44th Parl. 1st Sess.
November 8, 2023 02:00PM
- Nov/8/23 5:50:46 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, yes, I know there are areas in which the government has made progress. Still, if I may offer a sobering reminder, when we are barely over the starting line, it is easy to pat ourselves on the back and say we have made progress. However, there is still a long way to go, and the government needs to focus on what is left to be done.
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- Nov/8/23 5:51:15 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, as my colleague aptly pointed out, the report in question is a little out of date, but it looks at the issue of greenhouse gases and the environment, as well as the associated costs. When we go through the documents, one interesting thing we find is that there is a supplementary report. The government's response was mentioned, but the Conservatives also make recommendations, including “That TBS provide Canadian taxpayers with clear and transparent cost projections for achieving net-zero emissions by 2050.”
Is this not precisely more grandstanding from the Conservatives, something we often see, for example when they talk about the carbon tax and other things only to ultimately steer us toward the conclusion that protecting the environment is costly?
In this regard, I congratulate my colleague on her excellent speech.
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- Nov/8/23 5:52:08 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I would like to thank my colleague for that question. Often, we see that the Conservatives are not doing anything to help themselves or their country to make progress in the fight against climate change. There is a lot of filibustering. We see it in every committee. We see it in the House. Unfortunately, that does not help anyone, even their constituents, in the fight against climate change.
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- Nov/8/23 5:52:37 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I have spent some time with the member in our Standing Committee on Public Accounts, and I quite enjoy our time there. I find ourselves often agreeing, in particular when it comes to environmental work.
When I received the report from the environment commissioner, I was quite shocked that, with the current government in particular, which touts being one of the most environmentally friendly there has ever been, we see damning reports. How would the member rate the government on environmental issues, given the auditor's responses?
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- Nov/8/23 5:53:12 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I thank my esteemed colleague with whom I do have the pleasure of sitting on the Standing Committee on Public Accounts. We definitely tend to agree on these issues.
I will not be giving the government a grade today in the House. However, I can say that, if I did, it would not be a passing grade, since the government is not even capable of achieving its own objectives. It cannot pass a test. I will not give it a grade, but, what I do know is that it would be well below 60%, which is the passing mark.
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- Nov/8/23 5:53:47 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I congratulate my colleague on her very clear and enlightening speech on the repercussions of climate change and the social cost of not taking care of the environment. Our Conservative friends could not care less about that, but there is a social cost. My colleague talked about what that costs a society. This social cost has even been highlighted by the International Monetary Fund, or IMF. The IMF—which is not Équiterre, Greenpeace or some far-left environmental organization—published an analysis that Le Devoir reported on under the headline, “Canada's fossil fuel subsidies reached $38 billion U.S. last year [in 2022]”. The article states the following:
The vast majority of the subsidies cited by IMF researchers, or $36 billion U.S., comes primarily from public funds linked to our dependence on fossil fuels. These include the impacts of greenhouse gas emissions and the associated climate crisis, the consequences of air pollution (including premature deaths), and the costs of traffic congestion and road accidents.
We are talking about $50 billion in 2022 handed over to an industry that made $200 billion in profits that same year. The math is simply unbelievable. That amounts to $50 billion in repercussions for Canada. I think my colleague gave a really brilliant outline of the $50 billion. I thank her very much.
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- Nov/8/23 5:55:09 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I thank my colleague for mentioning that figure, because it is really very important. It shows that, when it comes to the government, the right hand does not know what the left hand is doing.
On one hand we have a minister who is quite pleased to talk about strategy and say that it is fantastic, that the government is good and that the friends at Équiterre are happy with the government. On the other hand, $50 billion is being sent to an extremely polluting industry that pockets exorbitant profits.
It is really problematic that there is so much hypocrisy in the government, a government that does not know how to walk and chew gum at the same time. It is disastrous. As I said in my speech, if we do nothing, the cost of inaction on climate change is very high.
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- Nov/8/23 5:56:07 p.m.
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- Re: Bill S-9
Madam Speaker, I am sure the member can appreciate the fact that today we are having this particular concurrence motion being discussed and the Conservative Party now and on many occasions has brought in concurrence reports, which has really prevented government legislation from being passed. Today, for example, we were supposed to be dealing with Bill S-9. I believe the Bloc is actually supporting it, as are all political parties in the House.
I am wondering if the member can provide her thoughts. Much as they would not want opposition days constantly interrupted by concurrence reports, it does have a negative impact on legislation being ultimately passed. Would the member not agree?
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- Nov/8/23 5:56:56 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I must say that I rather agree with my hon. colleague. These repeated attempts to change the agenda and talk about certain things that, for whatever reason, are of interest to them, amount to filibustering.
The Conservatives apparently got up this morning thinking that they were very keen to talk about a greening government strategy, which was studied in committee over a year ago. Those people who watch us and follow politics a bit know that this is a broad strategy to obstruct the work of Parliament.
I think it is frankly deplorable that a party that claims to be deserving of taking power is obstructing the work of Parliament, an institution that said party is supposed to want to represent. I think it is a real shame, even though it gave me an opportunity to give a lecture on environmental economics, which I am always happy to do.
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- Nov/8/23 5:57:58 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, my colleague's remarks are particularly interesting and important because they shed light on a subject that is controversial in the House but usually not very controversial among the public.
