Mr. Speaker, the Retail Council of Canada gives a retailer of the year award but we should consider a sweatshop retailer of the year award. There is no shortage of worthy candidates from which to choose.
Nominations could consider the Disney Corporation which has sweatshops in China that force women to work seven days a week, 16 hours a day for the princely sum of $90 a month.
We could consider Walmart which manufacturers its Kathy-Lee products in southern China where workers are reportedly locked up for all but 60 minutes a day, work 90 hours a week and then charged most of those wages for room and board.
This year's sweatshop retailer of the year award goes to Reitman's stores which continues to import huge amounts of clothing from Burma in spite of the Canadian government policy asking businesses to refrain from trading with that country because its brutal military regime uses profits from the textile industry to finance the repression of its citizens.