Anti-Slavery Report Filing

If your Canadian business meets the following criteria, it is legally obligated to file by May 31, 2024, a report on its actions with respect to Forced Labour and Child Labour in its supply chain:

[applicable business] entities include any corporation, trust, partnership or other unincorporated organization that is listed on a stock exchange in Canada, or has a place of business in Canada, does business in Canada or has assets in Canada and meets two of the following three criteria for at least one of its two most recent financial years:

• $20 million or more in assets

• $40 million or more in revenue

• an average of 250 or more employees

Meeting these business criteria, means undertaking a reporting process that aims to cover a time period that precedes the enactment of the legislation, namely the business’ 2023 financial period as to its policies, procedures and actions on forced labour and child labour, also known as anti-slavery processes, in one’s supply chain.

The challenges that one can immediately deduce from this reporting obligation, not the least of which is that in the initial year the business is reporting on its activities in the pre-enactment year, is the difficulty in obtaining and confirming anti-forced labour and anti-child labour practices from one’s overseas suppliers, especially when they are multiple business steps removed and there is little interest in satisfying the perceived highly moralistic requirements of a very privileged Canadian business which had chosen to come to their part of the world for their supplies due in large part to the low priced labour force and the absence of regulatory costs that have forced most of this commercial segment out of Canada and the industrialized West.

Nevertheless, the Canadian federal government is requiring all business entities and government entities that meet its specified criteria to file a report with the Minister of Public Safety, in accordance with the Fighting Against Forced Labour and Child Labour in Supply Chains Act, and amendments to the Customs Tarriff, by May 31, 2024, and every May 31st thereafter.

The report must set out the steps that the business entity has taken during its previous financial year to prevent and reduce the risk that forced labour or child labour is used at any step of the production of goods in Canada or elsewhere by the business entity or of goods imported into Canada by the business entity, including:

• Its structure, activities and supply chains

• Its policies and due diligence processes in relation to forced labour and child labour

• The parts of its business and supply chains that carry a risk of forced labour or child labour being used and the steps it has taken to assess and manage that risk

• Any measures taken to remediate any forced labour or child labour

• Any measures taken to remediate the loss of income to the most vulnerable families that results from any measure taken to eliminate the use of forced labour or child labour in its activities and supply chains

• The training provided to employees on forced labour and child labour

• How the business entity assesses its effectiveness in ensuring that forced labour and child labour are not being used in its business and supply chains

The government’s deadline is fast approaching, such that your business’ report needs to be promptly completed and filed with the federal government.

If your business is looking for legal assistance in completing its filing obligations to the Canadian federal government on forced labour and child labour in their supply chain, contact our law firm for a confidential initial consultation at Chris@NeufeldLegal.com or 403-400-4092 / 905-616-8864.

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