My core values often lead me to say that a coin has two sides and one edge. Still, we have to want to see both sides, if only by listening to the interpretation, to get all the information when a member speaks in Parliament.
I would like to hear my colleague's thoughts on the fact that, when we speak, people do not put on their earpiece and therefore cannot see the other side of the coin.
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- Nov/8/23 5:58:47 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, as the former leader of the Bloc Québécois likes to point out, unfortunately, Canada is all about French and simultaneous translation. It is such a shame to see that many people, especially those I was talking about in my remarks, did not listen to me, and if they did listen, they probably did not understand what I was trying to say.
It is a shame because it was an opportunity for them to learn more about environmental economics, about their carbon tax, and maybe even understand that although it does not apply in Quebec, even if it did, it would not be the end of the world.
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- Nov/8/23 5:59:48 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I am pleased to rise today to speak to the concurrence motion about the audit in the public accounts committee report tabled by our Auditor General in relation to the greening government strategy.
The greening government strategy is something that, unfortunately, at committee we spent not all that much time on, and I am quite surprised today to see the Conservatives' move to speak an awful lot about it. I think it is indicative of their actions in this place. Nonetheless, I am happy to rise to speak to our findings, because it is always a good opportunity for New Democrats, particularly when Conservatives want to speak about the government's record and our country's record on climate change. It is important that we take the lessons of our past to hopefully plot a better future. Today is no exception to that, and I will be speaking about that a bit in my speech. I will speak directly to the report in just a moment so I can highlight for Canadians that in the report, which dealt largely with a strategy by the Treasury Board Secretariat to develop a greening government strategy, part of the strategy was to look at ways the government could better procure items that could reduce greenhouse emissions, as well as reduce its emissions through its systems.
With respect to that, the environment commissioner found two really troubling things. One is that the plan that was audited, the greening government strategy itself, lacked enough detail to suggest to the commissioner that it would be sufficient. The most particular, and probably the biggest, glaring concern I had with the report, as a member of the committee, was the fact that it lacked an approach to deal with key risks and making sure the strategy would achieve its ultimate goal, which is to reach net zero in its operations by 2050. If there is not enough detail to ensure that the government can get to a net-zero strategy by 2050, in addition to not understanding the risks of achieving it while simultaneously investing in these things, it is important for Canadians to have further transparency. I think that is what the Auditor General's office, by way of the environment commissioner, is calling for.
It is important to note that the recommendations that were outlined by the environment commissioner's report spoke specifically to two departments, National Defence and Transport Canada, understandably, as both are very large ministries that procure a lot of things. Also, in our fight against climate change, we understand that cars and carbon-emitting fuels that are high in intensity, like gasoline, which are still available in markets across Canada today, are still high-polluting. It is no different with government-procured fleets that include a variety of vehicles. We heard in testimony from some of the officials at committee about a plan to try to find ways to reduce emissions by way of procurement. Knowing that those are our two largest ministries, it is going to be really important to deal with the greening government strategy in an appropriate way to see tangible outcomes, maybe even by way of providing details on how many vehicles will be replaced in x amount of time with vehicles that emit less carbon, or electric vehicles. That is a tangible recommendation that I think could be included in the greening government strategy, which right now lacks that level of detail, according to the environment commissioner.
It begs the question of how seriously the government, in its totality, is actually taking its fight against the climate crisis. We have seen, for example, the really troubling debate over the last few days and weeks on the Liberals' decision to create a “carve-out” for Atlantic Canada in relation to the carbon tax. New Democrats supported Conservatives in that, not because we disagree with climate change, which is the reason Conservatives did it, but because we understand that, when it comes to our principles with respect to taxation in this country, we must apply those things equally, and we have seen an unequal application of that. The provinces were very loud and clear on that, and we heard those things. We made the reasonable decision to ensure that we could help at a time when the cost of living is so bad. That is why New Democrats fought to put forward a motion today that we thought was reasonable and a good invitation to the Liberals and Conservatives to see whether we could make life more affordable for Canadians while also tackling climate change.
I thought it was a very reasonable plan. It would have had lowered emissions. By making sure that programs like a free heat pump program are easily accessible and free, we would actually find homes reducing their emissions.
Conservatives always comment on how this is a bad solution because it is going to get too cold in Canada and, at the same time, they say that the solution to the climate crisis is “technology”. Those two things cannot necessarily be true if heat pumps are, in fact, the leading technology in this country and one that is improving in quality, affordability and efficiency, in terms of dealing with Canadian climate.
These are true facts of these technologies that are important for Canadians to partake in and important for us to continue to invest in. They reduce our emissions while also reducing Canadians' reliance on extensive high-carbon-emitting fuels. It is a good thing for Canadians.
We wanted to ensure that we could pay for that kind of program, in addition to ensuring that we remove GST from all home heating, including electric heating, which would save all Canadians everywhere and put money right in their pockets.
The last point of that motion was to ensure that we could actually pay for these things. It is important that, in a climate crisis context, we take into consideration the culprits of the crisis, those who have profited off those industries that are high-carbon-emitting.
They have gotten away with it in large part without having to pay their fair share, in relation to the direct impact they have had on our environment, on our lands, on our planet. It is now time that they play an incredible role and an important role in financing, so that we can see the outcomes we want to see across our country and meet our goals, both domestic and abroad, to ensure that we reduce our carbon emissions.
