Fighting forced labour and CUSMA

The review of the Canada-United States-Mexico Agreement is due in a matter of weeks. Canada’s strategy appears to be to play the long game. Prime Minister Mark Carney has, appropriately, declined to negotiate in public. U.S. President Donald Trump’s strategy (if it can be called that) has been to throw every issue into the air and see what lands.

Having lost the emergency tariff issue before the U.S. Supreme Court, the Trump administration is now conducting an inquiry into the forced labour practices of 60 countries. Like the so-called fentanyl crisis, this should be viewed primarily as a negotiating tactic rather than a substantive effort to address slave-made products in global supply chains.

That would represent yet another missed opportunity to deal seriously with the underlying issue. Working together, North America could become a fortress for freely made products rather than a repository for goods produced through forced labour and child labour.

The differing approaches to forced-labour legislation reflect the broader legal cultures of the two countries. The American approach relies heavily on criminal enforcement, seizures, and a presumption of guilt until proven innocent. It can be effective when vigorously enforced, but it is comparatively weak in generating useful data about the scale and scope of the problem.

Ironically, the previous Biden administration enforced these laws far more aggressively than the current Trump administration. Seizures have reportedly declined dramatically. Observers may speculate as to why enforcement has been curtailed, but it is impossible to ignore that China remains a major source of slave-made goods while Trump is simultaneously seeking improved trade relations with Beijing.

Canadian trade negotiators, therefore, find themselves operating in a morass of profound cynicism. Fortunately, Canada possesses an important legislative tool in the Fighting Against Forced Labour and Child Labour in Supply Chains Act, 2023 (FCLA). It is, in many respects, world-class transparency legislation with meaningful enforcement mechanisms. Like a Swiss Army knife, the model is highly adaptable.

The legislation engages the broader business community by requiring annual public disclosure reports detailing the measures entities have taken to ensure forced labour is absent from their supply chains. It is, in essence, transparency with teeth. It puts the c-suite corporate leadership on the hook for it.

Any corporate officer who knowingly approves or colludes in misleading public disclosures, statements relied upon by consumers, employees, regulators, or investors may face exposure under employment, corporate, criminal, and securities law. The legislation also grants authorities investigative powers, including the ability to seize records and conduct inspections.

As the architects of the legislation, we understood that engaging the broader market and the wider legal system would ultimately prove more effective than relying exclusively on criminal prosecutions. The transparency model seeks to make the eradication of modern slavery part of directors’ fiduciary responsibilities, thereby creating systemic resistance to the infiltration of goods produced with forced labour.

This approach may ultimately prove more effective than traditional criminal enforcement because it mobilizes the market itself against the problem. Forced labour has been prohibited under international law for decades, yet the practice persists on a massive scale. By some estimates, there are more people living in conditions resembling slavery today than at any other point in history.

The persecution and forced labour of Uyghurs in China is one particularly high-profile example. More broadly, there is little doubt that goods produced through forced labour have penetrated global supply chains. Even a superficial review of the substantial reporting data generated through two years of FCLA disclosures is deeply troubling.

These two legislative models reveal much about the legal and political environments of their respective countries. Aggressive criminal enforcement may provide emotional satisfaction, but, without sustained implementation, it offers little insight into the broader dimensions of the problem. When enforcement is reduced in pursuit of geopolitical or trade objectives, the American model risks becoming a paper tiger.

Canada’s model, by contrast, generates significant amounts of data and effectively deputizes the business community in the fight against forced labour. However, if that data is neither analyzed nor acted upon, this country’s system also risks becoming a paper tiger even if there is some hope that the monies secured in the recent fiscal update will enhance FCLA’s effectiveness. 

Moreover, it is hardly a strong negotiating position to argue that Canadian laws are no more effective than American ones. Nevertheless, we live in hope that the data and stakeholder approach will ultimately prove to be more effective.

Rather than escalating trade tensions, the dispute could become the basis for a strategic partnership of both countries while providing the U.S. with valuable intelligence to strengthen its own border enforcement. Canada and the U.S. risk wasting considerable energy imposing tariffs on one another over an issue on which they are, in reality, largely aligned.

Such conflict benefits only those who profit from exploitation and abuse. Both countries possess the capacity to work in concert to protect ethical trade practices and fair competition across the continent. If this dispute is genuinely about forced labour, then there is much constructive work to be done together. But is it?

John McKay is the former Liberal Member of Parliament for Scarborough-Guildwood, Ont., and was the Canadian co-chair of the Canada-U.S. Inter-Parliamentary Group. Julie Miville-Dechêne is a member of the Progressive Senate Group representing Quebec.

The Hill Times

Correction: This story was updated at 9:50 a.m. on May 25, 2026, to reflect that Senator Julie Miville-Dechêne is a member of the Progressive Senate Group, not the Independent Senators Group. She joined the PSG in August 2025.