The Acting Speaker (Mr. Kilger): It being 5.30 p.m., pursuant to Standing Order 45, the House will now proceed to the taking of the deferred division on the second reading of Bill C-217, an act to amend the Criminal Code (protection of witnesses).
Call in the members.
[English]
The Acting Speaker (Mr. Kilger): As is the practice, the division will be taken row by row starting with the mover and proceeding with those in favour of the motion sitting on the same side of the House as the mover.
[Translation]
Next, the votes of those supporting the motion on the opposite side of the House will be recorded. The votes of those opposing the motion will be recorded in the same order.
(The House divided on the motion, which was agreed to on the following division:)
Meredith
Minna
Mitchell
Murphy
Nault
Nunez
O'Brien (London-Middlesex)
O'Reilly
Paradis
Parrish
Patry
Payne
Peric
Pettigrew
Picard (Drummond)
Pomerleau
Reed
Regan
Richardson
Rideout
Rocheleau
Sauvageau
Scott (Fredericton-York-Sunbury)
Speller
St. Denis
Taylor
Telegdi
Terrana
Thalheimer
Tremblay (Rimouski-Témiscouata)
Tremblay (Rosemont)
Ur
Vanclief
Venne
Verran
Wells
Zed -107
Duhamel
Hickey
Landry
Lebel
Lefebvre
MacAulay
Paré
St-Laurent
Tremblay (Lac-Saint-Jean)
Walker
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The Acting Speaker (Mr. Kilger): I declare the motion carried.
Accordingly this bill is referred to the Standing Committee on Justice and Legal Affairs.
(Motion agreed to, bill read the second time and referred to a committee.)
The Acting Speaker (Mr. Kilger): Before we proceed, it is my duty, pursuant to Standing Order 38, to inform the House that the question to be raised tonight at the time of adjournment is as follows: the hon. member for Davenport-the environment.
[English]
The Acting Speaker (Mr. Kilger): The House will now proceed to the consideration of Private Members' Business, as listed on today's Order Paper.
That, in the opinion of this House, the government should take measures to prohibit the importing of goods manufactured or containing parts manufactured by child labour as defined under International Labour Organization conventions.He said: Mr. Speaker, it is with pleasure that I rise today to speak to my motion which calls on the Liberal government to take measures to prohibit the importing of goods into Canada made with child labour, one of the great scourges of the contemporary global economy. At the end of my speech I will be seeking unanimous consent for a vote to occur on this motion so that the House might be able to express itself on this very important issue.
This is not the first time the House has had the opportunity to debate this important issue. In November 1994, during the ratification of the World Trade Organization agreement, the House considered a New Democratic Party motion to amend Canada's customs legislation to prohibit the importing of goods made with child labour. We argued at that time that as the international community grappled with the social implications to the globalization of the world economy, there was an obligation to ensure that the emerging new trading rules protected not only the legitimate rights of international investors, but also the legitimate rights of labour, especially the basic human rights of vulnerable groups such as child labourers.
We sought to make a constructive contribution to the trade agenda by joining with a growing international movement seeking to put the social implications of trade front and centre of the project of improving international trading rules. The government, along with the Reform Party, voted against our amendments on child labour and a social clause, signalling that it did not want to be part of the constructive movement to develop an international trading system that pays as much attention to the rights of child labourers as it does to the multinationals.
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It echoed this position in the actions it took in international bodies, siding with those who wanted the child labour problem studied rather than acted on in the OECD and the International Labour Organization.
The government's position appeared to change as a result of the determination and hard work of Craig Kielburger, the young activist whom many Canadians have come to know about recently. Craig confronted the Prime Minister publicly in Asia when Team Canada was touring that part of the world. Craig confronted the Prime Minister on the question of what Canada was doing to help in the struggle to end child labour. It was clear that Craig and the other child campaigners in India and elsewhere struck a deep vein of concern with the Canadian public and the international community.
Through his dramatic confrontation with the Prime Minister, he was able to break through the mantras of the advertising industry which attempts to cleanse the image of their products of the taint of the dreadful human context in which they are often made in developing countries. He was able to pressure the Canadian government to say that it would take action on child labour.
Craig appears to have shamed the government about its inaction, but so far he has not been able, nor have I nor anyone else been able, to shame it into action. The government did put a line in the throne speech about working toward an international consensus on the issue of child labour. It also has made a financial contribution to the ILO's program on child labour, something by the way that I had called for in a private member's motion tabled in the last session of Parliament. Anything more decisive or bold than these timid measures seems very far off at this point anyway.
What I hope to accomplish with today's debate is to help sustain or indeed add to the momentum that there may be on this issue by allowing members of the House to join in the growing chorus of those calling for real international and national action on child labour and to ask the government to put its cards on the table about exactly what measures it will be taking.
