Hon. Julie Miville-Dechêne: Senator Moreau, we just received the latest 2026 report on the compliance of businesses, Crown corporations and departments with the Fighting Against Forced Labour and Child Labour Act, which is a law that I sponsored and that has been in force for three years. This new report tells us that, unfortunately, Crown corporations and departments, which should be leading by example, are submitting increasingly fewer reports on the risks of forced labour in their supply chains.

These entities had submitted 145 reports in 2024. In 2026, only 123 reports were submitted, while private businesses submitted 3,900 reports.

How do you explain this step backward?

Hon. Pierre Moreau (Government Representative in the Senate): Thank you. As you are no doubt aware, the tabling in Parliament of the annual report on the Fighting Against Forced Labour Act coincided with the release of a departmental report on the findings of the public consultations on Canada’s approach to the act. One of the things the government wanted to do was fine-tune its strategy for determining which goods to include on the list and which supply chain information is the most important for effectively identifying risks.

However, I can confirm that federal institutions continue to be subject to obligations under the Fighting Against Forced Labour Act and must report to the minister on the measures taken to prevent and mitigate the risk associated with the use of forced labour and child labour.

I don’t have any specific information on the totals or the number of reports.

Senator Miville-Dechêne: Thank you for that answer.

However, you started off talking about Bill C-35, the second bill in question. Right now, I’m talking about the bill known at the time as Bill S-211, which made reporting mandatory.

Given that there are clearly fewer and fewer government entities submitting reports, how can you expect the private sector to take the legislation seriously if the public sector isn’t doing its part? Why is it that, for the third year in a row, no penalties or fines were imposed on businesses that failed to submit a report, even if they —

Senator Moreau: The government is committed to ensuring that the public sector complies with the forced labour legislation.

In fact, in your preamble and your first question, you correctly stated that 3,878 — to be very specific, you said 3,900 — private businesses had complied with the legislation’s requirements. They have no choice. Businesses have to take the act seriously because the government requires it.

The consultations I mentioned earlier identified a number of —

The Hon. the Speaker: Thank you, Senator Moreau.