It is the responsible thing to do.
It was unfortunate to see the Liberals and the Conservatives join together to defeat our motion. It is unfortunate but not all that surprising. They are both parties that we have seen continuously dole out billions of dollars to oil and gas without ever having the courage to attempt to roll some of the profits back, in order to help Canadians.
We have seen other governments, for example, do this. In the United Kingdom, we have seen Conservatives bring in a windfall tax on oil and gas there. There is a Conservative government in place there. I was happy to see that they have seen the good reason and logic. They understand that when oil, as a commodity, is at the highest price it has been in a long time, it is not by chance that those oil companies have done that. The market is largely doing that due to its fluctuating nature, to ensure that parts of that windfall could be absorbed by the government in order to stabilize prices, but also to ensure that the government could finance its programs and services.
Our plan looked at using the finances from a windfall tax like that here in Canada to directly finance the solutions that would result in lower emissions, like getting free heat pumps across Canada, a leading technology in both its efficiency and affordability.
This report is evidence, clearly, of the government's lack of courage and also its lack of attention to detail in actually attempting to do the things it says. I do not discredit Canadians for that.
It is okay to be critical of a government, to call them out for important and very obviously credible things that this report highlights, including a lack of detail in a strategy dealing with the greening of the government and not understanding the risks of not achieving that plan.
When dealing with the climate crisis, we have to know those things full well and if we do not, we should endeavour to understand them.
I think that it is incumbent upon us to take this report and the tabling and the recommendations found in it to be our canary in the coal mine, to suggest that our government is not taking climate change seriously. It is time and it is important now to remedy those things with real solutions, to lower our emissions while also tackling the affordability crisis Canadians are facing right now.
We can do that if we work together. I am certain that, with the opportunity that was present earlier today, if we had worked together then, we could have made life different for so many Canadians, for the better.
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- Nov/8/23 6:09:32 p.m.
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It is my duty to interrupt the proceedings on the motion at this time.
Accordingly, the debate on the motion will be rescheduled for another sitting.
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Madam Speaker, it is an honour to rise to debate Bill C-316, an act to amend the Department of Canadian Heritage Act, regarding the Court Challenges Program.
You will recall, Madam Speaker, that I actually began this speech on Wednesday, May 3. I am sure that all members have been patiently waiting these last six months to hear the conclusion of my comments on this bill.
I last spoke about the Conservative legacy when it comes to human rights, particularly that of the late, great John George Diefenbaker. He was a one-man court challenges program. Indeed, it was John Diefenbaker who said, at the beginning of the debate on the Canadian Bill of Rights in 1960:
Here for the first time this bulwark of freedom will be embodied in a declaration by parliament that is in existence and cannot be violated. Furthermore, if any of these several rights should be violated under legislation now existing in the courts in interpreting the particular laws or statutes which have been passed will hereafter ... be required to interpret those statutes of today in the light of the fact that wherever there is a violation of any of these declarations or freedoms the statute in question is to that extent non-operative and was never intended to be so operative.
The bill at hand, as has been mentioned, would require that the minister's power include that of the Court Challenges Program. In fact, this is already within the powers of the minister. This program has been in existence since 1978, in different forms and fashions.
Furthermore, the provisions for how the minister can fund the Court Challenges Program already exist in the same statute, at section 7.1. It further talks about requiring a report. As members would know, reports are already presented by the Minister of Canadian Heritage; the Minister of Employment, Workforce Development and Official Languages; the Minister of Housing, Infrastructure and Communities; the Minister for Women and Gender Equality and Youth; and the Minister of Sport and Physical Activity. They provide annual reports through the departmental results report, departmental plans and departmental evaluation plan.
We must look at the record of the Liberal government when it comes to the rights of Canadians. Let us start with language rights. Members would recall, and I was on the official languages committee at the time, when the Liberal government tried to appoint Madeleine Meilleur as the official languages commissioner. She was a former Liberal cabinet minister who also donated to the Prime Minister's campaign.
I was also on the Canadian heritage committee at a time when it was revealed that the department gave $133,000 to a well-known anti-Semite with a long history of directing hate towards Jewish people. The government did this through an anti-racism action program.
We recently learned that Radio‑Canada used a Paris-based recording studio, rather than a Quebec-based studio, to record a podcast in order to avoid the Quebec accent.
That is indeed shameful. We should be proud of the language of Quebec and the accent that we hear from our Quebec colleagues across the country. We should be protecting that indeed.
As I wrap up my speech, I wish to say how proud I am as a Conservative to stand on the human rights record that all Conservatives have stood on from the time of John Diefenbaker to the present day. I am very proud of that legacy.
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Madam Speaker, I thank my colleague for pointing out, at the end of his speech, an unacceptable thing that happened. I am talking about a situation where Radio-Canada used a Paris-based company to record a podcast because people in France do not like the Quebec accent. That is very important.
The Quebec accent is what makes us who we are in Quebec. The Quebec accent developed through 400 years of living in this country of ice, snow, forests, cold, fall, summer and heat. It developed through contact with the indigenous peoples, who were here before we arrived, and through contact with the English, who defeated us in 1759. Since that time, we have been intermingling with all the people who have come here over the past 100 years. They came from all over, and we have been enriched by that. It has made us who we are in Quebec right now. That is what makes our language unique, and that is what enriches our way of speaking and our culture, which we are bringing to the rest of the world.
