Honourable senators, I’m pleased to rise to speak to Bill S-211 today, a bill, as you know, that was introduced by our colleague Senator Miville-Dechêne. It requires certain entities to report what measures they have taken to prevent modern slavery and child labour from being part of their supply chains. It would also block imports of goods manufactured or produced by forced or child labour. I want to applaud the senator for her leadership in bringing this bill forward to us.

I think, as you know by now, that I am very interested in workers’ rights, and modern slavery around the world and here in Canada represents the worst form of worker exploitation and, as we have heard, child exploitation.

This bill gives businesses the responsibility to look at their supply chains and report back on what they have done to address the problem of modern slavery. I want to stress that there are some companies that have already started down this path. Canadian banks — again, I applaud them — such as RBC and BMO have published statements against modern slavery, and some companies that operate in Canada — such as Adidas, H&M, Under Armour, Ernst & Young and Walt Disney Company — are members of the Mekong Club. That’s a leading organization working with the private sector to bring an end to modern slavery. If you’re not familiar with that organization — and I wasn’t — do an internet search because I think the work is really interesting, and it’s interesting to see who their corporate partners are and what is happening.

I want to point out — and this is an important factor for me in my consideration — this is not against business or an anti-business bill. It’s not about creating additional red tape. We know the struggle that many companies have with that. It is not a useless PR gesture, as some have characterized it.

Responsible business is good business. Transparency is at the heart of good governance, and as someone who has been active in the world of corporate governance and a member of the board of the institute of corporate governance, I know that these are issues that risk committees and boards are taking seriously and are looking at more and more from a governance perspective.

In our age of social media, businesses will and have suffered reputational damage if they don’t address modern slavery. I would point you to the example of Tesco in the U.K. With increasing investor activism and shareholders and investors who are looking to invest in businesses that respect basic human rights, this is an elevated issue of interest. Again, I would point you to the case of Monster Beverage, where it was shareholder and investor activists who brought pressure on that company to investigate slavery risks in its supply chain.

Canada has already made commitments. We need to join our allies in taking concrete steps at this point in time towards increasing supply chain transparency in the efforts of eliminating modern slavery. The U.K.’s 2015 Modern Slavery Act and Australia’s 2018 Modern Slavery Act are a couple of examples of similar legislation. So there are other jurisdictions that are moving on this, and this bill calls for us to do the same.

I mentioned that we already have, as a country, made some international commitments. Ninety governments, including the Canadian government, have endorsed the 2017 call to action on modern slavery. And we have adopted the UN’s 2030 Agenda, which aims to end all forms of modern slavery and human trafficking by the year 2030.

I believe this bill is a helpful step forward in that it is part of Canada’s message to the international community and our allies that Canada will be part of this effort to eradicate modern slavery and that we will not fall behind. As a supporter of the All-Party Parliamentary Group to End Modern Slavery and Human Trafficking, I understand this to be a multi-partisan issue. The Liberal member of Parliament John McKay introduced his private member’s Bill C-423, a modern slavery act, in the last Parliament, and he was supported by Conservative MP Arnold Viersen, who co-chairs the All-Party Parliamentary Group to End Modern Slavery and Human Trafficking.

I know over the years, having listened, that leaders from the Conservative Party have made very strong commitments and sometimes campaign commitments on the eradication of modern slavery and cracking down on human trafficking. In 2012, the Conservative Party of Canada created the National Action Plan to Combat Human Trafficking, which — I’m quoting now — “provides aggressive new initiatives in order to address human trafficking in all its forms.”

The NDP and the Green Party have offered multiple public statements condemning human trafficking and modern slavery and calling for action.

My last message to us is, regardless of our large “P” or small “p” political stripes, here we are finding ourselves united across all these groups. So my message is let’s get together and let’s get it done.