Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to be able to speak on the motions amending Bill C-57 and in this case, Motion No. 9. We are happy to consent to the change made by the hon. member from the Bloc who spoke thoughtfully in support of not only his amendment but of the motion. I am very pleased to know of the growing support for the idea that has been put forward here.
The purpose of the motion is to ensure that as Canada joins the World Trade Organization, it creatively addresses the problem of child labour, one of the most troubling aspects of the new international trading order.
It amends the Export and Import Permits Act to allow the government to introduce regulations to restrict the importation of goods made in whole or in part by children, contrary to international guidelines.
Many observers of the trend of globalization have noted that the more we leave the multinationals to seek out the lowest labour costs in the unregulated labour markets of developing countries, the more globalization tends to become a race to the bottom. Armies of young children around the developing world already find themselves at the very bottom. They work long hours at punishing work in atrocious conditions for a pittance. They are thereby deprived of an education which is their right under the UN charter.
In many instances, such children are indentured into virtual slavery. The numbers of children involved and the conditions they face are staggering. It is estimated that 300,000 children work at hand knitting carpets in India while two-thirds of the workforce in Nepal's 600 factories producing rugs for export are children under the age of 15.
According to the International Labour Organization half the children in Pakistan's carpet industry die of malnutrition and disease before they reach the age of 12. Girls 10 years of age work in China's special export zones in toy factories for $10 a month.
In Indonesia, after relaxing its regulations on child labour in 1987, some 2.8 million children are working in factories. The most revealing fact is that child labour has been growing in tandem with the liberalization of world trade.
These children produce rugs, textiles, garments, shoes, toys and other light manufacturing products for export markets. The
multinationals that manufacture, trade and retail the products of child labour often claim that they do not hire the children directly but they never acknowledge that they knowingly subcontract out parts of the manufacturing process to employers that do.
Child labour has become an integral part of the new world order of trade liberalization and gives the lie to any glorification of unregulated world trade as a force of progress. For the pathetic armies of children in the developing world, market liberalization means a regression to the brutal exploitation that we in the developed countries have not permitted for more than a century.
Because it has become part of the fabric of the new international economy, child labour implicates all of us as consumers. On any visit to the local mall, unknowingly we are likely to buy for our own children clothes and toys made under conditions that would horrify us if we imagined our own children in their situation. Here is a case where we must let our basic human sympathy, our sense of solidarity with children around the world move us to act. Some have argued that when developed countries today restrict trade in goods made by child labour they are forgetting the role that child labour played in their own development and acting to deliberately restrict the development of new economies.
We in the developed world have indeed had our own experience with child labour, which was as much a part of European and North American industrialization as it is now in many developed societies today. We must remember that government regulations prohibiting the use of child labour were among the earliest public interventions to tame a predatory industrial capitalism. The fact that the same predatory capitalism has returned with a vengeance, its leaders boasting of their ability to operate outside the regulatory reach of individual states, does not relieve us of our duty to protect the most vulnerable members of the global village.
The multinationals like to talk about the need to establish a level playing field. Let us establish one between them and the children whom they now exploit. The elimination of child labour will be a long and arduous process that takes place on many fronts. The International Labour Organization has a program that has been in place for years to study and propose measures to address the problem. Canada should actively support this program.
The ILO secretariat has also recommended that the WTO should adopt a social clause to enforce basic labour rights on member states, a strategy that would go a long way to eliminating child labour. This is why we proposed a separate amendment earlier today that the government chose not to support, that the government commit itself to such a policy of developing a social clause for the WTO.
Some individual governments of developing countries are making efforts to introduce regulations to help children and some of these programs, such as the one in Hong Kong, have met with success. Many developing countries do not have the resources to police regulations on child labour, however well intended those regulations may be. That is why the developed countries like Canada have an obligation to help the governments of developing countries prevent multinationals from trading in goods made by children.
That is why we are proposing this amendment today to Bill C-57. It would put the burden of proof on the large importers and retailers to establish that they have not imported goods made with child labour and apply the resources of the Canadian regulatory regime to police the problem.