We no longer have to talk about how Quebec is representing itself on the international stage. Denis Villeneuve is at the Oscars almost every year. He was not born in Ontario. He was born in Quebec. Xavier Dolan is at Cannes almost every year. He was not born in British Columbia. He was born in Quebec.
We often hear about Canadian culture outside Canada, and 90% of the time people are talking about Quebec culture. Robert Lepage directs plays all over the world, in Paris, Brussels and Tokyo. He was not born in Manitoba; he was born in Quebec. Cirque du Soleil was not created in Ontario; it came from Quebec. If Canadian culture is talked about internationally, it is thanks to Quebec. People should be on their knees in gratitude. If Canada is talked about around the world, it is because Quebeckers have risen to the top.
I am a bit obsessed with this issue. This is somewhat due to a certain constraint, this particular relationship that we have, because for the past 200 years, we have often been told that we are an insignificant people and we should resign ourselves to a life of poverty. We have developed a kind of “System D” in all areas, whether economic or cultural. This constant confrontation, this dominant-dominated relationship, drives us to stand out as fighters. We are doing it now, we have done it in the past and we will continue to do so in the future. People should buckle up and get ready for a bumpy ride, because when Quebec becomes independent, we will be winning Oscars in Los Angeles and Palmes d'Or in Cannes in our own name. We will win Goncourt Prizes in our own name. The award will not say “Canada”; it will say “Québec”.
The rest of Canada will be happy anyway, because it will have participated to some extent. It will be time to say bye-bye when we are in Hollywood or Cannes or on other major international stages. We will say hello to the gang back in Canada, but Quebec will win the Oscar.
That was my first argument on culture. My colleague started me off on that. Obviously, I had no intention of talking about it. I never want to talk about Quebec. I never want to talk about Quebec's language or culture. I never go there at all. It is not a subject that interests me in the least. I never want to talk about that when the opportunity arises. My Conservative Party colleague started me off on the subject. He passed me the puck. It was too easy and I felt like talking about it.
This has a connection with what we are talking about now: Bill C-316, on the court challenges program. The court challenges program is exhausting, it must be said. It directly concerns language and our ability to protect our language and culture in this country.
The court challenges program was launched in 1978. The timing is no coincidence, because the Parti Québécois and René Lévesque, a major Quebec figure, came to power in 1976. The timing is no accident. In 1977, the Lévesque government introduced one of its first and most important bills. I want to talk about this because it is important.
I would say that, of all the laws that could have been created in Quebec or even in Canada, this is a big one. It is a meaningful, masterful law that changed the course of history. It is really not every day that the course of history is changed through the creation of laws, but that is what happened in 1977. There is a reason why the father of Bill 101 is Camille Laurin, a psychoanalyst and psychiatrist. He knew that we needed to make a strong and powerful mark when it comes to the relationship that we have with ourselves.
That is what we did with Bill 101. What was the crux of Bill 101? It stipulated that, from that point on, there would be only one official language in Quebec, and that was French. We would have only one national language, and that was French. From that point on, we would speak French in our courts, schools, stores and restaurants. Public signage would be in French. Everything in Quebec would be done entirely in our language. That way we would no longer be afraid to be who we are. We were going to make a powerful statement. From that point on, things were going to change.
I would like to remind the House of an important fact. Before 1977, 90% of immigrants who settled in Quebec went to English schools. The children went to elementary school, secondary school, CEGEP and university in English and then they worked in English. Everything was happening in English. The school system itself was anglicizing Quebec. We were anglicizing ourselves, and we were paying for that.
Mrs. Caroline Desbiens: We are still paying.
Mr. Denis Trudel: Yes, Madam Speaker, we are still paying.
In order for French to survive, we need something fundamental that was set out in Bill 101. It set out that, from then on, people who arrived in Quebec—people we need and who enrich Quebec with all of their cultures, colours and flavours—would have one thing in common, and that was the French language. That is the fundamental element that was set out in Bill 101. It changed everything about the relationship that we have with ourselves and our relationship with history. That bill was implemented by the first Lévesque government in 1977.
In 1978, the court challenges program was established. This allowed Quebec anglophones to use federal government money to challenge this key legislation, this fundamental law. Groups of Quebec anglophones were encouraged to challenge this fundamental law using our taxes. Language of signage has often been challenged, particularly after the Charter in 1982. Let us not forget that Bill 101 clearly established that, from that point on, commercial signage in Quebec was to be entirely in French. That was overturned. A hundred or so amendments have been made since 1982, largely through the court challenges program.
Even back then, there was no accountability in this program. Decisions could be made by cabinet. In the evening, behind closed doors, money could be sent to groups in Quebec without telling anyone, without disclosing the amount, without saying what causes would be defended with these funds, which was our money. These were discretionary funds sent to Quebec's English-speaking community to beat back one of the most fundamental and important laws Quebec has ever signed. That is really something. That is what the court challenges program is all about.
Today, the government wants to enshrine it in law. We are not fundamentally opposed to that, because it is important for francophones outside Quebec, and they are our brothers. If the Official Languages Act of this country says that there are really two official languages, then francophones in British Columbia, Saskatchewan and St. John's, Newfoundland must have the same kinds of rights as anglophones in Quebec, something they would dare not dream of.
