Subcommittee on International Human Rights committee  On the negotiation side of it and entering into the agreements, depending on the country, there can sometimes be resistance to the idea of including labour or other types of social considerations in a trade agreement, so we do have to explain our position that, for us and for Can

Subcommittee on International Human Rights committee  We have in fact recently concluded an internal evaluation around the effectiveness of the programs, and we have found them to be effective. When you're dealing with an issue like child labour, it's obviously difficult to measure the effectiveness of it because it's such a long-

Subcommittee on International Human Rights committee  I don't know if I could tell you definitively who, in the end, will take the lead on preparing the legislation and bringing it forward. What I can tell you is that this is obviously a whole-of-government approach. As I noted in my remarks, it impacts a number of different areas a

Subcommittee on International Human Rights committee  We have colleagues from within our team at ESDC here who have been working on this interdepartmental working group. It's been probably about a year that we've had this together. Representatives from all of the departments that I noted in my remarks are present on that group, and

Subcommittee on International Human Rights committee  I think it would largely be our department that would come forward with the proposals of what the legislative option is that we should be looking at. When it comes to the political level of determining which minister would be responsible, I think that's a decision that would have

Subcommittee on International Human Rights committee  I apologize. I don't know if I'd be able to say with any certainty whether that particular section of the Criminal Code applies to corporations that are importing goods made with forced labour. We would have our colleagues from Justice Canada review that to see if that is applica

Subcommittee on International Human Rights committee  Okay.

Subcommittee on International Human Rights committee  Yes, that definitely would be the case. Those who advocate for the U.K. model certainly point to that, saying that the voluntary aspect of it really puts the onus on companies. If companies are good corporate citizens and there certainly is a strong incentive for them to do so,

Subcommittee on International Human Rights committee  I would say that it would be very much a joint and shared responsibility. In terms of labour laws and labour legislation, the federal government is responsible for only about 7% of the labour jurisdiction in the country. The provinces and territories have the remainder of it. We

Subcommittee on International Human Rights committee  No, a legislative structure—

Subcommittee on International Human Rights committee  I think the U.K. model is precisely that, the idea of voluntary reporting. But the challenge is that I think it's a little premature to see how effective the U.K. model is going to prove to be. California has had similar legislation in place for a number of years and I think th

Subcommittee on International Human Rights committee  The incident you are referring to, I believe, would probably be the Rana Plaza collapse in Bangladesh, where there were some Canadian companies that were involved in manufacturing there. Following that collapse, in fact just last year, Canada joined with the U.S., the European Un

Subcommittee on International Human Rights committee  No, we haven't. We know that the European Union has been quite heavily engaged in the Thai fishing industry in particular in addressing issues around child labour there. We have not been directly involved in that, though.

Subcommittee on International Human Rights committee  I can give a shot at answering that, and my colleagues from Global Affairs can feel free to jump in as well, of course, if they like. In a nutshell, ESDC and the labour program in ESDC is responsible for labour laws, labour legislation, and working with partner countries in imp

Subcommittee on International Human Rights committee  On labour rights internationally...?