Ottawa’s Forced-Labour Bill Leaves Some Child-Labour Imports Outside New Ban, Lawyers Warn

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Ottawa’s effort to strengthen Canada’s border defences against forced-labour goods has exposed an unexpected weakness. Bill C-35 would give customs officers stronger detention powers, establish a public list of high-risk products and require some importers to document where their goods came from. Yet trade lawyers warn that the proposed law removes the existing ban’s explicit reference to child labour.

That distinction could have significant consequences. Children working under threats, trafficking or slavery-like conditions would generally remain protected because those circumstances can qualify as forced labour. Goods produced through other prohibited forms of child labour, however, could fall outside the new border ban when coercion cannot be proven. Parliament is therefore being asked to strengthen enforcement without accidentally narrowing the conduct Canada prohibits.

Canada Is Addressing a Genuine Enforcement Failure

Canada has technically prohibited goods made with forced labour since July 2020, when the Customs Tariff was amended as part of the country’s commitments under the Canada-United States-Mexico Agreement. The prohibition was expanded in January 2024 to explicitly cover goods produced wholly or partly through child labour. On paper, that gave Canada one of the broader legal frameworks among major trading economies. The results at the border have been far less impressive.

By September 2024, the Canada Border Services Agency had intercepted and assessed approximately 50 shipments under the prohibition. Six were monitored as they were exported from Canada, one was abandoned at the border and the remainder were allowed to enter after officials reviewed supply-chain information. Those modest numbers became politically damaging when the United States Trade Representative concluded in June 2026 that Canada had a prohibition but was failing to enforce it effectively. Bill C-35, introduced on June 12, is Ottawa’s attempt to replace the largely reactive system with a more targeted enforcement model.

The New Wording Creates a Potential Child-Labour Gap

The existing Customs Tariff language prohibits goods made wholly or partly through either forced labour or child labour, using definitions found in Canada’s Supply Chains Act. Bill C-35 would repeal that wording and create a standalone prohibition covering goods produced through “forced labour.” Its definition points to the International Labour Organization’s 1930 Forced Labour Convention, which focuses on work performed involuntarily under the threat of a penalty.

Lawyers at McCarthy Tétrault have warned that the proposed prohibition is consequently narrower in one important respect: it does not explicitly mention child labour. Their analysis concludes that goods made through child labour, but not through forced labour, may fall outside the new ban. Lawyers at Blakes similarly noted that Bill C-35 contains no separate consideration of child labour. The omission does not mean all child-labour goods would become admissible. Trafficking, slavery, threats and other forms of coercion can satisfy the forced-labour definition. The concern involves exploitative child work that violates Canada’s current child-labour standard but does not meet the bill’s separate coercion test.

Child Labour and Forced Labour Are Not Interchangeable

Canada’s Supply Chains Act defines child labour more broadly than work performed under direct compulsion. It includes labour by people under 18 that is physically, mentally, socially or morally dangerous; interferes with schooling; violates applicable Canadian laws when performed domestically; or constitutes one of the internationally recognized worst forms of child labour. A child can therefore be exploited even when an investigator cannot prove that a threat or penalty compelled the work.

Consider a hypothetical 14-year-old working dangerously long hours in agriculture or manufacturing and regularly missing school. That situation may satisfy Canada’s child-labour definition even without evidence that an employer threatened the child or the child’s family. Under Bill C-35, customs officials may have to establish the additional elements associated with forced labour before blocking the resulting goods. The scale of the distinction is substantial. The International Labour Organization and UNICEF estimate that nearly 138 million children were in child labour in 2024, including 54 million in hazardous work. By comparison, the ILO estimates that approximately 3.3 million children were among the world’s 27.6 million forced-labour victims.

Bill C-35 Would Still Give Ottawa Stronger Border Tools

The proposed law would allow the foreign affairs minister to establish a list of goods reasonably suspected of being produced wholly or partly through forced labour. Entries could identify the producer, the country or region of production, or both. An importer bringing in a listed product could be ordered to provide prescribed supply-chain information to the CBSA. Failure to provide it would cause the shipment to be legally treated as prohibited, even without a final finding that forced labour was used.