When push comes to shove, we will probably support this bill. However, we want it to be sent to committee because we intend to propose some major amendments. My friend, the member for La Pointe-de-l'Île, will be there, in committee, to fight for the Bloc Québécois's amendments.
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Madam Speaker, I am pleased to rise in support of Bill C-316 at second reading. This is a bill that would amend the Department of Canadian Heritage Act to require the minister of heritage to maintain the court challenges program. In other words, it would simply take an existing program and entrench it in legislation.
Why do we have to have something to entrench an existing program in legislation? It is because the Conservatives, twice before, have eliminated the court challenges program. I do not necessarily believe there will be a future Conservative government, but the fear is that a future government would be able, in the absence of this legislation, to simply eliminate this program without coming back to Parliament. Therefore, this is an important change.
As always, the Liberals have done the minimum here. There are some other things we could have done to support the court challenges program. As a Parliament, we could expand its mandate because, right now, it is severely limited to only minority language rights and equality rights under section 15. There have been many calls from the legal community to expand the mandate of this program so it could apply to other cases where, frankly, the government has not taken leadership in protecting rights but where people lack the resources to bring these cases themselves. Court challenges can take years. They can cost literally hundreds of thousands of dollars.
What this program does is level the legal playing field for those who want to defend their rights against the government or against abuse by others in Canadian society. This program has been in existence, off and on, for 30 years, but it has played a very important role in helping defend women's rights, indigenous rights and the rights of other marginalized Canadians, so it is important that we make sure this program endures.
The program was created in 1978 on the issue of minority language rights. When the Charter was adopted, it was expanded just a tiny bit to add equality rights. The program was cancelled by the Conservatives in 1992 before being brought back by the Liberals in 1994, only to be cut again by the Conservatives in 2006. Then we had a big gap. In 2015, both the Liberals and the New Democrats campaigned to restore the program. The justice committee, in 2017, recommended not only that this be entrenched in law, but also that the mandate be expanded. That part is missing from this bill, but in 2018, the program was restarted.
Let me give some examples of kinds of things this program has done. It financed the case that resulted in ending discrimination related to access to what we used to call “maternity benefits” under what was then the UI act. It helped establish what is now known as the rape shield law, which prevents the accused from using the sexual history of a sexual assault complainant as a defence.
The program funded the cases that resulted in restricting access to victims' personal records, such as counselling records, in sexual assault cases. Again, this ruling would not have happened otherwise because women who have been the victims of sexual assault do not have the resources to bring forward this kind of case and fight it through court. Therefore, the Women's Legal Education & Action Fund, LEAF, applied to the program and received funding, which resulted in this very important decision.
One more example is that sex-based discrimination under the Employment Insurance Act for part-time employees who are women was ended as a result of the case. Again, it was brought by LEAF with funding from the court challenges program. We have a very strong history of defence of women's rights.
There are a couple more cases I could provide, but a favourite of mine, as a gay man, is Egan v. Canada in 1995, where two gay men who had been in an intimate relationship for 30 years were denied old age security benefits because they did not fit the definition of a spouse. There was a case, this time by the Metropolitan Community Church of Toronto, taken to court to say that this was unfair because they had been a couple and Egan had paid into these benefits, including to old age security, Canada pension and things like that. This established equal spousal rights in the time before equal marriage.
In one last case, Daniels v. Canada in 2016, it was established that the status of Métis and non-status Indians under the Indian Act were protected. This was brought by the Congress of Aboriginal Peoples, who, again, did not have great resources to spend literally hundreds of thousands of dollars on lawyers.
What is really clear is that there is broad support in the legal community for this program, including and especially in the advocacy of the Canadian Bar Association. There are certain precedents, as I mentioned, about the mandate not being broad enough. Cindy Blackstock and certain disability advocates have demonstrated why we need to expand that mandate so that cases of people with disabilities and of aboriginal women could more easily get into court.
I am going to take a minute to talk about recent events, which I think point to upcoming challenges to the rights of the 2SLGBTQI+ community and particularly to those of transgender and gender-diverse Canadians, who are among the most marginalized Canadians and those with the fewest resources.
Hate crimes against what I like to call the queer community, in reclaiming language, are up. They are up shockingly high. The official figures of those reported to the police show a 64% increase in one year in hate crimes directed against the community. Hate crime data from the police does not actually separate out crimes against trans folks, but a sampling that has been done by academics found that, first of all, hate crimes against the queer community, and particularly the trans community, are more likely to be violent. In the case of gender-diverse people, 80% of hate crimes involve violence. This is where government policies, particularly of certain provincial governments, are fuelling the hate, which has direct results of violence in the community.
I want to talk about the anti-trans school policies in Saskatchewan and New Brunswick for just a minute, because I think the trans and gender-diverse communities are going to want to make sure there is a court challenge to these policies. Without a program like the court challenges program, this would not happen. In August, Saskatchewan announced policy changes requiring parental consent for trans students under the age of 16 to be called by their chosen name and pronoun at school. We do not ask parents whether “William” can be “Billy”, but somehow when it comes to trans kids and their identity, we are creating in Saskatchewan a special bar to using names and pronouns that reinforce the student's identity. The policy was quickly challenged by the University of Regina's pride centre. After a hearing, an injunction was granted that paused the implementation of the policy. The same day, Premier Scott Moe announced he would invoke the notwithstanding clause, and he called an emergency session of the Saskatchewan legislature to enact Bill 137, which amends the education act and includes the notwithstanding clause.
