Burnaby-New Westminster MP Peter Julian wants Canada to stop importing goods from sweatshops, but the bill he's proposing is in conflict with labour practices in our own backyard, according to a local SFU professor.
On Wednesday in the House of Commons, Julian reintroduced Bill C-378, which would ban any importation of goods that do not meet International Labour Organization standards.
Marjorie Griffin Cohen, an SFU political science professor, said it's an important initiative to highlight international labour standards, but the bill raises some contradictions.
"Many of our provinces have labour regimes that do not meet international standards," she said.
Children as young as 12 can work in B.C. without government oversight, while international law sets the minimum age at 15, Cohen pointed out.
Julian's bill would also be difficult to implement, she added.
"It would require a lot of knowledge and enforcing, but I'm not sure how you would do that," she said. "It's the kind of thing that probably would not have any chance of passing. I do not believe the government that is the majority would vote for that."
Cohen suspects Julian wants to highlight the issue around Christmas, when people may be buying things made with cheap labour.
"That's often what these kinds of bills are designed to do is create some visibility for some kind of issue," she said.
Julian's bill could also prohibit imports from the U.S. that are made by people in prisons, which would likely cause some friction between the two countries.
"That certainly is slave labour and poorly paid," she said.
According to Julian, multinational corporations are drawn to sweatshops and relaxed environmental, safety and health regulations so they can cut their costs by as much as 50 per cent.
Sweatshop workers are mostly women and children who earn between one and three dollars for a 12-to 16hour workday in so-called free trade zones, Julian said.
"Instead of exploiting poverty, we should be working to make poverty history. If we want to stand up for human rights and discourage the practice of sweatshops, we must first stop marketing products from corporations that do not respect basic ILO labour standards," Julian said in a press release.
Sweatshop workers are often the victims of numerous human rights violations including starvation wages, unpaid and undocumented overtime, and aggression from their employers to meet crushing quotas all while working in hazardous environments, according to Julian.
"If these practices were occurring in Canada, there would be a massive outcry. We cannot treat it any differently just because it is happening somewhere else," he said.
