The Hon. the Speaker: Honourable senators, I wish to draw your attention to the presence in the gallery of Dawn Edlund, Diane Burrows and Michael Molloy. They are the guests of the Honourable Senator Jaffer.

On behalf of all honourable senators, I welcome you to the Senate of Canada.

Senator Martin: This report also shows that, while the number of drug-impaired driving incidents increased, the number of active officers trained as drug recognition experts — speaking of testing — has decreased. There were 68 fewer of these officers across Canada in 2021 compared to the previous year.

Leader, due to the COVID-19 pandemic, capacity limits were placed on the number of officers that could be trained at certification events.

Could you make inquiries and let us know if the capacity limits have been lifted? What will your government do to ensure more officers receive this training, and are active in communities across our country?

Senator Seidman: Yes.

Hon. Diane Bellemare: Would Senator Seidman take another question?

Senator Campbell: Absolutely.

Senator Campbell: It’s a classic example of ageism.

(On motion of Senator Clement, debate adjourned.)

On the Order:

Resuming debate on the motion of the Honourable Senator Brazeau, seconded by the Honourable Senator Housakos, for the second reading of Bill S-254, An Act to amend the Food and Drugs Act (warning label on alcoholic beverages).

Hon. Robert Black: My question is for the Government Representative in the Senate.

Senator Gold, I am sure you’re well aware that tomorrow is Canada’s Agriculture Day. Tomorrow — and I hope every day — farmers, producers and all members of the agriculture and processing sectors are being celebrated for their immeasurable contributions to this country. They remain an essential part of every Canadian’s life, and continued support for their tireless efforts remains paramount to the success of the nation.

However, while the agricultural industry has had many successes, they continue to face obstacles, barriers and difficulties. Whether it’s climate change, the COVID-19 pandemic, labour shortages or regulatory issues, all members of this sector repeatedly rise to the challenge in the face of many issues. Their determination, skill and dedication continue to be appreciated by Canadians from coast to coast to coast.

Senator Gold, can you please tell us what the Canadian government is currently doing to help solve these ongoing challenges to the sector, namely, processing capacity, food security, soil health and climate change, just to name a few?

Ahead of your response, I want to wish you and my colleagues here in the chamber and all Canadians a very happy Agriculture Day tomorrow.

Senator Martin: Leader, there are well over 2 million applications caught in the backlog at Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada. Today, according to the government’s own website, the application processing time for a skilled tradesperson seeking entry to Canada is 70 months.

Despite the massive backlog and little evidence Canadians are getting good value for money spent on the McKinsey contracts, the Trudeau government revised an immigration department contract during the pandemic to give McKinsey even more money.

Leader, could you tell us why your government believed McKinsey deserved extra money from Canadian taxpayers for a job done so poorly?

The Hon. the Speaker: Is leave granted, honourable senators?

Senator Miville-Dechêne: Like you, I’m keenly interested in electoral debates. However, I must say that I have been quite concerned ever since an independent commission has been handling these debates that seem increasingly formatted and artificial, where we are unable to hear the voice of the candidates. Everything is scientifically measured, but, honestly, not very moving. What’s more, the last time, during the English debate, the size of the event was a terrible mistake and there weren’t enough journalists in charge. What do you think about the current format, which I dislike immensely?

[English]

Senator McPhedran: Senator McCallum, towards the end of your speech, you addressed the conundrum of leadership within colonial institutions. I’m mindful, as are many here, that you’re the chancellor of a university in Manitoba, and I wonder how you reconcile those two roles, whether it is a constant conflict, because, of course, universities are one of the locations where we’re seeing many of the cases that you have spoken to tonight.

Senator McCallum: Thank you for the question. I had to decide how I was going to be involved in this issue of identity theft and fraud, and I decided I would take it as a senator, which meant that I told the university, the board of governors and the Senate to which I belong that I would not be involved in how they were going to deal with the policy of identity theft and fraud.

They are developing it on their own. They don’t discuss it in front of me. They will deal with it and with other universities. They’re working with the University of Manitoba.

(On motion of Senator Dalphond, debate adjourned.)

Senator Seidman: Thank you, senator, for your question. It is a complex question; it is not subtle, and it demands a lot of thought.

The bill itself, as I said, is extremely meagre. It is a framework piece of legislation. It purports to do a lot, and promises to do a lot, but it doesn’t offer much substance, and leaves most of the details, as I said, to the Governor-in-Council — to regulations.

I think it’s up to the committee to have the kind of witness testimony that would address the issue you’re putting forward — how that is connected to a piece of legislation that wants to provide a monthly disability benefit so that people can receive the financial support they need in order to proceed with their daily living. I think that’s what the bill is trying to do. Exactly how that would speak to the point you’re making is, I think, something for the committee to explore.

