Canada's Risky Imports: Supply Chain Risk Report 2026

Executive summary: a Canadian values and economic issue

Canada imported $63.3 billion in goods at risk of being made with child or forced labour in 2025. That is more than $170 million a day on average and roughly 8 per cent of total Canadian imports. From electronics and clothing to gold and coffee, the risk is embedded in Canada's trading relationships.

Canada is actively seeking new markets and aiming to double non-U.S. exports over the next decade. It is also developing stronger legislative measures against labour exploitation, including Bill C-35, which would strengthen Canada's ban on goods made with forced labour. These agendas should reinforce each other: Canada should build protection for children and workers into its trading relationships, not leave it for later.

Key findings

• The value of risky imports increased by 6.2 per cent from 2022 to 2025.
• Electronics remain the largest category at $22.2 billion, followed by clothing and textiles at $15.3 billion.
• Flagged gold imports rose 178 per cent to $7.8 billion, and cocoa rose 220 per cent to $1.48 billion.
• Coffee from flagged origins reached $1.97 billion, up 59 per cent since 2022.
• World Vision calls for one Trusted Supply Chains Strategy, published by the end of 2027.

Where work becomes exploitation

A continuum of labour exploitation helps explain the connection between different abuses: from wage violations and unsafe conditions to severe harm and coercion. Child labour and forced labour are among the most egregious labour rights violations. They are related but distinct, and can occur alongside other abuses. Recognizing that wider picture can help prevent harm and build the enabling environment needed for decent work and vibrant futures.

Child labour is not the same as children working

Child labour includes work below the applicable minimum age, work that harms a child's health or development, and work that interferes with schooling. Hazardous tasks, such as using dangerous machinery, handling harmful chemicals or carrying heavy loads, can be child labour even when a child is old enough for some other work. International Labour Organization (ILO) conventions set common international standards on minimum working ages and protection from hazardous work and other worst forms of child labour.

Not all work done by children is harmful. Age-appropriate chores, permitted light work and safe jobs for young people above the minimum working age can build skills and confidence, as long as they do not undermine health, development or education.

Forced labour means work under coercion

Forced labour is work a person has not freely agreed to do, or cannot freely leave, because of a threatened penalty. Coercion can involve violence or intimidation, but also debt, withheld identity documents or threats to report a worker to immigration authorities. Low pay or poor conditions alone do not establish forced labour; the absence of genuine freedom is central. Children can also be in forced labour, but work does not have to involve threats or physical restraint to be child labour.

The global picture

Worldwide, nearly 138 million children were in child labour in 2024, including 54 million in hazardous work. Separately, an estimated 27.6 million people were in forced labour in 2021. Progress is possible: child labour fell by more than 22 million between 2020 and 2024.

Honduras: Cultivating Futures

Imports from Honduras rose from $95.8 million to $176 million between 2022 and 2025. Honduras is listed for child-labour risk in coffee, and research documents children carrying heavy loads, working long days and being exposed to pesticides and extreme temperatures. These hazards threaten health and can disrupt schooling.

In Honduras, the November-to-February coffee harvest overlaps with school holidays. Coffee pickers and producers depend on seasonal income, and when poverty, unstable earnings and gaps in childcare and education come together, children can be drawn into work. The Cultivating Futures project addresses one of those practical pressures while also strengthening prevention around families and communities.

What changes for children and parents

A network of 11 childcare and development centres gives children aged three through 12 a safe place and learning activities while adults work. The centres supplement school rather than replace it. The network covered five coffee-growing regions, with 45 teachers trained in childcare and child-labour prevention. World Vision Honduras estimates that the centres reduced child labour by more than half a million hours between 2017 and 2025.

Business and local government have a role

Started in 2017, Cultivating Futures brings together World Vision Honduras, the Honduran Coffee Exporters Association (ADECAFEH), JDE Peet's and local partners. Five local governments now allocate funding for care centres and prevention, and World Vision's engagement with the Ministry of Labour and the coffee sector contributed to a national compliance seal recognizing companies taking action to prevent child labour. The next phase aims for 24 childcare and development centres across seven regions by 2030.

A delivery timetable and a test of success

Within 12 months, the federal government should publish the strategy and a public implementation plan, name ministerial leads, align guidance and evidence requirements, design the implementation authority and select the first country-and-sector partnerships. Over years one to three, it should phase in improved reporting and targeted due diligence, put the enforcement and implementation arrangements into operation, and begin two or three prevention partnerships.

Progress should be measured in safer childhoods and better working conditions, not just laws passed or reports filed. For children, track harmful work, school participation and safety. For workers, track recruitment practices, wages, access to complaints and remedy. For businesses, assess clearer expectations, better traceability and less duplication.

How the research was done

World Vision Canada matched documented child-labour or forced-labour risks to Canadian import data. The analysis identified Canadian imports in 145 goods categories from 54 source countries with documented risks in 2025. The estimate covers the value of goods from the listed countries, not the amount proven to have been produced through exploitation.

Risk data come from the U.S. Department of Labor's 2024 List of Goods Produced by Child Labor or Forced Labor, which identifies 204 goods across 82 countries and areas. Import values come from Canada's Trade Data Online, by country of origin, accessed on Aug. 25, 2026. Goods were matched to six-digit Harmonized System customs codes, and each country-and-customs-code combination was counted once per year in the national total.

Comparisons begin in 2022, when customs classifications changed, and use current Canadian dollars, so price changes, exchange rates and quantities affect them. Trade records do not identify which shipments or producers involved exploitation, so the estimate includes the full value of matched categories. Absence from the list is not proof that a product is risk-free. The report was produced with the assistance of AI and reviewed by World Vision Canada staff.