- Aug 6, 2012
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Your "allies" to the north. Please America, be loud and confront those nations who abuse our rights and support slavery outside their borders. Such as Canada does in both instances.
Considering what our creepy Security Industrial Complex gets away with from the Toronto Police Services on up, none of this is surprising to people like myself.
We model our policing and human rights based on Russia of the 1980s, slave labour and Canadian businesses go hand-in-hand. We love a good, unaccountable, abusive caste system...
Fox, the assistant port director in New Jersey, says everyone has a moral obligation to act when it comes to forced labour around the world.
"These people are literally modern-day slaves. We correctly look back on the past and talk in depth about what we can do to address the sins of slavery from the past. That's great that we do that, but we have an opportunity to address sins that are occurring today," said Fox.
"As human beings we have an obligation to do what we can to stop that from happening."
Fox told Marketplace that U.S. port authorities regularly share intelligence around forced labour with their Canadian counterpart, the Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA).
But when Marketplace asked the CBSA why it failed to stop shipments into Canada from the same Dandong factory, the agency responded that it requires "legally sufficient and defensible evidence" in order to stop a shipment on suspicion of forced labour, but admitted that it's never actually done that before.
A new law passed in California in September will now hold clothing brands responsible for the wages of all workers in their supply chains within the state.
Canadian brands don't face such scrutiny here.
The government has failed three times to pass the Modern Day Slavery Act, which would require Canadian retailers to carefully monitor their supply chains and report their findings.
Canadian Sen. Julie Miville-Dechêne told Marketplace the fact that Reitmans chose to continue selling clothes from Dandong Huayang illustrates the problem with self-regulation.
"They knowingly [sold] clothes that were at risk of containing forced labour to customers who didn't know about it," she said. "That's the choice they made.... It's unacceptable."
Miville-Dechêne says that without a law, Canadian brands face "unequal competition," whereby the companies that are willing to accept suspected forced labour in their supply chain are able to offer cheaper prices than those that exercise due diligence.
Miville-Dechêne blames delays caused by the pandemic for the recent death of her bill, but she remains optimistic and plans to re-introduce it in the Senate as soon as possible.
"We're far behind other countries, and that makes me really sad because as a Canadian, I think we don't have much excuse for being that far behind," she said, noting that the bill is modest — only asking for transparency — and it could be improved or made stronger at the committee level.
Considering what our creepy Security Industrial Complex gets away with from the Toronto Police Services on up, none of this is surprising to people like myself.
We model our policing and human rights based on Russia of the 1980s, slave labour and Canadian businesses go hand-in-hand. We love a good, unaccountable, abusive caste system...
Canadian brands sold clothing from factory suspected of secretly using North Korean forced labour
The U.S. takes action, but Canada fails to act
Fox, the assistant port director in New Jersey, says everyone has a moral obligation to act when it comes to forced labour around the world.
"These people are literally modern-day slaves. We correctly look back on the past and talk in depth about what we can do to address the sins of slavery from the past. That's great that we do that, but we have an opportunity to address sins that are occurring today," said Fox.
"As human beings we have an obligation to do what we can to stop that from happening."
Fox told Marketplace that U.S. port authorities regularly share intelligence around forced labour with their Canadian counterpart, the Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA).
But when Marketplace asked the CBSA why it failed to stop shipments into Canada from the same Dandong factory, the agency responded that it requires "legally sufficient and defensible evidence" in order to stop a shipment on suspicion of forced labour, but admitted that it's never actually done that before.
'We're far behind other countries, and that makes me really sad'
A new law passed in California in September will now hold clothing brands responsible for the wages of all workers in their supply chains within the state.
Canadian brands don't face such scrutiny here.
The government has failed three times to pass the Modern Day Slavery Act, which would require Canadian retailers to carefully monitor their supply chains and report their findings.
Canadian Sen. Julie Miville-Dechêne told Marketplace the fact that Reitmans chose to continue selling clothes from Dandong Huayang illustrates the problem with self-regulation.
"They knowingly [sold] clothes that were at risk of containing forced labour to customers who didn't know about it," she said. "That's the choice they made.... It's unacceptable."
Miville-Dechêne says that without a law, Canadian brands face "unequal competition," whereby the companies that are willing to accept suspected forced labour in their supply chain are able to offer cheaper prices than those that exercise due diligence.
Miville-Dechêne blames delays caused by the pandemic for the recent death of her bill, but she remains optimistic and plans to re-introduce it in the Senate as soon as possible.
"We're far behind other countries, and that makes me really sad because as a Canadian, I think we don't have much excuse for being that far behind," she said, noting that the bill is modest — only asking for transparency — and it could be improved or made stronger at the committee level.
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