For despite the pleasant words in the throne speech, the media reported that Canada's position at the recent meeting of G-7 officials on the unemployment crisis remained one of keeping child labour and human rights out of international trade rules. This is not consistent with what the Prime Minister promised to Craig Kielburger.
The numbers of children involved in child labour in developing countries and the conditions they face are staggering. The International Labour Organization estimates that there are some 200 million children working as child labourers around the world with some 55 million in India alone. The conditions these children work under are often inhuman and in many contexts in India and Pakistan are literally conditions akin to slavery.
Accordingly to the International Labour Organization, half the children in Pakistan's carpet industry die of malnutrition and disease before the age of 12. Girls 10 years of age work in China's special export zones in toy factories for $10 a month.
No one pretends that a social catastrophe on this scale can be overcome overnight. It is a very complex problem that is deeply rooted in the social and economic cultures of some developing countries and in the absence of political structures that respect basic human rights. Most importantly, child labour is also rooted in the globalization of world markets. The fact is that child labour has been growing in tandem with the liberalization of world trade, as multinationals seek to find labour markets with ever lower and lower wages and lower standards. They find the cheapest labour with contractors in developing countries who use children to produce rugs, textiles, garments, shoes, toys and other light manufacturing products which the multinationals market in the global economy.
It is because child labour is so deeply intertwined with international trade that the international community has a large obligation to participate in the efforts to respond to the plight of child labourers and begin the process of eliminating child labour.
Canadians I believe are clearly looking for ways to play a leading and constructive role in these international efforts. The question everyone wants to know is what Canadians and their governments can do to make a difference.
On one level Canadians can make a difference as consumers. The bewildering world of international trade rules, the organizations that operate them, and the obscure jargon of international economics must at times seem to most Canadians as having little immediate or direct bearing on their own lives.
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As consumers we are all directly connected to the global economy. Every time we purchase a pair of athletic shoes made in Indonesia, a toy made in China or a carpet made in India or Pakistan, we are directly involved in international trade and very likely involved as well in the problem of child labour.
A growing number of people in Canada and around the world are awakening to the fact that as consumers of goods made with child labour, we are implicated in the problem. We are complicit in the problem. It is too rare for any of us to feel anxious when buying clothes or toys for our children because we wonder about the children in Indonesia or China that worked in the sweatshops to make the clothing or the toys.
Yet there is an awakening sense that as consumers of goods we have a moral obligation to ask questions about how these goods that we are consuming are produced. That leads us to have a moral obligation to child labourers.
As consumers, potentially we have a great deal of power to change the situation. If consumers did not purchase goods known to be made with child labour, the multinationals who had them produced and imported would have to adjust their business practices. The challenge is in providing information to consumers about how, where and by whom goods were produced.
Two approaches have emerged out of the insight about the potential power of consumers. The first is a movement to attach effective labels to products attesting to the fact that they were not made with child labour. One such program is the recent innovation of the ``Rugmark'' label which addresses the problem of child labour in the South Asian carpet industry, one that is particularly notorious in the use of child labour. There are proposals to extend this kind of approach to other products as well.
The other response to the potential use of consumer power as a tool in the struggle to eliminate child labour is the fair trade movement. Organizations such as Oxfam's ``Bridgehead'' market products from developing countries that are traded on a fair basis, that is with good labour standards and fair prices. Consumers who wish to ensure that they consume goods traded on a fair basis have the opportunity through such organizations to shop in a morally responsible way by shopping through Bridgehead and similar organizations around the world.
The movement for better labelling and the growth of fair trade opportunities for Canadian consumers are developments that I am sure everyone wants to see flourish and expand. Child labour and other problems with international labour standards cannot and should not be solved by conscientious consumers alone.
In the first place, the multinationals have an extremely powerful advertising industry with an awesome grip on our popular culture that they use to hide the social context of how their goods are produced in developing countries.
For every Craig Kielburger who may prod the conscience of Canadians or the Prime Minister by getting a few minutes on The National, there are dozens of sport celebrities with ready-made public reputations who are used by the multinationals to market their goods. It is not really a fair contest and the gap between the millions paid to the sports star to endorse a running shoe in a 30-second ad made in an Asian sweat shop, and the pennies paid to the child labourer to manufacture that shoe in a lifetime of miserable drudgery, has got to be one of the most eloquent condemnations of the new global economy.
The other reason we should not limit ourselves to consumer power is that we are not only consumers making decisions in the marketplace, we are also citizens. We are citizens of a state that is in a position to take action itself, and as a participant in international agencies that are in a position to take effective action toward the elimination of child labour.
Canadians want to know that their government is doing all that it can to play a constructive part in international efforts on child labour. Unfortunately, the Canadian government has not done all that it could do. In spite of being shamed into mouthing some reassuring rhetoric, the policy of the government on child labour has been hands off. It has been content to have the problem studied by the OECD and the ILO. But in its opposition to having the World Trade Organization, the one body that sets trade rules, have anything to do with human rights or labour standards or environmental standards, the government has consistently sided with those who want trade rules to be blind and deaf to child labour and other human rights abuses. Nor has the Canadian government taken any action on its own to restrict the importation of goods made with child labour.
