The entrance to a training centre in Hotan, Xinjiang, is shown in December, 2018. By some estimates, Chinese authorities force a million Muslim Uyghurs into unpaid labour in the Xinjiang region.Ng Han Guan/The Associated Press
Mehmet Tohti is the executive director of the Uyghur Rights Advocacy Project.
Margaret McCuaig-Johnston is a senior fellow at the University of Ottawa.
Sarah Teich is the co-founder of Human Rights Action Group.
Charles Burton is a senior fellow at the think tank Sinopsis.
Canada has introduced new, stronger legislation on forced labour in response to the U.S. Trade Representative’s (USTR) Section 301 investigation, a pretext for President Donald Trump’s beggar-thy-neighbour tariffs. The USTR found that Canada was not adequately implementing its current legislation.
As a result, 10-per-cent tariffs are threatened on Canadian products not covered by USMCA.
This was an own goal for Canada. Until last year, we were ramping up implementation by developing more rigorous legislation and enforcement. But then the state visit to China was offered and the government started dropping all its forced labour tools.
Bureaucrats drafting new legislation put down their pens. Staff reviewing products from Xinjiang produced with forced labour were told their jobs were being eliminated. Some were redeployed to increasing trade with China. Customs notices directing companies to comply with current legislation dropped mentions of forced labour. Global Affairs Canada no longer mentioned it in its Departmental Plan.
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We documented these lapses in a March letter to the Prime Minister, warning the U.S. could bring Section 301 tariffs, and they did.
Under current legislation, Canada has rejected only two shipments from China, despite clear evidence of forced labour across a broad array of Chinese exports to Canada.
Instead, we’re welcoming Chinese EVs, which likely have aluminum parts made with forced labour: Human Rights Watch documented that bauxite is shipped thousands of miles to be processed into aluminum by Uyghur slaves. The aluminum is then shipped to EV factories, where Chinese brands, and major international brands such as Tesla, Toyota, Volkswagen and General Motors, make vehicles.
It’s no wonder they’re cheap – they don’t pay for labour on dozens of their components.
We’re not just talking about the 12-hour work days, six days a week for $2 an hour that increasingly constitute working conditions in China.
U.S. legislation assumes all products from the Xinjiang region of China, where this labourer works stacking cotton, are made with forced labour unless importers prove otherwise.CHINA DAILY/Reuters
No, we’re also talking about slave labour of Uyghurs working for no money, 15 hours a day, seven days a week, under armed surveillance with little food. If you think of the 1700s and 1800s in the U.S. South, you have the right picture. That’s also what’s happening to Uyghurs picking cotton for your clothes and tomatoes for your spaghetti sauce.
That’s why it’s important Canada is strengthening its legislation – and just in time. Last month, China proclaimed a new regulation that all sources in their supply chains now come under a national security umbrella and cannot be revealed. Beijing doesn’t want anyone asking pointed questions. They don’t want to be blocked from using slave labour.
Bill C-35 will not go as far as U.S. legislation, which presumes all goods from the Uyghur region of Xinjiang are made with forced labour unless importers prove otherwise. But it will enable the Minister of Foreign Affairs to list products and components, including by country or region, where there are reasonable grounds to suspect they are produced wholly or in part by forced labour.
The legislation appears to mirror the American Withhold Release Orders (WRO) system. Before the U.S. passed the Uyghur Forced Labour Prevention Act, it relied on such orders to list high-risk industries in particular regions – including all cotton and tomato products from the Uyghur region – as presumptively made using forced labour and therefore banned from the U.S. unless importers demonstrated otherwise.
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Similar Canadian legislation is commendable, but much will turn on the specifics in the forthcoming regulations and independent product testing regime.
It will also turn on political will to list high-risk industries and regions, including in China, with full disclosure required. The list should include clothing made in cities such as Guangzhou with cotton from the Uyghur region, and EVs made in Shanghai with aluminum processed by Uyghur slaves. And there should be a process by which civil society can submit information to ground listings.
Until then, we must resume implementing our current legislation. The staff positions at Global Affairs Canada should be reinstated. Customs notices for EV imports must include the requirement to abide by current forced labour laws. And if companies provide inadequate information on sourcing, it should be assumed that the imports are made with slave labour and sent back.
Canadians don’t want to buy cars, clothing, or any other products made by slaves, no matter how low the price.