Canada has pledged to ban the import of products made with forced labor and to prevent these products from entering the continent. Part of New North American Trade Agreement.
Now, a U.S. senator deeply involved in the issue gave a candid response when asked by CBC News whether Canada is keeping its promise.
“No, not yet,” said Oregon Democratic Sen. Jeff Merkley. Co-author He mentioned his country’s laws on the issue, but then there was silence.
The bill he introduced was 2nd Anniversary.
That US law is Product List The products, mainly clothing, food, and electronic devices, are allegedly made in forced re-education facilities in China’s Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region.
The bill means these products would have to be stopped at the U.S. border, and because Merkley’s bill imposes a reverse burden of proof, if an importer cannot provide evidence that paid labor made the product, it will be refused entry.
This led to a surge in law enforcement.
new Public Website Tracking the data, the U.S. has intercepted more than 8,400 shipments at customs and ultimately denied entry to 3,375 shipments. This is in addition to the old U.S. shipments. Applicable Law To Other Product Listings In the world.
“The system actually works. The system has power,” Merkley said.
But he warned that the plan would be more beneficial if America’s northern and southern neighbors, Canada and Mexico, also barred these goods from the continent.
What about Canada’s enforcement numbers? Zero so far. The Canada Border Services Agency told CBC News it seized one shipment in Quebec in fall 2021, but the importer challenged the seizure and the shipment was allowed into the country.
U.S. Senator Concerned Canada is a Back Door
Merkley said this is a problem for the United States because U.S. policymakers suspect Canada of being a back door into the continental United States.
Merkley, for example, worries that goods blocked in his own state, Oregon, are being redirected to nearby ports, such as British Columbia, and then traded across the continent.
“[They’re] It was transshipped elsewhere,” he said.
“We don’t have any details on where it’s being transshipped, but most people following this are assuming it’s going to Canada.”
Merkley is considering ways to increase cross-border cooperation on the issue, and during a meeting with Canadian lawmakers last month, he proposed sharing the list, so that if one North American country blocks a shipment containing forced labor materials, all three countries would block the import of that shipment based on the same list.
“Each country would automatically respect the vetoes of the other two countries,” Merkley said.
“So if Mexico, the United States or Canada rejects it based on the conclusion that it was produced with slave labor, we will automatically respect that conclusion.”
He said the idea was still new and it was not yet clear whether new legislation would be needed in each country or whether it could be implemented by cabinet decree, using laws already passed to implement the continental trade agreement agreed in 2018.
And if there is no progress, will the US launch a trade lawsuit? “That’s not up for discussion,” Merkley said, noting that he seeks cooperation, not confrontation.
“Canada is our partner up north. I think we’re approaching this with shared experiences and strategies to be more effective.”
Leaks could be an issue during NAFTA renewal: lawmakers
But one Canadian lawmaker who has been working on the issue predicts that without a course correction, the problem will actually get worse.
Liberal MP John MacKay discussed the matter with Merkley last month while serving as co-leader in the Canadian Parliament. Delegation To Washington.
In an interview with CBC News, MacKay said the US is right to assume Canada is a conduit for these goods.
“The American people should feel like there’s a leak,” McKay said.
“That is, in my opinion, a well-founded presumption.”
This could become a problem when countries begin the process in 2026. Update Join the new NAFTA, subject to the terms of the agreement.
Speaking at the Washington meeting, MacKay explained that Canada is working on new legislation.
This is in addition to the Private Member’s Bill introduced by Senator MacKay. Already contributed to success: S-211, which was adopted last year, need Annual reports on measures taken by government agencies and large corporations to eradicate forced labor.
The Federal Cabinet Currently in progress Powerful bill.
Canada is working on new legislation
Labour Minister Seamus O’Regan’s office told CBC News the bill would not include a reverse burden of certification provision like those in the United States.
But the bill, which would create new tools for the Canada Border Services Agency to find violators and is not limited to goods from Xinjiang or China, is due to be introduced in Parliament by the end of the year, O’Regan’s office said.
It is notable that Washington’s enforcement actions are primarily aimed at labor camps run by rival China, whose detention of Muslim Uighur minority groups is the biggest single cause of terrorism in the world, according to the United Nations. Crimes Against Humanity.
A new United Nations report has accused China of carrying out brutal and repressive activities against the country’s Uighur minority that amount to crimes against humanity, backing up long-standing accusations by human rights groups with the force of the UN and infuriating Beijing.
But it did nothing to stop banned cotton from entering the U.S. supply chain. report This month, it said it had found traces of banned substances in about one-fifth of its product samples in the U.S. and overseas.
Nor has the United States so aggressively targeted abuses elsewhere.
Activists whose families have experienced the horrors of forced labor firsthand say it’s good to see some countries starting to take action.
“But when you look at the implementation, we haven’t seen much success,” said Mahendra Pandey, vice president of the international NGO. Freedom Fund.
“The law needs to be implemented now, not just written.”
A family story
Pandey said his father had worked as a cleaner in commercial buildings in Saudi Arabia for more than 10 years before his passport was confiscated, his salary was irregular and he gradually lost contact with his family in Nepal.
He said he first realised this when he went to Saudi Arabia to join his father in the early 2000s to look for work.
It was then that he learned that his father, Mitra, was housing eight other people in a studio apartment, where they slept in bunk beds, shared a kitchen, and had to reserve time to use the bathroom before the bus picked them up at 5 a.m. each morning.
When Pandy saw his elderly father having to queue to use the toilet at home and picked up cans people had discarded while cleaning a football stadium, something dawned on him.
“I was so angry,” he said in an interview. “That anger, that resentment, I still feel that way today. [there]”
He had been working in a clothing store for just over two years under slightly better conditions, but then his passport was taken away and his movements were restricted.
Father and son eventually convinced their employer to let them resign, but Mitra had to first pay off the mortgage, and Pandey eventually completed his college education and moved to the Washington, DC area.
He channelled that anger into his work, founding the Global Migrant Workers Network, among other NGO work.
Apart from countries taking action, Pandey hopes that ordinary people will question the products they buy. Saudi Arabia and Qatar Hosting the World Cup soccer tournament, signing soccer superstars, etc. Favorable contract In Saudi Arabia.
He wants the public to take an interest in the people who clean football stadiums and make products.
“So much of human rights is about that,” he said.
