U.S. calls on Canada to do more on good made by slave labour

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OTTAWA — Canadian border officials have intercepted more than 50 shipments of materials they suspected were made with forced labour, but most were ultimately let into the country and U.S. legislators say Canada needs to do more.

A group of U.S. legislators has called on Canada, the U.S. and Mexico to act to ensure goods made with forced labour, especially by Uyghurs in China’s Xinjiang region, don’t end up on North American shelves.

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U.S. senators Jeff Merkley and Marco Rubio, alongside congressmen James McGovern and Chris Smith, wrote a letter to Trade Minister Mary Ng and her Mexican and U.S. counterparts calling on all three countries to take more aggressive action on slave-made goods.

The U.S. legislators worked together to pass the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act (UFLPA), which has U.S. Customs assume that goods made in the Xinjiang region are made with forced labour unless there is proof to the contrary.

In their letter to Ng, the group asked her to consider similar legislation in Canada.

“The UFLPA was created as a response to the government of the PRC’s policies of severe repression against Uyghurs and other Turkic peoples, which includes mandating that these people perform involuntary labor, in gross violation of internationally recognized human rights,” they wrote.

“This horrendous behavior has not abated. The law was also born out of a recognition that an additional enforcement mechanism was needed to ensure that U.S. agencies were able to comply with laws that prohibit import of goods made with forced labour.”

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A private member’s bill that passed in Canada in 2023 requires companies to look for any possible forced or child labour in their supply chains and to report it in their annual financial statements. The CUSMA trade deal, which replaced NAFTA, requires Canada, Mexico and the U.S. to screen for products made with forced labour.

Since 2021, the Canada Border Services Agency said it has intercepted more than 50 shipments it suspected were made with forced labour, but most eventually made their way into the country.

“Approximately 50 shipments have been intercepted and assessed. Six shipments were monitored for export out of the Canadian marketplace. One shipment was abandoned at the Canadian border by the importer,” CBSA spokesperson Karine Martel said in an email. “After an extensive review of detailed supply chain information provided by importers, the remaining shipments were permitted entry.”

Martel said the six shipments were all exported back to their original destination. He said the border agency works with Employment and Social Development Canada, which does research on countries and companies, trying to identify likely areas of forced labour.

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“The CBSA uses research and analysis shared by ESDC-Labour, along with additional sources of information, to identify goods entering Canada that are suspected to have been produced by forced labour,” she said.

She said CBSA officers take every possible shipment on a case by case basis.

“The CBSA’s role is to risk-assess importations of goods entering Canada to make sure they are properly declared and meet import requirements. CBSA officers are required to make tariff classification determinations on imported goods, on a case-by-case basis, based on the available information at the time of importation.”

In their letter, the American senators and congressmen told Ng there is a need for Canada to have more robust laws, but also for border agencies across North America to share more information.

“We were told by U.S. Customs and Border Protection officials that a shipment of solar panels that had been denied entry into the U.S. based on the UFLPA were subsequently imported into Canada, followed by an attempt to re-export them into the U.S.,” they wrote.

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The legislators said the products in question usually aren’t shipped directly from China, but instead move through other Southeast Asian nations first, which can make it difficult to track.

“We believe joint action will ensure that customs administrations across the USMCA region can quickly identify forced labor made imports and take appropriate enforcement action based on standardized information to mitigate forced labor violations.”

National Post
rtumilty@postmedia.com

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