A workers-rights group has uncovered new evidence that goods possibly made with forced labour are entering Canada from China and elsewhere, despite being banned in the United States.
© James MacDonald Shipping containers are loaded onto rail cars at the Global Container Terminals Inc. (GCT) Vanterm container terminal in Vancouver, British Columbia, on Saturday, March 21, 2020.
Dozens of shipments of Malaysian palm oil and clothing manufactured in China have arrived in this country from two companies blacklisted by the U.S., a report released Monday by Above Ground reveals.
The information adds to evidence that, despite a new Canadian law meant to keep out products of slave labour, such goods continue to flow into the country with impunity.
And the Ottawa-based organization says it has likely identified only a “small fraction” of what’s arriving
That’s partly because it could only obtain import records from the U.S., where such information is made public. In Canada, the federal government keeps data from shippers’ “bills of lading” confidential.
As well, the files only rarely indicate the manufacturer of the imports, and when they do it’s the maker of the finished product, not suppliers who might be using forced labour, the group says. Canadian firms, meanwhile, can petition American authorities to remove their shipments from the public record entirely.
Dozens of shipments of Malaysian palm oil and clothing manufactured in China have arrived in this country from two companies blacklisted by the U.S., a report released Monday by Above Ground reveals.
The information adds to evidence that, despite a new Canadian law meant to keep out products of slave labour, such goods continue to flow into the country with impunity.
And the Ottawa-based organization says it has likely identified only a “small fraction” of what’s arriving
That’s partly because it could only obtain import records from the U.S., where such information is made public. In Canada, the federal government keeps data from shippers’ “bills of lading” confidential.
As well, the files only rarely indicate the manufacturer of the imports, and when they do it’s the maker of the finished product, not suppliers who might be using forced labour, the group says. Canadian firms, meanwhile, can petition American authorities to remove their shipments from the public record entirely.
Trade minister dodges questions on whether Canada has curbed potential forced-labour imports from China
“What we’ve uncovered from this limited search may be just the tip of a much larger iceberg linking Canadian importers to forced labour overseas,” said Above Ground in its report, called Creating Consequences.
The federal government implemented legislation last year that bars the import of goods made wholly or in part with forced labour.
Much of that kind of product is believed to originate in China, where evidence suggests that Uyghur people and other minorities from Xinjiang province are coerced into working in cotton fields and factories.
But the government has yet to indicate that any shipment has been barred under the law.
One of the only clues to what is happening on the ground comes from U.S. shipping records, which indicate when an import arrives at an American port and then is sent to Canada. Previous media reports by the CBC, Toronto Star and Guelph Mercury have identified some products that are banned under the American forced-labour law but made their way here.
Above ground perused the same records and identified two more U.S.-blacklisted firms whose goods are ending up in Canada.
One is Hero Vast Group, a China-based clothing manufacturer that U.S. Customs and Border Protection (U.S. CBP) says employs prison labour. American records indicate that at least six Hero Vast shipments have entered Canada since 2018, imported by two separate companies here.
The other is palm oil made by Malaysia’s Sime Darby Plantation, which the U.S. CBP says shows the presence of 11 of the International Labour Organization’s forced-labour indicators.
Canada has received 29 shipments of Sime Darby palm oil since 2018, including five since last December, the report said.
Above Ground also looked at products that have not been blacklisted by the U.S., but for which there is other evidence pointing to possible use of forced labour.
That includes the products of Qingdao Taekwang Shoes, which received 8,900 Xinjiang minority members at its factories, where they were subject to after-hours re-education programs, according to media and NGO reports . Just under 200 shipments of its shoes have arrived in Canada since 2007, says the report.
Above Ground details as well what it considers an inadequate response from Ottawa, where the effort is led by the Canada Border Services Agency.
Responding to questions from the group, the CBSA declined to say if importers who violate the new rules would face any penalty, as they do in the States.
As well, the Canadian law requires “legally sufficient and defensible evidence” of forced labour before stopping an import. The U.S. rules, by comparison, talk of evidence that “reasonably but not conclusively” points to involvement of forced labour. It then allows the importer to prove the contrary and free up its shipments, said the report.
“Canada must move beyond words and use legal methods to cut Canadian business ties to forced labour abroad,” the report said.
That includes rigorously enforcing its current law and implementing “human-rights due-diligence” legislation that proactively obliges companies to rid their supply chains of forced labour.
Meanwhile, the CBSA told Above Ground that it would not be revealing the names of any importers subject to enforcement action under the existing forced-labour law, said the report.
“Overall, it’s just this blackbox,” said Lori Waller, a spokeswoman for the group, about Ottawa’s program.
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