The Government of Canada has shown an increased interest in expanding commercial ties with China. This drive is largely necessitated by the ever-erratic behaviour of United States President Donald Trump who routinely jeopardizes trade agreements through whimsical tariff demands on critical sectors of Canada’s economy. In that context, Prime Minister Mark Carney is right to seek out alternatives. China is necessarily one of them.

Unfortunately, China—and many of those other alternative trading partners—has a deeply troubling human rights record, including the odious practice of forced labour. Three years ago, Parliament passed the Fighting Against Forced Labour and Child Labour in Supply Chains Act (Bill S-211), an effort led by us. Two reporting cycles have passed, and a pattern is beginning to emerge.

Public Safety Canada still does not appear to know how many entities should or should not report. Of those that did report, approximately 82 per cent identified risks of slavery in their supply chains. The parallel number for government entities was just under 50 per cent. In both instances, the number and percentage of reporting entities is much less than it should be.

It is unclear whether consumers shopping on Amazon, buying groceries, or funding government infrastructure projects understand the risk of slave labour in supply chains. What is clear is that this risk is far higher than we, the authors of S-211, ever envisioned. Eighty-two per cent of reporting organizations and 47 per cent of government institutions acknowledging risk of exposure to forced labour are alarmingly high figures.

So whether one is a consumer, a producer, a human rights activist, or simply an ordinary person with a conscience, benefiting from the labour of a slave seems wrong on so many levels.

The prime minister and his team are preparing for a visit to China. Putting aside for the moment the insidious efforts of the Chinese government to conduct influence operations and extrajudicial intimidation of some Canadians, one wonders whether Carney will raise the issue of Uyghur forced labour or other well-documented shipments of forced-labour products into Canada.

The Americans have turned back thousands of containers of forced labour products at their border, most from China, while Canada has turned back virtually none. We wish the prime minister every success in opening up future trade arrangements, but when one side’s idea of trade is the enslavement of millions of workers, it is hard to see how Canadian businesses can compete.

Given the reported statistics, this may look like placing the proverbial finger in the dike. Looking the other way only lasts so long, and after a while, we are complicit.

It is encouraging to see Canadians boycott American products and travel. It is also encouraging to see Canadians demand more information about their purchases beyond labelling and country of origin. If a barcode can tell a consumer about calories, sugar, fat, additives, and certifications, surely it can also disclose the risk of forced labour in the product being purchased.

While we do not have much hope that the prime minister will be persuasive in changing the policy of the Government of China, Canadians should have some expectation that the government put muscle behind blocking suspected slave-product shipments entering Canada, strengthening reporting expectations for Canadian entities, and enabling consumers to readily identify products originating in high-risk areas. Up to now, the government has not put more money in the fight. There is nothing in the 2025 budget to strengthen the ban on importing goods made with forced labor despite the pledge of the Trudeau government to spend 25 millions more for that purpose.

Canada’s bargaining position with China is not strong. Trump is ever more erratic, with tariffs popping up like a jack-in-the-box. Negotiating new trading relationships with like-minded countries is a tedious process even in the best of circumstances. However, Canadians are quite insistent: no slave products, period. Not only is this the right thing to do, it is also economically advantageous and of net benefit to Canada in the short, medium, and long term. This advice to Carney may be free, but it is worth far more than what he is paying.

Hope is not a policy, and on forced labour, Canada can no longer afford to pretend otherwise.

John McKay is the former Liberal Member of Parliament for Scarborough–Guildwood, Ont., and was Canadian co-chair of the Canada-U.S. Inter-Parliamentary Group. Julie Miville-Dechêne is an Independent Senator for Quebec.

This article was originally published in the Hill Times on January 12, 2026.