Our names are ______. We are from ______. We are writing to you to ask that you create good Mandatory Human Rights Due Diligence laws for all companies operating in, selling goods or services in, or headquartered in Canada. This will help workers, communities, and ecosystems around the world and contribute to the creation of a fair world where current people and future generations have what they need.
Right now, companies are doing horrific human rights abuses and environmental abuses all around the world.
First of all, workers are being horrifically overworked and incredibly underpaid in intensely dangerous working conditions. Three million workers die every year due to workplace accidents or poisoning. Fifty million people are literally being held in modern slavery. Ten percent of children worldwide are doing child labour. Two thirds of the world are in multidimensional poverty, where they don’t have five or more of their basic needs (such as food and sanitation and education) met. Forget living wages, most workers are not even paid bare subsistence wages. And experts have described working conditions as soul-destroying for workers around the world.
Local communities around factories and plantations and power plants and mines and whatnot are also being polluted. Chemicals from industrial developments leach into the ground, air, and water, poisoning people, destroying crops and plants, and killing local fish and wildlife. This leads to many people dying from being poisoned or losing their livelihoods. People lose their access to clean water and air, to food, and to life.
And the environment is being harmed by industrial activities too. We are at the start of the worst biodiversity crisis the earth has ever faced. Ecosystems all around the world are collapsing, and will continue to collapse. Not to mention, the climate is warming and causing devastation for people the world over. All humans rely on a healthy climate and healthy ecosystems for fertile soil, clean water, safety from extreme weather, pest and disease control, and the list goes on. But it is the actions of industry, companies, and supply chains that are the biggest contributor to the climate and biodiversity crises.
And often, when people stand up for the air and water and land, when they stand up for their communities and/or their fellow workers, they are threatened, intimidated, or even killed.
The companies that are headquartered in Canada or sell their products in Canada are benefitting from and causing all these problems. Their supply chains are rife with human rights abuses and environmental abuses, and they do not take adequate measures to stop the many abuses in their supply chains. Because of this, Canada and all Canadians are guilty of destroying the world and uncountable lives.
But a better world is possible. Mandatory Human Rights Due Diligence Laws, or Mandatory Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Laws, or whatever you want to call them, would ensure that any companies that abuse the workers, local communities, and local environments tied to their supply chains are made to pay. Not just made to pay a fine, which companies don’t mind and only view as a cost of doing business, but actually made to face justice and jail time.
These laws are necessary in order to ensure that workers and other people are given the human rights and human dignity they deserve, and they are necessary in order to protect the world’s ecosystems so that future generations can live. Without due diligence laws, the situation will continue to get worse and worse. But with due diligence laws, we can see improvement.
Please enact Mandatory Human Rights Due Diligence Laws.
Thank you,
Send to:
Prime Minister Trudeau- [email protected]
Deputy Prime Minister Freeland- [email protected]
Minister of Foreign Affairs Joly- [email protected]
Find your MP here: https://www.ourcommons.ca/members/en
Minister of Women and Gender Equality and Youth Ien- [email protected]
Minister of Environment and Climate Change Guilbeault- [email protected]
Minister of Energy and Natural Resources Wilkinson- [email protected]
Minister of Export Promotion, International Trade, and Economic Development Ng- [email protected]
Minister of International Development Hussen- [email protected]
Minister of Innovation, Science, and Industry Champagne- [email protected]
Minister of Fisheries, Oceans and the Canadian Coast Guard Lebouthillier- [email protected].
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