What do you have to do to comply with Bill S-211?

Name: Ord Digital Inc.
Price range: $

Published July 25, 2023
in News

By Rahul Chandran

Parliament passed Bill S-211 to reduce the use of forced labour in supply chains. S-211 creates a substantial reporting obligation for Canadian businesses, which – if they meet key thresholds – are required to submit an annual report on forced-labour and child-labour in their supply chains.

Who? S-211 requires companies to produce an annual report on their supply chain if they are:

Listed on a stock exchange in Canada OR;
Meet any two of the following conditions in one of the last two fiscal years.
1. $20 million in assets
2. $40 million in revenue
3. 250 employees.
Producing, selling or distributing goods in Canada or elsewhere, OR
Importing goods into Canada; OR
Controlling an entity that does either of the above.

We’re not lawyers, so consult your counsel. A blog from McCarthy Tetrault is here and MNP is here for more authoritative guidance. The text of the bill is here.

What & How? Reports must be approved by the Board of Directors, and include, inter alia,

Structure of your business and your supply chain
What you have in place (policies and due diligence) to manage forced & child labour risks.
Where the risks are in your supply chain, and how you have assessed and managed those risks.
What you have done to remediate those risks AND to remediate loss of income to families because of your remediation actions
What training you offer your employees
How you assess how good you are at avoiding forced and child labour.

Reports have to be made public by May 31 2024.

How do you get started?

Brief: Talk to your board and exec table to bring them up to speed. Make sure they understand that this is a multi-year process, and the first years report will generate future obligations and risks

Begin: Get started on understanding your supply chain, its risks, and due-diligence. Global capacity is tight. Don’t wait until January, because all the expertise will be occupied.

Train: Deploy training to your staff ASAP. This gives you reportable outcomes and concrete first-steps. There are also significant knock-on benefits for recruitment. You get what you pay for in training. Find training that fits your specific industry and supply-chain, or it won’t actually help.

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