A government used what was really the nuclear option in law to take away rights from kids. It falls into the category of what I would call the spillover of American rhetoric into Canadian politics. It talks about parental rights instead of what we have in Canadian law of parental responsibilities and children's rights. Parents have a responsibility to nurture their kids and to affirm their kids. We know that school peers who use their chosen name and pronouns experienced 71% fewer signs of severe depression, a 34% decrease in reported thoughts of suicide and a 65% decrease in suicide attempts. Therefore, this is a policy that causes great harm. The government could do more to provide leadership in fighting this rising tide of hate, in particular by implementing the 29 recommendations in the white paper on trans rights tabled last June. In fact, e-petition 4666 went up today, asking it to do just that.
In conclusion, New Democrats support Bill C-316, even though we would like to see more from the government to support the court challenges program. It is still important to entrench the program in law in order to make it harder for any future government to eliminate the program. As I said, the court challenges program could use an expanded mandate to be able to fund cases beyond minority language rights and section 15. The program could use increased funding to ensure that it can fulfill its purpose in levelling the playing field on rights in the courts, so that not just those who are already rich and privileged can defend their rights and seek fairness in the courts. Even in the absence of these further improvements, we hope to see expeditious passage of the bill through all its remaining stages.
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Madam Speaker, I rise today on a matter of great importance touching on the fundamental rights and freedoms of all people in Canada. I speak of the court challenges program and the legislation before us, Bill C-316, an act to amend the Department of Canadian Heritage Act.
Since its creation in 1978, the court challenges program has come to be seen as a unique feature of our constitutional democracy, helping people in Canada to bring forward legal cases when they believe their most cherished rights have been infringed upon, regardless of their means. It enables individuals and organizations to challenge laws and policies that run counter to Canada's fundamental rights and freedoms. It is a true testament to our country's unwavering commitment to justice, equality and social inclusion.
The modernized court challenges program, reinstated in 2017, has been instrumental in ensuring unfettered access to justice and equality for every Canadian. Over the years, it has funded hundreds of challenges of national interest, adapting to the evolving needs of our society by helping to articulate a broader range of civil and social rights. This progression is crucial as our society continues to evolve and embrace a more diverse and inclusive perspective.
In sustaining and protecting this program further through Bill C-316, we would be solidifying its proven effectiveness in safeguarding rights and promoting equality before the law. This legislative initiative aims to complement the important reforms enacted by the modernization of the Official Languages Act through Bill C-13, which received royal assent on June 20, 2023. Bill C-13 acknowledges the important role of the court challenges program by incorporating its official language rights component into the Official Languages Act and its human rights component into the Department of Canadian Heritage Act, thereby underscoring the government's unwavering commitment to this iconic program.
The court challenges program plays an indispensable role in supporting official language minority communities in all regions of the country. By challenging laws and policies that could erode their linguistic rights, it helps preserve the vitality of these communities while ensuring that linguistic duality and diversity remain a proud part of Canada's social and cultural fabric. Furthermore, this program has consistently been at the forefront of protecting the human rights of all people in Canada. It has empowered vulnerable and marginalized communities, has helped defend minority rights and has consistently helped advance the principles of justice and equity.
One such example is the funding granted by the court challenges program in 2019 and 2020 for an intervention in a class-action lawsuit on the issue of the forced sterilization of indigenous women. This intervention seeks to ensure health equity for indigenous women and to address systemic discrimination against indigenous people, while providing a national perspective on behalf of affected indigenous women and girls. Thanks to the program's funding, the issues of gender equity, rights recognition and reconciliation will be deliberated in court through a more inclusive approach to participation in the proceedings.
The program's annual reports reads like a catalogue of the defining social and civil rights issues of our times. Its essential role in helping to advance our democratic principles and ensure that our rights framework reflects the evolution of Canadian society has been amply demonstrated. Through the deliberate and purposeful act of enshrining this program in law by means of Bill C-316, as a strong complement to what has been achieved in Bill C-13, we are affirming our commitment to its long-term viability and are recognizing its proven effectiveness in asserting, clarifying and protecting the rights and freedoms of all people in Canada.
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Madam Speaker, it is always a pleasure to rise on behalf of the people of Kamloops—Thompson—Cariboo.
Before I begin, I want to pass on my condolences and recognize the life of Eugene Dery from my riding. He leaves behind a son, who is approximately 20 years old, Dax, and his wife Kim Galloway, whom I met through my sister. I grew up knowing them and have known them throughout the years. I extend my deepest condolences to the family. May perpetual light shine upon him.
On a more positive note, I want to recognize Ethan Katzberg from my riding. Mr. Katzberg took home gold in the hammer throw. Good for him. We are obviously very proud of him. He is the one to beat, following in the line of Dylan Armstrong. We look forward to seeing Ethan at the Olympics doing his best to represent not only Canada but also Kamloops—Thompson—Cariboo.
We are here today to discuss Bill C-316, an act to amend the court challenges program. This is an interesting act when we think about it. In my research to prepare for my speech, I saw that the court challenges program has existed for a great deal of time. I knew that it existed, but I was not sure exactly how it had operated in the past.