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What are we to make of the government's decision to condemn child labour but permit it in trade deals, to study the problem but not to take action? There are, I think, some unstated assumptions behind the government's inaction: that child labour is an inevitable and inescapable part of the development process; that it is necessary for the children of developing countries to suffer under child labour until their societies properly adjust to globalization; and that in the future the practice of child labour will disappear as the developing economies become more prosperous just as child labour disappeared in Europe and North America.
There are two things terribly wrong with this unfounded confidence in the inevitability of economic progress. The first is its blindness to the fact that much child labour in developing societies has been an outgrowth of so-called economic progress. Child labour is not some old uneconomic social custom that liberal economic practices will eventually dissolve. Child labour has grown as a result of trade liberalization. It is how many societies
have responded to trade liberalization. It will continue to grow as long as low labour costs remain the main source of competitive advantage for developing countries with no labour standards.
The second thing wrong with this optimism is its misreading of the history of child labour in western societies. Child labour did not wither away in Canada as a result of economic progress. It was abolished as a result of the outrage of citizens who thought it was immoral to allow businesses to exploit children, an outrage that eventually forced governments to regulate the workplace and set labour standards to protect children.
If we are to make any headway against child labour in the developing world today, there must be a recognition that it will not happen without the setting and enforcement of legal standards to protect the rights of children. In the current context of globalization, the international community will have to play a role in ensuring that those labour standards are in place.
Let us imagine what would happen if we treated the rights of the multinationals with the same lackadaisical inaction that we treated the rights of children. For example, an integral part of the new world trading rules of the World Trade Organization is the protection of the intellectual property of multinationals. Pharmaceutical companies want to have full rights to the value of their drugs and entertainment companies do not want independents bootlegging their CDs or videos.
Imagine a situation where governments said to the multinationals as they are saying to child labourers: ``We think your rights should be respected, but to actually make trade rules that enforce your rights would destroy trade. But do not worry. We are studying the problem in the OECD and in any case, as these countries become more prosperous by exploiting your intellectual property they will gradually come to respect your rights. Just be patient, it is just a matter of waiting for the proper adjustments to take place''. The multinationals would not tolerate it. They would laugh in the face of any government that offered such an argument.
The trouble is the multinationals have the power to laugh in the faces of governments and child labourers do not. As a result, governments have worked hard to protect the multinationals' interests. China's lack of regulation of black market CDs and videos has kept it out of the WTO. Canadian governments protect multinational drug company interests with drug patent legislation. However, these same governments, the Canadian government among them, have refused to put enforceable clauses on labour rights in international trade agreements. It is the utter powerlessness of children in the face of the very powerful multinational corporations that exploit them that imposes on governments an inescapable moral obligation to defend their rights.
Governments can do two things. They can work together in international organizations to pay as much attention to human rights as economic interests when developing international economic agreement. This could take the form of social clauses in trade agreements. It could take the form of a new mandate for the International Labour Organization to enforce its agreements and conventions. Or it could take the form of a new United Nations body, an economic security council to parallel the existing security council. Whatever the mechanism, it is vital that human rights and labour standards be a central part of the international trade agenda.
Governments can also take independent action. This brings me to the specifics of my motion today. Governments can on their own initiative regulate the trade in goods made by children in contravention of International Labour Organization conventions. My motion today asks the government to take the kind of measure which would compel importers to make a declaration that the goods they are importing were not manufactured by child labour.
It would be important in designing the measures to stipulate that importers would have to attest that their suppliers did not exploit child labour in the manufacture of a product. It is common practice not to hire children themselves but to contract out production to local manufacturers that in turn make use of child labour.
The main advantage of this kind of approach to combating child labour is that it puts the regulatory sophistication of a developed country like Canada at the disposal of a problem of underdevelopment.
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Many individual governments of developing countries are making efforts to introduce regulations to protect children. Many such countries do not have the resources to police regulations on child labour however well intended those regulations may be. Developed countries like Canada have an obligation to help the governments of developing countries prevent multinationals from trading in goods made by children.
Measures by the Canadian government to prohibit the importation of goods made with child labour would put the burden of proof on the large importers and retailers to establish that they have not imported goods made with child labour. The costs of regulation would therefore be shouldered by the corporations themselves.
Some will say that we cannot help child labourers by cutting them off from their source of employment which after all would in most cases be a crucial part of their family's subsistence income. In this regard, some observers have noted that the very success of the Rugmark program in raising public awareness of child labour has hurt child labourers in Bangladesh where firms exporting to
western Europe and North America no longer employ children. Child labour may be exploitative, it has been argued, but for the very poor in very poor societies at least it allows for survival and we would be wrong to remove an opportunity for families to support themselves.
