Subcommittee on International Human Rights committee  It has a financial piece.

Subcommittee on International Human Rights committee  Do you mean in relation to the Modern Slavery Act?

Subcommittee on International Human Rights committee  This is a new thing, and companies are starting to comply. They are starting to put the statements up, led by the biggest companies, which take this issue very seriously. It is starting to focus directors' attention on the issue of slavery in their supply chains. I don't know how

Subcommittee on International Human Rights committee  I would agree with that. Companies are starting for the first time, really, to map their supply chains, to audit their major suppliers, and to investigate their suppliers—sometimes unannounced. They're changing their suite of contractual documents to oblige suppliers to comply wi

Subcommittee on International Human Rights committee  That's why the legislation being passed tends to have financial thresholds, below which they don't apply.

Subcommittee on International Human Rights committee  I think the idea is that there's going to be a kind of an iterative process. The big companies are going to be the pathfinders and develop corporate best practices as their slavery statements get published—

Subcommittee on International Human Rights committee  Every minute that Canada does nothing proliferates an existing risk to the life savings of Canadian pensioners, many of whom have their life savings invested in public companies that don't know they should be doing something to address this issue. The effect on the market cap of

Subcommittee on International Human Rights committee  Is there still time?

Subcommittee on International Human Rights committee  The United States has a law, which they haven't used very frequently, that allows their customs to seize goods at the border that are possibly made with forced or slave labour. The European Union is also very concerned about human rights and links it with market access. Canadian

Subcommittee on International Human Rights committee  Yes, and we're in violent agreement, I feel, but the reality is, that which you would do to secure the system against child labour you would also be doing to secure the system against forced labour. The arbitrary date of the 18th birthday doesn't change the background facts.

Subcommittee on International Human Rights committee  Absolutely it's possible: the constitutional lawyers are gnashing their teeth because they can't copy jurisdictionally the Modern Slavery Act. The U.K. is one jurisdiction, so if effectively a federal U.K. law hits all companies, we can't do that in Canada because of our division

Subcommittee on International Human Rights committee  I'm not sure I understand all of those regimes. I apologize.

Subcommittee on International Human Rights committee  Well, yes, but you have to be careful. Again, we told Cheryl of a situation that happened once in which there was a development project that was linked to having no child labour. It successfully delivered a project free of child labour, but child prostitution in the locality went

Subcommittee on International Human Rights committee  I would go back to the point I made about influence, sir. I'm not a constitutional lawyer. You guys have access to constitutional expertise that would be far more effective than mine. The reality is that it has to start somewhere. The way legal systems evolve is that you introduc

Subcommittee on International Human Rights committee  I don't think you do. Frankly, the solution for one is also going to be the solution for the other, so you have an opportunity to kill two evils with one stone by combining them.