Are Canadians indirectly implicated in a genocide?
Even though the prime minister and federal cabinet abstained from the vote, the passage of a unanimous motion in the House of Commons recognizing China’s treatment of Uighurs as genocide should propel the government to do more to ensure Canadian companies aren’t complicit in forced labour in Xinjiang, or anywhere else in the world.
And that Canadian consumers aren’t implicated either.
“Our government is committed to ensuring that Canadian businesses at home and abroad are not unknowingly involved in any supply chains involving forced labour,” said Mary Ng, minister of Small Business, Export Promotion and International Trade in an announcement last month. Yet, there is a crucial, unanswered question: Who will hold companies accountable, and how?
For instance, among the seven federal measures to specifically address human rights violations in China, the Xinjiang Integrity Declaration for Canadian companies is only a voluntary attestation that businesses would not knowingly source products from suppliers involved in forced labour or in other human rights violations.
In other words, no consequences for failures to act.
Will it be on the Canadian ombudsperson for responsible enterprise (CORE), appointed in 2019, and yet to open its office to receive complaints, to investigate violations? The new role replaced the previous Conservative government’s corporate social responsibility counsellor, which had never completed an investigation, widely considered a “paper tiger.”
Truth is that the new ombudsperson likely won’t fare much better toward providing Canadians with the necessary assurances that Canadian mining, oil and gas, and garment companies, aren’t directly or indirectly profiting off of egregious human rights abuses.
“Without the power to compel documents or witness testimony, we fear the ombudsperson will be unable to fully investigate allegations of forced labour or other abuses from companies’ supply chains,” pointed out Ketty Nivyabandi, Amnesty International’s secretary-general.
Emily Dwyer, a co-ordinator with the Canadian Network on Corporate Accountability, representing 34 civil society and labour union organizations from across the country, has been even more blunt.
“The office is unfit for its purpose,” she said in a media interview last fall. “It does not have the basic minimum powers that are required for it to do anything meaningful for impacted communities and workers who’ve been harmed by the overseas operations of Canadian companies.”
The network has even warned human rights advocates around the world about the possible risks of speaking out and CORE’s lack of meaningful power, independence, and transparency.
In the context of a genocide, such concerns take on added urgency.
“We may not realize it, but we are involved in this genocide. Without knowing it, we are benefiting from the situation. More and more evidence is coming to light directly linking Western companies’ supply chains to forced Uighur labour,” said Bloc MP Alexis Brunelle-Duceppe in the House on Monday. “I will not name names, but I would bet that each one of us very likely has items in our possession that were fully or partly made by Uighurs.”
The Coalition to End Forced Labour in the Uighur Region has named names, accusing well known fashion brands of being complicit. Those brands are familiar: Zara, Gap Inc., Esprit, Lululemon, Walmart and Walt Disney, to name a few.
Furthermore, a report released earlier this month by World Vision highlighted that in 2019, Canada imported over $3.7 billion in food products that may have been produced through child labour.
Even the Modern Slavery Act, Bill S-216, currently in its second reading in the Senate, doesn’t go far enough to ensure that companies are held responsible for their actions or inactions when it comes to forced labour or child labour in their supply chains. It also relies on voluntary reporting that gives companies a free pass.
If we are truly committed to seeing an end to modern-day slavery and exploitation, whether in China or anyplace else, it’s time for human rights due diligence legislation, which requires companies to monitor and report on operations. They must also face significant penalties should they fail to uphold basic standards of human rights.
In or outside of a genocide.