The immediate impact of a successful cessation in international trade in goods made with child labour is something the international community must address. It must do so with a commitment to relate with developing countries in more ways than through liberalized markets. To argue that we should not stop the trade in goods made with child labour because it will harm the standard of living of the poor is to be blind to the fact that the international community can do much more for the very poor than purchase products made by their children.
As everyone involved in international development knows, access to primary education is one of the keys to development. International communities should be helping the very poor by building schools for their children, not by buying trinkets made by their children.
At this point, I would seek the unanimous consent of the House that my motion be voted on at the end of the hour.
The Acting Speaker (Mr. Kilger): Is there unanimous consent?
An hon. member: No.
Mr. Blaikie: Mr. Speaker, I would like the record to show that pursuant to a letter I received from the deputy government House leader, it was the government that denied unanimous consent to my request.
Mr. Ron MacDonald (Parliamentary Secretary to Minister for International Trade, Lib.): Mr. Speaker, first I want to personally commend the member opposite for continuing to put before the public in this House of Commons the very important issue of the exploitation of child labour. He has spoken very passionately about the issue for a very long time. There are others in the House who share his point of view. I think the House would like to recognize that.
The reason unanimous consent was denied is not that anyone in this House believes that this issue should not be dealt with but perhaps it was the method of dealing with it. The hon. member's motion in and of itself is very commendable and touches part of the problem but many of us believe the problem is much larger. Those of us who have been in this place for a while know that sometimes there is only one kick at the can on these things. If a motion which only addresses a small part of the problem gets on the agenda and is dealt with, it will be a very long time before parliamentarians are asked to deal with the broader issues in a more substantive manner.
The member knows full well that these issues are dealt with by the procedure and House affairs committee. The bills and motions are drawn. Very many worthwhile private members' bills and motions come up and in its wisdom, that operating committee determines which will be votable. That committee has representatives from the Reform Party, the Liberal Party and the Bloc Quebecois. It decides on the votable items. It does not mean that certain issues are not important but that the committee does not believe they are issues which at that point should be dealt with.
Before I start my brief remarks in support of what the member has put forward today, I am in an unusual position. I am representing the government which believes that this motion, although the intent of it is very commendable, does not deal with the issue broadly enough.
To the member opposite, a letter was sent by our acting House leader to Mr. Craig Kielburger. The House leader said: ``As deputy leader of the government in the House, I am prepared to discuss with Mr. Blaikie ways and means of asking the House to pronounce itself on this issue in the very near future. This will have to be done in an orderly process in consultation with parliamentary leaders of all parties''. Although consent has not been given for this to be a votable motion, the deputy leader of the government in the House of Commons on behalf of the government has indicated support for the initiative that has been put forward and has put an offer to the member to deal with it expeditiously.
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Indeed, the people in the House and across the country will recognize that no less than the Prime Minister of Canada has indicated by public statements abroad, by statements outside of this place and also in the speech from the throne that this is an issue the government takes very seriously. It is an issue on which the government wishes to find a forum to deal with it very quickly.
The Government of Canada is fully committed to action to end this abuse and to work co-operatively at all levels to ensure the elimination of conditions which limit the chance for all children to achieve their full potential.
The validity of the goal underlining the motion is not in doubt. In fact, there is a great deal of logic to the idea that by making the products of child labour unprofitable, the practice will stop. Action against imports is an area where the government continues to struggle in considering the most effective way it can act on its throne speech commitments to child rights and protection and its
fundamental conviction that economic activity and human rights must occur in tandem.
The debate is about whether prohibiting the import of goods made by child labour in and of itself will actually achieve the goal sought. A number of criteria have led the government deliberations on this issue.
Is this action likely to be effective? Will it go as far as the government believes it will have to go in ending the practice? Labour practices which exploit and harm children present a dilemma of the worst and defining problems of underdevelopment; poverty, failed government, weak democratic institutions, just to name a few. Child labour is also a matter of culture and traditional social practice and a response to family poverty and a lack of access to education. Simply banning the import of goods that are made by child labour does not really deal with the fundamental underlying issues.
In well over 90 per cent of the cases, children work in domestic rather than export oriented activities. Therefore 90 per cent of the activities would go unchecked. Import restrictions would not touch these millions of children, nor would they affect the conditions of underdevelopment which allow abusive practices to continue. Development is a key to ending such practices.
There is evidence to conclude that import bans do not effectively reduce the problems associated with export products, as hard as they try. Rather they would drive the children who have been thrown out of the factories into potentially even more dangerous situations. Employers ready to use such practices are devious, determined and skilled. Other children will be found and their practices probably better disguised.
Canada has made significant advances internationally toward encouraging and implementing a rules based multilateral and open trading system. It is the view of Canada that only by working multilaterally with other governments through international organizations, trade organizations, banks, et cetera, that we can truly deal in an expeditious fashion with the horrendous practice of exploitation of child labour.
