Mr. Speaker, December 2 marks the International Day for the Abolition of Slavery. Most of us think about the Atlantic slave trade insofar as we think about slavery at all. World Vision estimates that there are multiple more people enslaved now than there were then. Twenty-first century supply chains have brought this scourge to our shores.
This Parliament passed Bill S-211, and the first reporting date was in May of this year. What the reports show is that the supply chains are deeply infected. Of the 6,000 entities reporting, 38% identified disturbing issues. Multiple more did not report at all.
I take some encouragement from the government's willingness to be proactive, but the data needs to be analyzed, needs at least one more reporting cycle, and more entities need to be willing or unwillingly brought into the regime.
Slavery may be as old as humanity, but it does not mean that we need to support it by purchasing its products.