The push for green energy is being tainted by slave labour in global supply chains, particularly in China, witnesses told the Commons trade committee. Blacklock's Reporter says testimony revealed that Uyghur Muslims in Chinese concentration camps are forced to mine crucial materials like lithium and manufacture solar panels.“The turn to green energy to lower pollution and costs is good in theory,” said Mehliya Cetinkaya, program manager with the Alberta Uyghur Association, during her testimony. “However, it is clear this initiative, if sourced from China, cannot and will not be green.”Cetinkaya highlighted that Uyghurs are being exploited as slave labour in the production of materials vital to renewable energy, including lithium, cobalt, and coal. “Trading with China on renewable energy technologies is directly upholding forced labour systems,” she said. “They are forced by the Chinese Communist Party in fear that if they refuse, they and their entire families will be punished or worse, sent to concentration camps.”The issue of forced labour in China has drawn sharp criticism in Canada. In 2021, the Commons unanimously voted to censure China for crimes against humanity, including forced labour and the mass detention of Uyghurs. A 2020 Commons subcommittee report described these abuses as “the largest mass detention of a minority community since the Holocaust.”“Canada’s trade with China can be and is complicit in the Uyghur genocide,” Cetinkaya warned. She also pointed to other Chinese exports, such as textiles and tomato paste, which are produced through forced labour.Concerns about slavery in the green technology supply chain extend beyond China. Chris Crewther, former head of the U.S.-based Global Fund to End Modern Slavery, testified before the Senate in 2022, describing similar atrocities in other countries. “You have situations such as in the Democratic Republic of Congo where over 35,000 children are in child labour mining cobalt, which is used in lithium-ion batteries in electric cars,” said Crewther.He also cited environmental damage linked to renewable energy production, mentioning the illegal logging of balsa wood in Ecuador for wind turbines. “You are helping one country in terms of producing renewable energy while deforesting another nation and impacting indigenous populations linked with forced labour,” Crewther said. “We need to look at those issues on a holistic global basis.”