We have to look at the selection of the best alternatives to end child abuse. It is the view of the government that the most effective use of Canadian policy to end child labour would be: one, through long term development of co-operation aimed at meeting basic human needs, reducing poverty and promoting good governance; and two, through multilateral actions reflecting Canada's fundamental commitments to human rights and to just, equitable and a rules based trade and labour standard system.
CIDA currently spends about $1 million per day directly addressing the development and protection of the needs of children. A number of these programs are aimed at expressly eliminating the causes of child labour, alleviating its most harmful effects and rehabilitating its victims. The Department of Foreign Affairs, the Department of National Defence and CIDA are also paying attention to the plight of child soldiers and to children in the context of post-conflict reconstruction and transition economies where child employment, often physically very dangerous, is tolerated and encouraged as acceptable features of rebuilding social and economic conditions.
Through CIDA and human resources development and with active policy support from foreign affairs, Canada has provided a grant of $700,000 to the international program for the elimination of child labour, to implement training to that end based on and in conjunction with countries that have committed to end the practice in their own back yards.
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The result of this project will feed directly into conferences to be held in Norway and The Netherlands later this year. These conferences will include over 30 developing and developed countries, including Canada, which will seek to produce real action plans to deal with the real problems of child labour.
Canada was active in the decision of the International Labour Organisation to initiate a new convention to eliminate the most harmful forms of child labour. Foreign affairs and human resources development continue to work closely toward the pending June ILO conference which has child labour as its central theme. The government is also exploring means of providing better consumer education and is working with the private sector and community groups to that end.
Building on the determination of Canadians to play an active role through their governments is a very key part of our commitment. Acting on our commitment in the throne speech, foreign affairs and justice have tabled an act to amend Canada's Criminal Code to permit the prosecution of Canadians who engage in child sex tourism, which is the most heinous form of child labour abuse.
Canada is also working to ensure successful adoption of the optional protocol to the rights of the child concerning the sale of children, child pornography and child prostitution, activities which do not take place only in foreign countries. Unfortunately they also take place on the streets of cities and towns across Canada.
We have also participated in the Americas regional consultation and have contributed substantively to the draft declaration of action in preparation for the conference on commercial sexual exploitation of children to be held in Sweden in August, to which we will be an active participant.
We are learning through like minded countries and through our own experience that success is most assured where multiple approaches which stress local participation in poverty reduction, child care, education and broadly based job creation for youth and adults are emphasized, and where efforts are made on the
multilateral level to implement rules based trade and core labour standards.
The government supports the initiative of the hon. member. However, the government has committed itself in the throne speech and in statements made by cabinet members, in particular by the Prime Minister, to taking its limited resources, its goodwill and its international reputation to the international community to deal with this very real problem.
It is my hope that the offer which has been put forward by our deputy House leader to the hon. member will be taken up quickly. Perhaps in a very short period of time we will find the proper forum and the proper opportunity to have all members of this place participate in the debate to deal with the very far reaching problem of abusive child labour.
[Translation]
Mr. Réal Ménard (Hochelaga-Maisonneuve, BQ): Mr. Speaker, I would first like to tell you that we will be supporting the bill introduced by the hon. member from the NDP, and we hope that this bill will be made votable.
I would like to mention that a few days ago a delegation of Canadian parliamentarians, including myself, went to Geneva to take part in the international conference on human rights. As part of this conference, we visited the International Labour Organisation.
I find it strange, to say the least, that the government is refusing to make this bill votable, because, and I will have an opportunity to explain this in some detail, the point was brought home to us, as Canadian parliamentarians, in figures we were given showing the International Labour Organisation's estimates of the extent of child labour in various countries throughout the world.
I should perhaps read a definition provided by the International Labour Organisation: ``We consider child labour to be any economic activity performed by a person under the age of 15, regardless of their professional status''. There is a clear definition. It is the economic activity performed by a person under the age of 15-not very old really-regardless of their professional status.
The International Labour Organisation estimated that, worldwide, in 1990, there were 78 million children under the age of 15 engaged in economic activities. And of these 78 million, close to 70 million were between the ages of 10 and 14. I think it is important to keep these figures in mind.
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It must be noted that there is, throughout the world and particularly within the large UN agencies, a growing awareness that it is no longer acceptable for 78 million of the world's children to find themselves in the situation of having to choose between education and work.
As the mover of the motion perhaps mentioned in his remarks, Asia now holds the record for the largest number of child labourers. Sometimes, we might think that this is the fate of developing countries, that this is a reality not found in industrialized countries. I myself asked the question when I travelled to Geneva with a number of my colleagues, and I learned that there were companies in Ontario that exploited children, young children that are hired, particularly from immigrant families. I was told that this is also true in the United States, our neighbour to the south.
