Thank you, Mr. Chair, and Mr. Chong.
Sam and Aileen, it's great to see you both. Thank you for your presence here, but, more importantly, thank you for your work on such a vital issue.
I think it's important to underline how this issue—products made by slave labour being imported into Canada, and Canadian pension dollars, or other dollars from Canada, being invested in companies that are part of repression in China—is fundamentally not a new issue. This is an issue both of you have been working on, and sounding the alarm on, for years. We've discussed it in Parliament and various committees.
I'm pulling up a 2019 question by my friend Mr. Kmiec, who's sitting here beside me. He asked the government specifically about CPPIB investments in companies that are complicit in crimes related to the Uighur genocide. It was three and a half years ago, at least, that we raised these issues in Parliament. I think the extent and horrors of the situation called, then and now, for an ambitious action plan from the government. We continue to talk about it and hear some of the right words from government members, but the fact is that we haven't seen any kind of action, or action plan, around this.
We talked a bit about Bill S-211. That's a private member's bill. It was proposed by an independent senator, championed by various members, and sponsored by a backbench member of the governing party, but we haven't seen any kind of government legislation, efforts to negotiate new international agreements, or substantive proposals. There's been a lack of government response and ambition in trying to address this very significant problem. It's great that you're here and we're talking about this, but I think it's far past time that the government take some action on this.
When it comes to the CPPIB specifically, the response to my honourable friend, three and a half years ago, was that CPPIB operates independently, at arm's-length, and that the government trusts its decision-making. The response to questions I've posed to directors at the CPPIB has been, “Well, we operate under framework legislation. We're constrained by that framework legislation. That defines the factors we should or shouldn't take into consideration.” There is a bit of finger pointing both ways going on here, but we desperately need some action. I think leadership has to start with the government.
Could you comment specifically on what kinds of concrete actions you would like to see the Government of Canada take, as soon as possible, to address the unacceptable importation of goods involved in slave labour, or investment in companies involved in this?