Ottawa tables law putting onus on shippers to prove imports are free from forced labour

Prime Minister Mark Carney’s government is proposing a new law to block imports produced with forced labour that would put the onus on shippers to prove their goods are free of coerced work.

This bill was tabled nine days after the U.S. threatened a new tariff on goods from dozens of countries including Canada for their alleged failure to stop imports of forced labour.

Bill C-35, tabled Friday, would allow the Foreign Affairs Minister to designate a list of specific goods, producers, countries or regions where there are “reasonable grounds to suspect” forced labour is taking place.

The legislation would empower customs officers to stop shipments associated with listed targets for up to 90 days.

There is no proposed list yet. It would be drawn up after the legislation passes.

Importers of these listed goods must, on request, provide Canada Border Services Agency information to demonstrate their products are free of forced labour. If they don’t, the goods are automatically deemed prohibited, the bill said.

Last week, the Trump administration said it would impose tariffs on 60 countries, including Canada, for allegedly not doing enough to address forced labour in their supply chains. The move was widely seen as a bid to rebuild parts of the administration’s tariff wall that the U.S. Supreme Court struck down earlier this year.

The proposed U.S. tariffs have a carve-out that means they won’t apply to products compliant with the United States-Mexico-Canada trade agreement, or USMCA, which covers most Canadian goods.

Robert Oliphant, parliamentary secretary to the Foreign Affairs Minister, denied to reporters in Ottawa on Friday that the threatened U.S. tariffs are what motivated Canada to act. “That is not the principal reason we are doing this now,” he said, saying it instead reflects changes originally planned and announced by the former Trudeau government in 2024 that were never enacted.

However, he said he thinks

Washington will like the proposed legislation.

“This will satisfy any concerns that any other country will have, including the United States,” Mr. Oliphant said, adding later, “As I look at this law, as I read it today, I am very satisfied that it will be the foundation for a good relationship with the United States.”

Unlike a 2021 U.S. law, the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act, Bill C-35 would not automatically designate any region as presumed to be a source of forced labour. The U.S. law deems any goods from China’s Xinjiang region to be made with forced labour and importers are required to prove otherwise.

Senior Canadian government officials declined to say in a technical briefing Friday whether China’s Xinjiang region would be on the list. In a Jan. 22 statement, human-rights experts appointed by the United Nations warned of “persistent allegations of forced labour affecting Uyghur, Kazakh and Kyrgyz minority groups as well as Tibetans” within Xinjiang and other parts of China.

William Pellerin, partner with McMillan LLP’s international trade group, said he believes it’s unlikely China as a country would end up on Ottawa’s list. “Especially for China, this may be politically unpalatable for Canada to do,” he said. The Prime Minister is currently trying to expand political and business ties with Beijing.

He said what’s more likely is that Canada may list foreign companies, including Chinese ones, that are alleged to have forced labour in their supply chains.

“The importer will be required to give evidence,” that their products are free of coerced work if they are on “a list of goods which have the potential to be made with forced labour,” Mr. Oliphant said.

“If there’s something in those containers that is on the list, then the importer has the responsibility to say: ‘Here’s the evidence that these come from bona fide factories, bona fide labour standards are in place and the work that is being done is at a fair level.’”

He acknowledged there have been “gaps” in Canada’s enforcement of existing safeguards against forced labour imports. “We’ve heard from Canadians that they have a fear they may be getting goods made with forced labour,” Mr. Oliphant said. He noted Canada has only intercepted two shipments made with such labour.

He was referring to data from CBSA that show the agency has detained multiple shipments because of concerns that the goods might be products of forced labour. But of these, only two were ultimately blocked from entering Canada after CBSA confirmed these concerns: a shipment of textile products in 2024 and a shipment of frozen seafood in 2025. Both were from China.

Stephen Pike, a lawyer with Gowling WLG and co-leader of the firm’s environmental, social and governance advisory services practice, said it’s a concern how a company would able to appeal to have its name and its branded products removed from this list.

Senior government officials in a Friday briefing on the legislation could not say through what process a country, region, producer or product could be added or removed from the list. They said this has yet to be determined.

Georgina Alonso, senior research and advocacy officer at Above Ground, a human-rights and corporate-accountability project, said C-35 “has the potential to significantly improve enforcement of Canada’s import ban on goods made with forced labour.”

“However, much remains to be seen, particularly with respect to implementation and enforcement,” Ms. Alonso said. “It’s unfortunate that it’s taken the threat of tariffs from the U.S. to follow through on past promises when the government has been aware of the failures of enforcement for a long time.”

Conservative foreign affairs critic Michael Chong said MPs in various parties have long called for stronger action to block imports made with forced labour. “It shouldn’t have taken five years for the government to introduce this legislation.”

Last week, the Trump administration said it would impose tariffs on 60 countries, including Canada, for allegedly not doing enough to address forced labour in their supply chains.