In the case of Turkey, the International Labour Organisation has more specific estimates showing that in 1994 8.3 per cent of children in that country were economically active. I think that it is important to know, as Canadian parliamentarians, that this is not just a fate that befalls children unfortunate enough to have been born in developing countries.
As a further point of interest, it is also known that children in rural areas are twice as active economically as those in urban areas. Still more interesting, because this gives us some idea of what we will have to do, or what we will have to subscribe to, at the next conference in Norway, to which our colleague has referred. Three-quarters of children involved in economic activity in the various countries around the world, those who make up the 78 million figure I have referred to, are engaged in family businesses.
This adds to the difficulty we will be facing, since there are all sorts of considerations relating to family life, life in cramped conditions, in short to the connections between a child and his immediate family. Three-quarters of children engaged in economic activity are involved in a family business, in very specific sectors such as the textile, garment or rug industries, as the motion's sponsor has mentioned, particularly in Egypt and India. They are also involved in making shoes.
It is important to understand that a connection has to be made in the understanding we members of Parliament must have of this reality between access to education and child labour.
When in Geneva, we came to understand that in the developing countries enrolling a child in primary school can take one-third of a family's cash income. Many of the households in question have a number of school aged children. This is why the International Labour Organization, in parallel with its efforts to help us in the rich countries understand how important it is for us to have solidarity around future child labour legislation in these countries, is making us see how closely related the issue is to education.
We are, I think, capable of understanding this as members of Parliament, particularly those of us who are from Quebec. It is not all that long ago that we too have had to do a lot of catching up as a society in the area of education. It is only when the conditions for
access to primary school are also addressed that it becomes possible to militate against child labour.
Let me remind you that only 68 per cent of children in the world finish primary school, whereas the rate is 95 per cent in industrialized countries. I think these figures remind us of the whole relationship to be made between child labour and education. There is also of course a link, as the mover and the parliamentary secretary have pointed out, between child labour and family poverty. There is also a link between child labour and the overall wealth of a family.
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In studies done by the International Labour Organization, especially for countries like Bangladesh and India, child labour is closely linked to family survival.
There is good reason why the International Labour Organization, through its director general in Geneva, has made it clear that, even within the UN, the issue is extremely sensitive. It is one that strongly divides the rich and the poor countries, because the poor countries are not necessarily prepared to pass legislation.
This takes us back to the question of the transfer of wealth. What is the recommendation of the International Labour Organization? It asks us to set up an international organization and to establish a regulatory framework to monitor this issue. It reminds us that concerned governments should take three basic steps.
The first, obviously, is to establish legislation on child labour. The second is to establish a national policy on child labour that would set public priorities and mobilize society as a whole. The ILO also reminds us that funding for a system of primary education guaranteeing access to quality schools for all children is absolutely vital if the battle is to be won.
I thank the NDP member for introducing the motion. I hope it will be made a votable item, and I want to assure my colleague that the Bloc Quebecois is very concerned about this issue.
[English]
Mr. Bob Mills (Red Deer, Ref.): Mr. Speaker, it is my pleasure to speak to this motion which deals with a very serious and important topic, the exploitation of child labour.
We in the House should be doing whatever we can in the best interests of children who are forced into labour throughout the world. The member who put forward this motion genuinely believes, as we all do, that we must address this problem. In the course of my remarks I hope to outline a non-partisan way to find some answers to this problem.
While Motion No. M-189 makes a very strong statement by prohibiting the importation of goods manufactured through child labour, will it really improve the lives of the children we are talking about? I believe there are other solutions. I welcome what we have heard here tonight. It is certainly a start, but I think there is another approach which I will try to explain.
The main problem with implementing Motion No. M-189 is that many of the children who work in the developing world absolutely need the income to survive. If these kids lose their jobs right away without the simultaneous implementation of programs to feed, house and educate them, we would actually be hurting them, not helping them. This is not just my opinion. I have made a real attempt to try to get answers or at least some possible answers.
I thank the hon. member for Yorkton-Melville who has provided me with information from agencies such as UNICEF and some of the other NGOs around the world. These organizations have looked at this problem for a long time. They are there, they deal with it on a day to day basis. They know where it exists, how it exists and they know the abuses that occur and the evils of it.
This afternoon some of us had an opportunity to talk to five members from CCIC. It is an umbrella organization which tries to bring together the NGOs and put forth a common front not only to parliamentarians but to the donors, industry, labour and to all of the other areas.
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I did not have a long time with those people but I did get the opportunity to present this motion to them. I said I would be giving a speech in a couple of hours and wanted to know what they thought of the overview of what I had to say. I was pleased that we were all are opposed to child exploitation but that we cannot jump right into it, that we must come up with a program, a complete package to deal with this problem. They tended to reinforce what my other research had demonstrated.
UNICEF officials oppose a ban on child labour because they have learned through experience how devastating the results of that can be. For example, just the threat of such a ban in the U.S. led to mass dismissals of children from garment factories in countries like Bangladesh. That is documented. They showed me the figures. They said this is proof and went on with a lot of other proof.