[Translation]

Senator Yussuff: One of my biggest worries about the bill is that the provinces will claw back certain aspects of this benefit.

As you know, provinces run their own programs. I would argue that, throughout history, there has been a sense of meanness in their applications, especially to people with disabilities because they are the most vulnerable. Now layering a federal benefit on top of that, without any certainty that the province will not claw it back, is a real worry. Is this something the committee should examine? Many of the activists who have been lobbying spoke about this.

We need to assure ourselves that one hand will not take from the other hand just because they can do so under their own jurisdiction. I think this would be a terrible tragedy, and it is not what the bill is intended to do.

More importantly, trying to lift people out of poverty — people who have disabilities — in this country should be a laudable expectation for everyone. The provinces and the federal government should work this out in a way that will give us assurances that whatever money is allocated will not be clawed back by provincial governments across the country.

Hon. Raymonde Gagné (Legislative Deputy to the Government Representative in the Senate): Honourable senators, pursuant to the order adopted on December 7, 2021, I would like to inform the Senate that Question Period with the Honourable Joyce Murray, P.C., M.P., Minister of Fisheries, Oceans and the Canadian Coast Guard, will take place on March 7, 2023, at 2:30 p.m.

[Translation]

On the Order:

Resuming debate on the motion of the Honourable Senator Cotter, seconded by the Honourable Senator Woo, for the second reading of Bill C-22, An Act to reduce poverty and to support the financial security of persons with disabilities by establishing the Canada disability benefit and making a consequential amendment to the Income Tax Act.

Some Hon. Senators: Hear, hear.

(On motion of Senator Martin, debate adjourned.)

On the Order:

Resuming debate on the inquiry of the Honourable Senator Dasko, calling the attention of the Senate to the role of leaders’ debates in enhancing democracy by engaging and informing voters.

Senator Gold: Thank you for your question. The government is not doing nothing. The government has pursued — and is continuing to investigate — these matters, and it will continue to do so in an appropriate way.

Hon. Donald Neil Plett (Leader of the Opposition): About three weeks ago, leader, the Commissioner of the Canada Revenue Agency told a committee of the other place that to further investigate the $15.5 billion paid out to recipients for the wage subsidy “. . . wouldn’t be worth the effort.”

To provide some context, $15.5 billion would pay for more than three years of new spending — announced last week — for provincial health care services.

I think the middle-class Canadians that the Prime Minister likes to talk about would be mystified that billions of their tax dollars are considered inconsequential by this government.

Last week, the Parliamentary Budget Officer told our National Finance Committee that this is disconcerting, and I quite agree with him.

Why doesn’t the Trudeau government believe this work is worth the effort?

Senator Simons: That is a very good question. In my speech, I didn’t really delve into — I was having too much fun, perhaps — whether having a commission is the best strategy, as opposed to letting individual broadcasters, or journalistic organizations, organize the debates. I know that someone close to your family was involved in the recent provincial debate in Quebec as a journalist crafting very careful questions. What is that expression? “A camel is a horse designed by a committee.” It may be that there are too many cooks.

The challenge is that when you have this many leaders, getting them all on stage at one time — when it is not necessarily in everyone’s strategic interest — is very difficult. The fact that we had only one English-language debate was very frustrating to me since I, apparently, have an unslakable thirst to quench. I always find that watching the French-language debate is often much more interesting.

(On motion of Senator Clement, debate adjourned.)

On the Order:

Resuming debate on the inquiry of the Honourable Senator Coyle, calling the attention of the Senate to the importance of finding solutions to transition Canada’s society, economy and resource use in pursuit of a fair, prosperous, sustainable and peaceful net-zero emissions future for our country and the planet.

Hon. Mary Jane McCallum, pursuant to notice of December 13, 2022, moved:

That the Standing Senate Committee on Indigenous Peoples be authorized to examine and report on the misrepresentation of Indigenous ancestry, inadequate self‑identification standards and the profound effects that such identity fraud has on further marginalizing Indigenous people, in particular Indigenous women; and

That the committee submit its final report no later than December 31, 2023.

She said: Honourable senators, I rise today to speak to Motion No. 96, which states:

That the Standing Senate Committee on Indigenous Peoples be authorized to examine and report on the misrepresentation of Indigenous ancestry, inadequate self‑identification standards and the profound effects that such identity fraud has on further marginalizing Indigenous people, in particular Indigenous women . . . .

I want to acknowledge Senator Brazeau, who introduced Motion No. 371 on September 20, 2018, regarding the issue of selling fraudulent membership cards.

Colleagues, it is important to acknowledge that all the work I do in the Senate is not mine alone but is always a collective effort that arises from the context of struggle, whether the struggle is righting historical wrongs or addressing current gaps in policy and legislation. It is important to bring to light that the fight surrounding these injustices is a burden carried most heavily by Indigenous women, as it harms humans and all our relations. Our work, as Indigenous women, has and will always remain a collective effort because that’s who esquiwak are.