One of the things that struck me is that this bill would enshrine the court challenges program into law. I know that my colleague from Lethbridge did an excellent job in her speech on this issue, but I will be addressing some of the points she made and perhaps some of the points that the sponsor of the bill made. I have some concerns.
The reality is that with this legislation, in my respectful view, we would be legislating an undermining of Parliament in a certain way. Parliament passes laws and the courts interpret them; there is no issue there, and frequently the courts will engage in a dialogue. I raised this with Justice Moreau of the Supreme Court of Canada, although I am not sure if she has been sworn in. She is the chief justice for Alberta for the time being if she has not been.
I asked her about the dialogue between Parliament and the courts. Parliament speaks through its legislation, the courts interpret the law and then Parliament speaks again if it needs to. This bill would essentially fund people to go to court to, in my view, look at ways that Parliament got it wrong. That is not to say the courts need any help. Frequently, the courts strike down legislation passed by Parliament, or they uphold it as constitutional, but those things happen irrespective of a third party like this.
From what I can see, this program costs $5 million at this time. It could be substantially more. By my estimation, about 30% of that alone is bureaucratic costs. We have been talking a lot about heating oil and things like that. How many heat pumps is the government going to buy for people? How many heat pumps would $5 million buy? Sometimes we lose sight of the fact that we often talk here in the billions of dollars.
A senior contacted my office not long ago saying they had to choose between putting food on the table and buying shoes. To them, $5 million sounds like a lot of money. I know it certainly was when my family came from Italy. They did not really have two pennies to rub together. Sometimes we lose sight of this.
Not only that, we would create a bureaucratic entity beyond asking people to challenge our laws. There is no issue with the idea that people disagree with what Parliament passes. It happens all the time. That is why the courts will make various decisions. However, this is done routinely when somebody brings an action to the court.
I am going to underscore as well that when we pass legislation here, it goes through second reading debate. Sometimes bills pass with unanimous consent, but very rarely will a significant bill pass that way. I think I have seen it twice so far.
Bills go through second reading debate and then go to committee. Who do we hear from at committee? We hear from witnesses. On the justice file, who are those witnesses? Invariably, they are lawyers, experts who will tell us what is wrong with the bill: “Your bill has this constitutional frailty in this spot and this spot.” Then someone else will come in and say, “Yes, I agree, but I don't think the frailty is here and here, I think it might be over here.” What do we do? We take that and go back, potentially through an amendment. At third reading, we have more debate, and then it goes to the Senate. What happens at the Senate? There is more debate. Then, eventually, we will have royal assent after it has gone through the machinations in the Senate and then it goes to the courts. There is this idea that Parliament does not have ample opportunity to get it right and to hear from the very lawyers who will be making these courts challenges.
However, these challenges are made supplementary to the actual challenge. What I mean by that is, for example, somebody who believes that they are aggrieved by the statute on charter grounds will say, “This offends my section 7 right to life, liberty and security of person”, and they will challenge the law on constitutional grounds. Frequently, I presume, this program will fund somebody to intervene. Well, somebody is already making that challenge in a lot of instances from what I can see, and so I question the efficacy of that.
The other issue I have is that this issue is run through a university. I used to teach at Thompson Rivers University and I will give a shout-out to them, but this is done through the University of Ottawa. Now, we will obviously have in a university faculty, particularly one like law, divides. Some people are going to have one view of the law and some people will have another view of the law. In here, we have Liberals, Conservatives, New Democrats, Greens and the Bloc. They are going to have different perspectives on how the world works, which is fine; actually, it is more than fine, it is central to a thriving democracy. However, the people who administer this program are going to be, through their perspective, deciding who gets these programs. Invariably, there will be winners and losers, and it does not seem to me that we know exactly how that is going to be administered, especially when it is being administered right now through a third party. That, in my view, does raise some issues.
The importance of people who are writing academically cannot be underscored. It is, in my view, central to anybody who is a professor, particularly a professor of law or political science. We do frequently receive feedback. We, as members of Parliament, are expected to take feedback on our laws. In my view, that is the correct mechanism by which we should be addressing these laws and not funding people who would not otherwise be in court on a matter of their own in doing so.
One of the issues that we have seen about this dialogue is that, in my view, this Liberal government has not necessarily acted well on that dialogue. For example, Bill S-12, the issue of the sex offence registry, was taken literally right down to the last day. It is how the courts work. The courts act and Parliament reacts. Parliament legislates, the courts interpret and it is up to Parliament to react. It took us literally months. We could not actually get this right. That is how things are supposed to be working. We can also look at this when it comes to that extreme intoxication case that we had to legislate on very quickly. However, sometimes, and this is one failing of the Liberal government of many on the justice bill, this Liberal government does not always react.
If we want to look at places where we should be devoting our resources, the courts have said that it is unconstitutional to have back-to-back first degree murder convictions and for parole ineligibility to be served consecutively.
I am out of time and so I will wrap it up there.
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Madam Speaker, to put the court challenges program into context, I will start by providing a bit of history of the linguistic dynamic in Canada and Quebec because a people unaware of its history is like an individual having amnesia. We become easily manipulated. If we do not know our history, if we have amnesia and we are cheated, we can be cheated again. We never remember what happened.
