Child Labour In Canada

Seafood boycott in Canada

During every November 15 to May 15, there is a Canadian Seal Hunt from in Canada, which gets lots of attention. There were 335,000 seals were caught in 2006 and 270,000 in 2007 and 275,000 in 2008. (Braunsberger & Buckler, 2009). However, there is always a controversial issue about all of these hunts. The anti-sealing movement can be traced to 1964, there was a company produced a film about the seal hunt. This film was commissioned by the Quebec Government and the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation to anti-sealing hunt. In 1965, this film was played around the world, the government implements the Seal Protection Regulations officially by consumer outrage. Until 1987, Canada forbidden the killing of whitecoats seal and

Child labour has been discussed wildly since 1973.(Kolk and Tulderb, 2002). Child labour is a serious problem for international organisaitons. There are six companies in the report of Kolk and Tulderb, (2002), such as, Levi Strauss, Nike, Gap, C&A, WE and H&M. All of them have their own codes of child labour. The minimum age is 14 and the range of minimum age to employment is between 14 and 18. Some of the six organisations according to the host-country law as standard and some of them use the standard of International Labour Organisation (ILO). However, child labour still happens in the world, especially in developing countries and poor areas. Emergence of child labour depends on the local law, local culture, the extent of development, people’s living standards and so on. Since 1992, Nike had increased the minimum age from 14 to 18. (Kolk, Tulderb, 2004). However, in 2001, child labour had been found in Cambodia, they worked for Gap and Nike. (BBC, 2001). Code of child labour is important, but the more important point is following the code. Kolk and Tulderb (2002) supported the code made by those six organisations, also they believed that strong and effective regulatory system, self-discipline of enterprises, moral constraints, corporate responsibility, support from local government, would be more effective to avoid the emergence of child

In one hand, the first two articles indicated that the emergence of unethical behaviour in food industry. The main issues in these two article are irresponsible behaviour, moral decay and benefits outweigh conscience. The third article is more like to talk about responses from customers, the reactions made by outrage customers and boycott. In the other hand, the final article showed that the unethical behaviour happens in garment industry, which argued about child labour in the big organisations. The unethical behaviour will bring benefit, but only in short term. The payback will come eventually, such as, image damaged, stock decreased, customers lost, trust crisis and so on. So, the unethical behaviour should be foreboded. The influence of unethical behaviour not only reflected in organisations, but customers. Customers are victims, but they are more like defenders of rights. That always reflects in the responses, for instance, boycott. Any negative news will lead customers to feel aversion to organisations. That negative impression will increase until the organisations make a right response. Otherwise, customers will show their own responses to defend their own rights. Boycott is a example of response from customers, which can help customers to defend their rights and punish the irresponsible organisations. Organisations need to avoid