One official said the schools could not absorb them and every one of them ended up in more exploitive, more dangerous and less remunerative work. Some of these poor children were even forced into the sex trade because of the loss of their garment factory jobs.
This is not what Motion No. 189 seeks to achieve but it could be an unintentional byproduct. As a result I cannot support the motion as it is but I would suggest something further that might come up with a solution. I repeat, we all abhor the exploitation of children but we must have a back-up. We must have something else to offer.
Going back to the UNICEF study on this issue, those people surveyed over 2,000 garment factories that employ around 12,000 children. They found that almost 90 per cent of the children were from single parent households and homes where there had been a death or a disability. More than 50 per cent of the children were the sole supporters for those particular families.
In addition, often the children were girls who accompanied their mothers to the garment factory, and it was found that it was safer for them to be working alongside their mothers than if they were left home alone.
I also draw on some of my personal experience. I think back to a visit to Nepal where I had the opportunity to visit with a number of Tibetan children who were making rugs. I thought I would be there for 10 minutes but I ended up there for a couple of hours. The amazing part was that those kids they knew five languages. These were 12, 13 or 14-year old kids. They had gained that experience from talking to tourists, from selling their rugs. I asked them about what they were doing. The dedication they felt in producing those rugs, in selling those rugs, in raising that money for their families and for the refugees who were coming from Tibet was quite amazing.
I thought they would have been unhappy, angry about the situation, but it was quite different. I have been lucky to talk to kids in factories in Egypt, India and Rwanda, and it is the same sort of thing. I am not saying we should condone that. I am saying that before we put them out of a job, we need an alternative.
What might that be? Clearly the problem of child labour is complex. There is not an easy fix for it. A longer term solution which takes into account the needs of the children and their families is what we really need to do.
If the government would like to pursue such a solution through Canada's development aid program, perhaps to start off we could take a look at it in the foreign affairs committee, of which I am a member.
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I do not think there would be anything more rewarding for that committee than to take on a project like this. We would be able to say instead of doing some of the meaningless work we do, let us talk about this child labour situation. Let us examine the facts. Let us come up with a solution. Maybe there is a better way.
Through the co-operation of the NGOs, and I know they would love us to get involved in a project like that, maybe we could collectively come up with an answer where our aid program, instead of going off to a government somewhere, could actually go to change lives.
If nothing else, we would give those kids the money it would take to go school, maybe at night at first. Maybe they would work during the day with their parents and then go to school at night. Maybe that is a possibility. However, we would help to better those kids.
I do not have all the answers. All I know is there is a problem here. We all agree there is a problem. I have heard all the speakers here agree. Maybe this is something that would be really meaningful that we as parliamentarians could put our stamp on and say we collectively, as Canadians, did this for those impoverished kids.
While I support the whole concept, I cannot support this motion. I know the member for Winnipeg Transcona has moved it with the best of intentions. That is why I would like to see the government take a long term, comprehensive approach to the problem of child labour.
I also suggest the foreign affairs committee would be an appropriate forum for holding these meetings on this topic, interview witnesses, make recommendations to government and hopefully come with a solution to this serious problem.
Mr. George Proud (Parliamentary Secretary to Minister of Labour, Lib.): Mr. Speaker, as I listened to the speakers this evening in this debate I can say this is one of the rarer moments in this place where I have no doubt there is unanimous agreement about the spirit of the motion among all members here.
The economic exploitation of children is a violation of basic human rights. It is a violation that certainly outrages the sense of fairness and decency shared by virtually all Canadians.
I know very well that if we held a vote calling on nations to abolish child labour, all members of this assembly, regardless of their political affiliation, would be on their feet to support such a motion.
The hon. member for Winnipeg Transcona, who brought this motion forward, believes its passage would be a significant step by Canada in that direction. Regrettably it is rather more complex than that. Sweeping condemnation of all child labour assumes all children who work are being exploited. However, in many countries, including Canada, part time work is a fact of life for many children and it is neither exploitative nor detrimental to a child's development. It can help young people acquire skills and build confidence.
I know the hon. member will say he is not addressing part time jobs of people working at restaurants, McDonald's or delivering newspapers after school, and I understand that. However, to effectively combat exploitive child labour we must distinguish between work that helps a child grow into a responsible adult and work that is clearly detrimental to their well-being. That is the approach of the Government of Canada.
Oppressive child labour is rooted in poverty but it is also influenced by culture and traditional social values. Its eradication will not be easy. Simply putting children out of work is not the
answer. We need alternatives that ensure their education, their care and, equally important, substantial incomes for their families.
With reference to the hon. member's call for the government to prohibit imported goods made by child labour, as defined under the International Labour Organization conventions, let me point out that Canada is a member of the governing body of the ILO secretariat. We are represented by officials of labour programs from Human Resources Development Canada.