There are politicians who exploit that. For example, Jean Chrétien said that it was thanks to Canada that we still speak French. In reality, from the Royal Proclamation of 1763, which turned New France into the Province of Quebec, to the British North America Act, 1867, and a good part of the 20th century, the British and Canadian governments have openly used military repression, anglophone immigration, bans on French schools and various other assimilation measures to make francophones the minority; they went from 99% to 29% in 1951. Since then, the numbers have dropped both outside Quebec and more recently in Quebec. It is very worrisome.
There were language laws everywhere, in all the predominantly English-speaking provinces today, that completely banned French-language schools and even teaching French in schools. In Quebec, access to French-language schools was limited in regions like Pontiac. French-language schools and colleges were underfunded, as were French-language health care facilities. Even in Quebec, francophones truly experienced economic discrimination.
In the 1960s, André Laurendeau, a French-Canadian nationalist and federalist who wrote editorials in Le Devoir, wrote a column saying that the crumbs given to francophones were enough; what they had been given at the time were bilingual stamps and cheques, things like that. He proposed that a commission of inquiry be formed, and Lester B. Pearson did just that. The Laurendeau-Dunton commission made a powerful observation of the inequality between francophones and anglophones, even in Quebec. For example, out of 14 linguistic groups in Quebec, the average income of francophones ranked 12th.
In the meantime, André Laurendeau passed away. Pierre Elliott Trudeau took over from Lester B. Pearson as Prime Minister. André Laurendeau had championed a territorial model similar to Switzerland or Belgium because he felt that, as the home of Canada's francophone community, the number one priority was granting special status to and strengthening French in Quebec. Instead of granting special status to Quebec, Pierre Elliott Trudeau joined forces with proponents of English in Quebec. He decided that the federal language law, rather than protecting French in Quebec, was intended to support and protect linguistic minorities by province. As luck would have it, in Quebec, it was English that was to be protected and the English-speaking community promoted.
This supposed equivalency or symmetry between anglophones in Quebec and francophone and Acadian communities was absurd from the start. As we have seen, anglophones were already part of the dominant Canadian majority in Quebec up to that point. Anglophones in Quebec are part of the Canadian majority that controls the federal government with its paramount legislative power and its spending power in areas within Quebec's jurisdiction. We saw that, for example, with the 1982 Constitution, which weakened the Charter of the French Language even though education was supposed to be under provincial jurisdiction. The 1982 Constitution was imposed against the wishes of the Government of Quebec. No government of Quebec has ever signed the 1982 Constitution. Even the UN Human Rights Committee ruled that Quebec anglophones, as part of Canada's majority, cannot invoke minority rights.
It even added that a majority in a province could invoke minority rights if it was a minority in the country. The government of the Canadian majority decided to support its language in Quebec. The Official Languages Act has been funding English in Quebec almost exclusively ever since. We often hear the Prime Minister say that his party protects minorities in Canada. As far as I know, Quebec is not a majority in Canada. Quebeckers are a linguistic minority, a minority nation that is not protected by Canada. The court challenges program is the perfect example of that.
The court challenges program appeared in 1978. Coincidentally, Bill 101, the Charter of the French Language, was established in 1977. René Lévesque wanted to make French the only official language of the state of Quebec, the common language of Quebec society. It is in that context that Ottawa brought in its court challenges program. At first it even considered using its power of disallowance to invalidate Robert Bourassa's Bill 22 and then the Charter of the French Language. After the election of the Parti Québécois, Pierre Elliott Trudeau thought this option would cause a legitimacy crisis that would benefit the Lévesque government. He was cunning and dismantled Bill 101 while avoiding creating a direct confrontation between the two levels of government. Rather than have this direct confrontation with Quebec, the federal government of Pierre Elliott Trudeau instead funded, structured and supported anglophone lobby groups in Quebec. Then he paid their legal fees to challenge the Charter of the French Language using the court challenges program.
Between 1978 and 1985, the court challenges program did not produce annual reports. Of the six bills that were challenged, four had to do with the Charter of the French Language in Quebec. Right from the beginning, we have seen that it was the official character of French, the fact that it is the language of justice, that was struck down. So it has continued and, as a result, today the Charter of the French Language has been weakened in all areas of application.
The Government of Quebec recently tried to partially strengthen this legislation. Now the government is announcing that it is going to double the court challenges program. I think it is obvious that this will be used to challenge Bill 101. The sad thing is that there have been problems from the outset. The government was clearly in a conflict of interest. The same officials approved funding for legal proceedings and worked for the Attorney General of Canada, who was often an intervenor in those proceedings. Between 1982 and 1985, Ottawa was aware of the alleged conflicts of interest and tried to create an advisory committee. Brian Mulroney then gradually added equality rights, the promotion of multiculturalism and gender equality to the language rights that could be promoted by the the court challenges program. Administration of the program was entrusted to the Canadian Council on Social Development.
In closing, we support the bill, but it needs to be improved. The bill needs to be transparent. The first bill talked about publishing a list of supported cases. Now it talks about an overview. We will be proposing amendments—
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- Nov/8/23 6:59:38 p.m.
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Unfortunately, I must interrupt the hon. member. His time is up.
The hon. member for Coquitlam—Port Coquitlam on his right of reply.
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