Madam Speaker, before the government's summer vacation, I asked the government why it was putting trade talks with the United States in jeopardy to protect the Prime Minister's corporate friends instead of fighting modern-day slavery.
The reality is that since 2021, the Canada Border Services Agency has seized only two shipments of goods that were made using forced labour: a shipment of textiles back in 2024 and a shipment of frozen seafood in 2025. Both of these shipments were subsequently released back to the companies. That is it: these two shipments suspected of slavery stopped in five years. Meanwhile, the United States' border security stopped over 7,000 shipments, valued at over $75 million, for suspected forced labour violations in just the first six months of this year.
The Prime Minister and his government, including the member opposite, love to point to Bill S-211, the Fighting Against Forced Labour and Child Labour in Supply Chains Act, as evidence of how tough Canada is. However, I would point out that this law only exists because of the hard work of former Liberal member of Parliament John McKay and Senator Miville-Dechêne, along with the support of the All-Party Parliamentary Group to End Modern Slavery and Human Trafficking. In fact, the government dragged its feet for years before being forced to take action, so we had to bring in a private member's bill, Bill S-211.
Then we found out last December that the government had quietly changed the directive of Bill S-211 to create an exemption not found in the original legislation, stripping reporting obligations from distributors and retailers who could be profiting from forced labour in their supply chains. Human rights advocates and anti-slavery groups are asking why. The only answer that could be is that it would benefit the Prime Minister's corporate friends. In fact, I wonder how many of these elite corporate friends were at the Prime Minister's pre-summit fundraiser last week.
We also know that China has been using Canada as a transhipment hub to get its products into the United States because it knows how weak our enforcement has been and how strong the American enforcement has been when it comes to products made by forced labour. It is no wonder the United States is launching a forced labour investigation into our country. We have only stopped two shipments in the last five years. Our supply chain law is secretly watered down to benefit Liberal friends, and the Liberals have been turning a blind eye to China's use of Canada as a transhipment hub.
I and many of my Conservative colleagues have been raising these concerns for years in the House, and former Liberal member of Parliament John McKay has also been urging the government to take more action to fight slavery, but we have seen no action from the government to do anything. The Prime Minister and his government ministers have insisted that Canada's measures were robust, that they were strong. Really? Then why, after years of declaring that Canada had what it needed to fight slavery in the supply chains, did the government suddenly introduce Bill C-35, an act respecting the prohibition of importing goods produced by forced labour?
Perhaps, as with other issues like crime, immigration and housing, the Liberals are suddenly realizing that Conservatives have been right all along. Perhaps Canada needs to fight slavery abroad, and perhaps temporarily stopping one shipment suspected of using forced labour every two to three years is not a robust system.
I do not have the time to go into the abandoned CORE office, but the government's absolute failure to tackle slavery in supply chains has put our CUSMA talks in jeopardy. Did the Prime Minister walk away from the table because the United States demanded we take real action on slavery? Did the Prime Minister walk away from the negotiations because he was not able to get supply chain exemptions to forced labour for his corporate friends? We do not know, because the Liberals will not release the deal that they rejected. What we do know is that Canadians are paying the price for the government's inaction on modern-day slavery.
In my riding of Peace River—Westlock, increased software lumber tariffs are threatening entire—