By Arnold Viersen and John McKay and Andreanne Larouche. Published on iPolitics on December 2, 2021.

Dec. 2 is the International Day for the Abolition of Slavery. Tragically slavery continues to flourish with an estimated 40 million men, women and children trapped in a form of modern-day slavery.  

Each day, the demand for green technology grows exponentially in Canada and around the world. Like many of the products we consume in North America, however, green technologies are not free from modern slavery. While the international community has made important steps forward to combat modern slavery, the growing global push to reduce our carbon footprint and invest in greener technologies threatens to increase modern slavery.  

Over the past few years, green technology, namely solar panels, wind turbines, lithium-ion batteries, and semiconductors have been produced in countries well-known for human rights abuses, particularly communist-controlled China. Further, the extraction of raw materials to produce these technologies are also most often mined overseas using forced labour and child slavery.  

For example, China is a leading manufacturer of solar-grade polysilicon, an input in the production of solar panels, producing 75 per cent of this input’s global market share. But in June 2021, the U.S. Department of Labor’s List of Goods Produced by Child Labor or Forced Labor was amended to include polysilicon that China produces for solar panels.  

Forty-five percent of China’s global solar-grade polysilicon supply is manufactured in the Xinjiang region, where much of the population is made up of the Uyhgur and Kazakh minority groups. Forced labour in the Xinjiang region is commonplace; reports have identified 90 Chinese and international companies whose supply chains are tainted by forced labour.  

Labour programs operated by Chinese government departments subsidize companies for taking minority workers, such as the Uyghur and Kazakh people in the Xinjiang region. The Australian Strategic Policy Institute found that minority workers are coerced into labour and have limited freedom of movement, and labourers are often taken from families whose members are care-dependent on the labourers. This has led to thousands of elderly people and children being placed in state care. Researchers at Sheffield Hallam University found that all polysilicon manufacturers in the Xinjiang region have participated in these labour programs. 

When it comes to another important green technology, wind turbines, by 2020 seven of the top 10 manufacturers of wind turbines were Chinese companies and over 50 per cent of the most recent global wind technology infrastructure installed was built in China.  

Lithium-ion rechargeable batteries are also critical to increasing our green technology. Cobalt is a vital input in the production of these rechargeable batteries and 70 per cent of cobalt production is derived from the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). Professor Roger-Claude Liwanga states that “at least 7.5 per cent of the world’s cobalt ores are extracted, transported, sifted, or washed by children in DRC.” Further, Chinese companies now refine over 80 per cent of all global raw materials and produce 60 per cent of lithium-ion battery components.  

We believe that Canada must ensure that our efforts to reduce our carbon footprint and protect the environment do not come at the cost of increased slavery and human rights abuses. That is why we are proposing Canada take a three-pronged approach.  

First, many of the inputs for green technologies could be produced or extracted in Canada where we have strong labour protections for workers. Polysilicon is not currently produced in Canada but could be. Mica, cobalt, and lithium are also all available and extractable in Canada once the necessary infrastructure is established to extract, process, or transform these materials into green technologies.

It is encouraging that both the Liberal and Conservative Parties have committed to action on this front.  On Dec. 1, MP Michelle Rempel-Garner raised this during Question Period:

“(W)e are going to need a lot of rare earth minerals in order to build things like batteries for electric powered cars, but we know that in certain countries, child labour is what supports the mining of those particular minerals. Would the Prime Minister commit to sourcing rare earth minerals for the batteries that power Canadian electric cars from fair trade Canadian mines as opposed to offshoring our jobs to child foreign labour?”

To which Prime Minister Trudeau agreed: 

“(T)here is an alternative to minerals from China right here in Canada, whether it is cobalt or nickel or lithium or copper or other metals that are essential in the production of the technologies that we use every day and will lean on even more into the future. Canada can be a strong, safe, reliable supplier of these minerals to ourselves and to our allies around the world. That is exactly what we are moving forward on.

Secondly, Canada is in desperate need of improved supply chain legislation for all our imported goods. Senator Julie Miville-Dechêne’s recently reintroduced Bill S-211 (Fighting Against Forced Labour and Child Labour in Supply Chains Act) aims to hold Canadian companies responsible to ensure their supply chains are free of modern slavery and child labour. We urge the government to support this bill or introduce their own supply chain legislation.  

Finally, we must employ rigorous sanctions and embargoes on companies that engage in, or are suspected of being engaged in, forced labour and human rights abuses. The United States, under the previous and current administrations has regularly imposed sanctions on companies and products alleged to involve slavery. However, as a CBC investigation revealed, it wasn’t until a month ago, that Canada actually halted a shipment of goods “mined, manufactured or produced wholly or in part by forced labour” from entering Canada. 

The current Canadian government’s goal to fight climate change must include the robust oversight to ensure that production processes of green technologies are free from coercion, exploitation, and all forms of modern slavery.   

Canada’s plan to increase green technology production cannot come at the expense of workers in forced labour conditions. We must continue to protect the environment while defending the human rights of those trapped in slavery. 

Arnold Viersen is the Conservative MP for Peace River—Westlock and co-chairs the All-Party Parliamentary Group to End Modern Slavery and Human Trafficking. John McKay is the Liberal MP for Scarborough—Guildwood and co-chairs the same group. Andréanne Larouche is the Bloc Québécois of Parliament for Shefford and co-chairs the same group.

Article can be found at iPolitics: https://ipolitics.ca/2021/12/02/fighting-climate-change-cant-come-at-the-expense-of-human-rights/