Customs officers would also be able to determine whether goods were produced through forced labour regardless of whether they appeared on the minister’s list. Goods could be detained for up to 90 days, or longer if future regulations permit. Importers and the owners of prohibited goods could be held jointly responsible for detention, storage, transportation and disposal costs. For a business importing perishable seafood, seasonal clothing or time-sensitive manufacturing components, a three-month delay could be financially serious even before a final decision. The bill limits ordinary Customs Act appeal mechanisms, although affected parties could still seek judicial review in Federal Court.

Importers Would Carry More of the Evidentiary Burden

Under the current system, border authorities generally have to gather enough evidence to classify a shipment as prohibited. Bill C-35 would create a more demanding process for goods placed on the high-risk list. When a customs officer requests information, the importer would need to produce the required documentation or face automatic inadmissibility. That could include records identifying factories, farms, processors, raw-material suppliers and other businesses several levels removed from the Canadian purchaser.

The exact documentation standard remains unknown because much of the system will be established through regulations. Trade lawyers are nevertheless advising businesses to improve supply-chain mapping, supplier identification, traceability records, audit procedures and labour-compliance programs. International scrutiny has frequently focused on textiles, apparel, seafood, agricultural products, critical minerals and solar-energy components, all of which can pass through complicated networks before reaching Canada. Large retailers may already possess sophisticated compliance teams, but smaller importers could struggle to trace a product to its earliest inputs. Effective enforcement will therefore depend on clear rules, realistic deadlines and reliable government intelligence—not simply demanding paperwork after a shipment reaches the border.

Washington’s Tariff Threat Accelerated Ottawa’s Response

Bill C-35 arrived shortly after the United States Trade Representative completed investigations involving 60 economies. The USTR concluded that 54 lacked an effectively enforced forced-labour import prohibition, while six—including Canada, Mexico and the European Union—had prohibitions that were not being enforced effectively. The American report criticized Canada’s limited detention record and argued that it had not comprehensively addressed goods connected to known high-risk regions or existing U.S. enforcement findings.

Washington proposed additional tariffs of 10 per cent on goods from economies with partial or inadequately enforced regimes and 12.5 per cent on goods from countries without comparable prohibitions. Qualifying CUSMA-originating goods were excluded from the proposed Canadian tariff measure, and the process remained subject to public comments and hearings. Even so, the threat added urgency to Ottawa’s response during an already sensitive period for Canada-U.S. trade. A public high-risk list and a reverse evidentiary burden directly answer two weaknesses identified by American officials. Whether those measures satisfy Washington may depend less on the legislation’s wording than on how many shipments Canada actually investigates, detains and rejects.

Canada’s Reporting and Import Rules Could Move Out of Alignment

Since January 2024, certain companies and federal institutions have been required to publish annual reports describing their efforts to identify and reduce forced- and child-labour risks. Covered private entities include companies listed on a Canadian stock exchange and some businesses meeting at least two thresholds: $20 million in assets, $40 million in revenue or an average of 250 employees. Their reports must address policies, due-diligence processes, vulnerable parts of the supply chain, remediation efforts and employee training.

Bill C-35 would leave those reporting duties in place. A company could therefore remain legally required to investigate and publicly discuss both forced labour and child labour, while the replacement border prohibition would explicitly cover only forced labour. That creates an awkward compliance divide. A retailer might identify hazardous child labour in a supplier network and disclose it in a federally required report, yet the related shipment might not be prohibited unless officials could also establish coercion. Transparency remains valuable, but disclosure and enforcement serve different purposes. A reporting system can reveal risks; only a clearly drafted import rule determines which goods customs officers must keep out.

Parliament Can Strengthen the Bill Without Losing Its New Powers

The most direct solution would be to restore explicit child-labour language to the prohibition, the high-risk listing authority and the importer-information requirements. Parliament could retain the existing Supply Chains Act definition, which already distinguishes prohibited child labour from ordinary, age-appropriate work. That would preserve the bill’s new enforcement tools while ensuring that dangerous or school-disrupting child work does not become legally easier to import merely because investigators cannot prove threats or compulsion.

Committees could also examine how products are added to and removed from the high-risk list, what evidence importers must provide, how confidential business information will be protected and how quickly officials must make decisions about detained goods. Regular publication of enforcement statistics—including inspections, detentions, findings, releases and countries of origin—would make it possible to determine whether the new regime is working. Bill C-35 remains before Parliament and has not yet taken effect, leaving time to correct the omission. Ottawa has presented the measure as a stronger response to exploitation. Ensuring that its child-labour protections are no weaker than the law being replaced would make that promise far more credible.

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