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That enables us to play a proactive role within the ILO. I am sure the hon. member for Winnipeg-Transcona is aware the ILO has taken a number of initiatives regarding child labour. An agency of the United Nations with 173 member states in 1973, it adopted convention 138 which addresses the minimum age for admission to employment.
There is considerable compliance in Canada with the underlying principles of convention 138. For instance, all jurisdictions in Canada have protective legislation specifying conditions under which children under the school leaving age can be employed. The employment of children under the school leaving age is generally prohibited during school hours. In terms of work outside school hours, jurisdictions generally prohibit work for young people under specified ages in specific occupations and situations which are likely to be injurious to their life, health, education or welfare.
Nevertheless, there are some divergences between the convention's requirement and the Canadian situation. No jurisdiction in Canada prohibits all work, including light work, for children under age 13. The general approach in Canada is that light work outside school hours can be a valuable a learning and socializing experience.
For these reasons, ratification of convention 138 is still under consideration. The agreement of all jurisdictions would be necessary to both ratification and implementation of the convention.
Canada is also supporting the global effort by the ILO to eliminate child poverty through the international program for the elimination of child labour, commonly known as IPEC. Last February the Minister of Foreign Affairs, in co-operation with the Minister for International Co-operation and the Minister of Labour, announced that Canada is contributing some $700,000 to assist in this program
Canada's contribution to the IPEC will enable the program to carry out its work, an endeavour that encourages governments to conform to international minimum age requirements for workers. This investment will help move us closer to the ending of the exploitation of nearly 200 million child workers around the world.
The hon. member is no doubt aware that the ILO is holding its annual conference in June. Child labour is expected to be on the agenda of the formal tripartite meeting at the ministerial level. The Minister of Labour will head the Canadian delegation which will seek the support of other delegations to have the ILO member states address the most abusive forms of child labour.
Besides the measures I have mentioned, in 1991 the Government of Canada ratified the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child. The convention required signatories to protect children from economic exploitation and to protect them from work likely to interfere with their education or cause harm to their health or well-being.
Support for children is an important aspect of Canada's development aid program. My colleague from Dartmouth said a few minutes ago that about a million dollars a day from CIDA's budget is devoted to programs that address the needs of children.
As a member of NAFTA, Canada is a partner in the North American agreement on labour co-operation which also includes the principle of labour protection for children and youth.
Furthermore, we are not relying solely on measures now in place. The government is currently working with the ILO to build an international consensus. This consensus, which will be discussed at the 1998 ILO conference, will explore the establishment of a new legal instrument to strengthen international action against the worst forms of child labour. We believe our principal focus should address the main abuses suffered by working children.
The hon. member's motion calls for the government to take unilateral action to prohibit the import of goods made by child labour. My colleague from Dartmouth has already spoken on that matter. There is also a risk of driving the problem underground which would force working children into even more dangerous situations.
It is important to stress the government's unequivocal position that trade and human rights objectives are not in competition with each other. They are mutually reinforcing. They enable us to express our basic values. They enable us to work for clear and open rules to govern trade. In this way we reinforce our values and move closer to achieving our trade and human rights objectives. Besides working with the business community, the government is prepared to consult with trade unions, anti-poverty and child advocacy NGOs in the academic community.
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In closing, I say to the hon. member for Winnipeg Transcona that I share his frustration. I share his anger that exploitative child labour exists. However, I honestly believe the government has a more effective approach which will contribute to long term solutions. For that reason I regret that I am unable to support the hon. member's request for unanimous consent to have this motion made votable.
Hon. Charles Caccia (Davenport, Lib.): Mr. Speaker, in the two minutes which are remaining it is possible to say that the hon. member for Winnipeg Transcona has once again come forward with an excellent initiative.
We have all heard various viewpoints. It is an initiative which requires political will and the unanimous, full voice of Parliament. It is not one of those issues where we can say, ``Yes, but-'', with a long list of qualifications which would have to be met before action is taken. It is one of those issues on which a political decision is made by way of the unanimous consent of the House, which would send a political signal to the government.
The hon. member for Red Deer elaborated at length on all the qualifications which would be required for him to support the motion. Every i would have to be dotted, every t would have to be crossed. The hon. member for Winnipeg Transcona met most of the items which were mentioned in the intervention of the hon. member for Red Deer.
The matter before us has moved and touched the Canadian people profoundly as a result of what they saw on television a few months ago.
Obviously, parallel initiatives will have to be taken. However, first and foremost the international community must send a strong signal, not simply in Geneva at the ILO, but also in this and other Parliaments, to let the world know what we think of child labour and the remedial action that must be taken. In that respect I am sure that most members of the House would fully support the hon. member for Winnipeg Transcona.
The Acting Speaker (Mr. Kilger): The time provided for the consideration of Private Members' Business has now expired and the order is dropped from the Order Paper.