get back to you on the exact components of it. I don't have this. I don't operationalize the list on a daily basis, and so I wouldn't want to inadvertently say there's no X on it when, in fact, maybe one of the places has an X listed.
Conservative
Jacob Mantle Conservative York—Durham, ON
That's fair.
Could you provide the committee with a copy of that targeted list?
Director General, Traveller, Commercial and Trade Policy Directorate, Canada Border Services Agency
I don't know whether or not that is possible. However, I will endeavour to find out from those who are able to make that determination from a disclosure perspective whether or not that can be provided.
Conservative
Jacob Mantle Conservative York—Durham, ON
Would it be fair to say that this list will likely inform whatever proposed list is made or put forward for Bill C-35, or are you going to create a new list from scratch?
Director General, Traveller, Commercial and Trade Policy Directorate, Canada Border Services Agency
The bill obviously creates a new process for listing, a new standard of evidence. It provides additional indicators that need to be considered when the list is made. Will this be one information source that is used to inform that eventual list? Most likely. I wouldn't want to prejudice future decisions around that. However, obviously we do know from working with our U.S. CBP colleagues that 90% of what ends up on the U.S. list starts from public reporting and NGO reporting around forced labour concerns. We'll be looking at a wide variety of information sources, obviously, including the ones held by government.
Senior Assistant Deputy Minister, International Trade and Chief Trade Commissioner, Department of Foreign Affairs, Trade and Development
I think that question was asked in the FAAE hearing.
Senior Assistant Deputy Minister, International Trade and Chief Trade Commissioner, Department of Foreign Affairs, Trade and Development
Officials committed to looking into the possibility of providing that timeline to the committee there.
Conservative
Jacob Mantle Conservative York—Durham, ON
Thank you.
For months we've heard from the government that Canada has robust measures in place to combat forced labour. However, the issue is not the laws; the issue is the enforcement, as we've found out. If we have such robust laws, why was Bill C-35 necessary?
Director General, Sanctions and Strategic Export Controls, Department of Foreign Affairs, Trade and Development
As you've heard from other testimony, I think the government believes that this bill will provide a number of advantages. One of them is providing greater clarity in terms of which products, regions and, potentially, individual companies will be covered, but also providing greater transparency to importers. One challenge right now is that an importer is at a bit of a loss, potentially, in terms of knowing when it needs to have a higher burden of proof, when it needs to have greater detail and what that detail would be.
Clause 8 of the law, for example, provides for regulations that would provide greater detail about what documentation is required to establish, in one of the listed areas or products, that they meet the requirement. That's one of the advantages of the present bill.
Conservative
Jacob Mantle Conservative York—Durham, ON
I'm hearing you say that the previous regime wasn't sufficient.
Director General, Sanctions and Strategic Export Controls, Department of Foreign Affairs, Trade and Development
As I said earlier, Canada was one of the first countries in the world to have a forced labour regime. As we've heard, since 2020, when that was introduced, the Canadian government has been seeking to improve it. I would suggest that this bill is an attempt to improve that.
Conservative
Jacob Mantle Conservative York—Durham, ON
That's fair enough, and we'll discuss the bill in more detail.
Is either department or any government department going to be making submissions in the U.S. hearing process on its proposed actions?
Director General, North America Trade Policy Bureau, Department of Foreign Affairs, Trade and Development
Thank you, Chair, for the question.
That is under consideration right now, and no decision has yet been made.
Conservative
Jacob Mantle Conservative York—Durham, ON
That's fair enough.
I'll end with this in my last seconds here.
Mr. Hamilton, you spoke about great collaboration between CBSA and CBP. Can you answer, then, if there's great collaboration, if you're working together, why...? Obviously, CBP is taking a different view on Canada's enforcement, and it provided facts in its report, which this committee has discussed. If there's collaboration, why is it proposing broad-based tariffs in response to our failure to combat forced labour?
Director General, North America Trade Policy Bureau, Department of Foreign Affairs, Trade and Development
Thank you for the question, Mr. Chair.
I think there are a number of factors feeding into U.S. decision-making with respect to the section 301 investigation. Ambassador Greer has stated publicly that part of the motivation behind looking into forced labour regimes is to increase and enhance enforcement of the existing prohibitions and to encourage countries that have not put in place prohibitions to move forward in that direction. As noted in the report on the investigation, they found that there are a number of countries that have not put in place bans, and countries, including Canada, that have, but they are encouraging greater enforcement.
There is also the underlying motivation behind this: the fact that a number of the U.S. broad-based tariffs, including the section 122 tariffs, are expiring as of the end of July. There is some sense that part of the motivation behind the U.S. is finding an alternative source of tariff authority. I think the findings of the USTR need to be looked at in that context as well.
Conservative
Liberal
Peter Fonseca Liberal Mississauga East—Cooksville, ON
Thank you, Mr. Chair. I will be sharing my time with MP Acan.
First up, the focus of my questions will be Bill C-35. Would you agree that this bill builds on the 2020 import ban and the 2024 supply chains act to create one of the most comprehensive forced labour frameworks in the world?
