While Canada's forced labour laws have the potential to be effective, those laws aren't being enforced, says Ottawa lawyer William Pellerin.
Canada is currently reexamining how it combats forced labour abroad in the wake of a new U.S. law that will come into effect on June 21, aimed at curbing the flow of products into the country that originate from forced labour in other countries.
This is in part because of detailed evidence of human rights abuses against ethnic Uyghurs in China's Muslim region of Xinjiang, which produces a fifth of the world's cotton production, and is a hub of tomato paste and solar-panel production.
In 2020, Canada brought in a law that makes the import of goods with connections to forced labour illegal. But according to The Globe and Mail, only one suspected shipment has been barred from entering the country, and that shipment was eventually released.
Though Seamus O'Regan, Canada's Minister of Labour, couldn't explain why there hasn't been any enforcement, he agrees that now is the time to act.
There is a private member's bill that has passed in the Senate that puts the onus on companies globally to show what they're doing to stop forced labour in their supply chains.
"We right now are taking this to committee to figure out how we can strengthen it," O'Regan told The Current guest host Nahlah Ayed.
"We've been on the sidelines trying to pick up...
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