VANCOUVER—As Canadians pull out their wallets this holiday season, they have no way of knowing whether the gifts they are buying for friends and family were made by modern-day slaves.

That includes cosmetics, clothing, coffee, chocolate, seafood and even smartphones.

That’s why Liberal MP John McKay tabled a private member’s bill, known as C-423 or the Modern Slavery Act, in the House of Commons on Thursday before it breaks for the winter.

At least 1,200 Canadian companies import up to $34 billion in goods that may have been made by forced labourers overseas, according to a 2017 World Vision report.

Modern slavery — exploitation a person cannot refuse or flee because of threats, violence, abuse or deception — is found in almost every country in the world and at every step in the supply chain.

“There’s really no sector or industry that is immune from this,” said Simon Lewchuk, World Vision’s senior policy adviser on child rights and protection. “For consumers, one of the biggest challenges is there is almost no information out there.”

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That’s because supply chains are notoriously opaque, as goods travel through a “long” and “convoluted” process, Lewchuk said. For example, a multinational company may say their clothes were made in Bangladesh, but there’s no way of knowing who made the buttons, zippers or laces.

The bill follows an October Senate report that called on the Canadian government to create legislation to end all child and forced labour in supply chains. The highly anticipated deadline for a formal government response is February 2019, Lewchuk said.

When asked, McKay told StarMetro the Senate recommendations do not obligate the government to actually table legislation.

Bill C-423 will not pass during this session of Parliament. While the odds of a private member’s bill being passed are low at any point, Thursday is the last day before the House of Commons breaks for the holidays. The House reconvenes in January, when the bill is expected to go through the next steps.

“It requires Canadian companies of a certain size to file an annual statement with the minister of public safety that says they’ve examined their supply chain and are satisfied that there is no child or forced labour,” he explained in a phone interview before tabling the bill. Companies that break the law could be fined up to $250,000.

He said the bill is based on the reflections of stakeholders who contributed to the report.

According to a 2017 Ipsos poll commissioned by World Vision, 84 per cent of Canadians expressed frustration at how difficult it is to determine who made a product and under what conditions. Meanwhile, 91 per cent agreed the government should develop legislation to do more.

Pressure has been mounting for Canada to follow governments that have already passed legislation to increase transparency in supply chains, such as in the U.K., Australia, France and the State of California. Similar laws are pending in Switzerland and proposed in Hong Kong.

“This has been a rapidly evolving area of law and discourse, with jurisdictions taking action and slightly different forms of legislation emerging,” Lewchuk said.

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In 2017, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and other G20 leaders committed to eliminating forced labour by 2025. In January 2018, Canada announced it would establish an Ombudsperson for Responsible Enterprise to investigate Canadian companies implicated in international human-rights violations.

But the challenge is that no business wants to investigate its supply chain to find modern slavery, let alone admit its culpability.

“Every company has (forced labour) somewhere in their supply chain. There can be a fear that if they acknowledge it, they will face public backlash and lose propositions,” Lewchuk explained. In addition, companies operating in more than one country could choose to obey a more lax country’s rules.

In June, a group of global investor institutions with $2.3 trillion in assets wrote to the federal government urging legislation to combat modern slavery.

“The relative lack of transparency in the Canadian market makes it difficult for investors to conduct the same analysis of Canadian companies as they do of their international competitors,” they wrote.

McKay said some companies will know what’s going on in their supply chains while others will not. And some companies may know but will report that they don’t. He argued the proposed bill will force companies into “an environment that is responsible enterprise.”

“I don’t think the defence of three blind mice will actually work,” he explained. “And I don’t know how you can have a comprehensive, progressive TPP (Trans-Pacific Partnership) if the countries in the partnership permit products to be exchanged in slave labour conditions.”

Mandatory reporting will make it harder for companies to say they’re doing nothing, Lewchuk said. World Vision hopes the legislation will include reporting — which is proposed — but also requires companies to take action when slavery is found in supply chains.

While this bill is a step forward, Lewchuk insisted a multi-stakeholder, inclusive process is necessary to figure out what model works best for Canada.

Bill C-423 was passed with first reading on Thursday morning and still has to move to second and third reading before being granted royal assent.

“This is a Canadian issue. It’s not just something that happens out there,” he explained. “We need more corporate action on it, and it’s something that parliamentarians of all stripes can get behind.”

Correction — Dec. 13, 2018: This story has been edited from a previous version that misspelled the name of Simon Lewchuk, World Vision’s senior policy adviser on child rights and protection.

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