I wish to thank the Indigenous Women’s Collective and acknowledge the work they have done on the issue of Indigenous identity theft and fraud. It is on their behalf that I bring this matter to the Senate floor.

Honourable senators, I wish to speak to the word “identity” at the outset. Kim TallBear, a Native/Indigenous studies and technology scholar, has analyzed race shifting cases in both the U.S. and Canada since the early 2000s, particularly as they relate to genetic research and testing. In the article “Native ‘Identity’ Fraud is not Distraction, but the Final Indian Bounty,” Kim TallBear states that:

Playing Indian is the increasingly common practice of non‑Indigenous (most often, not always white) people making especially public claims to Indigenous identity, sometimes for great financial gain and career advancement.

She cautions us about the use of the term “identity.” She states that “it is usually an individualistic word that pertains to our individual bodies and things we consider bodies’ property . . . .” Maybe the correct terms might be “relatives, relations, citizenship, kinship, and who we are or become together as collectives?”

Kim TallBear continues:

We do not want to reinforce the individualism that roots often false claims and help further erase the fact that we are making collective claims and asserting collectively-forged ideas and cultural and political authorities.

In the book Claiming Anishinaabe: Decolonizing the Human Spirit, author Lynn Gehl quotes Robert Bocock who states that:

. . . culture is best understood as a set of practices by which meanings are produced, shared, and exchanged within a group. . . . while cultural entities and meanings predate who we are, it is the collective assigning of meanings to them that allows us to appreciate what they are and the purpose they serve.

She goes on to state:

Richard Castillo agrees with this idea of one’s culture as a source of direction and agency when he argues that cultural meaning systems provide humans with representative, constructive, directive, and evocative functions.

Honourable senators, for my generation, it took living within a community to arrive at these meanings, teachings and life skills, which are taught through land-based living. Today, we have to figure out how we pass on the knowledge to future generations — many who are land-, identity- and kinship‑dispossessed through no fault of their own.

As stated by the Indigenous Women’s Collective, the most insidious harm caused by “pretendianism” is how it most hurts Indigenous people who are reconnecting to their culture and identity. Displaced Indigenous peoples need to be supported and acknowledged. “Pretendians” perversely claim the vulnerability and violence experienced by Indigenous peoples as their own and then use it to their own callous and self-centred purposes.

In the book entitled Conquest: Sexual Violence and American Indian Genocide, author Andrea Smith states:

Rather than adopt the strategy of fighting for sovereignty first and improving Native women’s status second, as many activists argue, we must understand that attacks on Native women’s status are themselves attacks on Native sovereignty.

Colleagues, how can it be that the policy of self-identification continues to be adopted, giving free rein to pretendians, who unjustly continue to hold and wield great power and authority over issues that are intended to be Indigenous-led? Disappointingly, this practice is supported by the very government that claims that there is no more important relationship than that with Indigenous peoples. Such self‑identification represents one part of the intellectual violence inherent to Indigenous identity fraud.

Our story as First Nations, Métis, Inuit and non-status esquiwak is about creation and ceremony of life and love; respect; courage; and understanding and celebrating our resilience through complex lessons learned from life, nature, environment and astronomy. Our story should be the one thing in life that is truly ours. It’s what has connected us to our ancestors for centuries, what has been passed down, what has kept us safe, what has motivated us to keep raising our voices for those yet to come and those who have been kept marginalized and voiceless. It is what has kept us moving toward transformational change to regain our power and spirit taken by the Church, government, the patriarchy and even those other women who purposefully give themselves power over the sovereignty of our story, and hence our legacy, and distort it.

Colleagues, I stand with the Indigenous Women’s Collective in denouncing the deceit of Indigenous identity theft. Its tentacles reach every level of academic, political, judicial and policy branches of power. Historically, colonial institutions must cease their silence now and denounce this for what it is: legitimate theft. If such institutions are committed to reconciliation, they will help to end the silence surrounding this matter, renounce its conduct and acknowledge the harm it causes to Indigenous people, particularly Indigenous women and children.

Honourable senators, as is the custom in Cree culture, I would like to introduce my kinship and my history. When Cree people meet, they ask who your parents are — a winak ke mama equa ke papa? — and where you come from — tant ke tha ochi? — as it gives them a frame of reference of who you are and what you represent.

My spirit name is Wa Ba Ne Quie: Woman of the Dawn or Woman of the East. I am from the Hawk Clan. I received my spirit name through a shaking tent ceremony when I was taking traditional medicine. My mother, Marie Adele Thomas, was Métis. Her mother’s family fled from the Selkirk area outside Winnipeg to Brochet in the early 1900s because they were afraid for their lives. My great-grandparents’ ancestors came from France and Scotland, and they married ethenewak — human beings — from Canada. Ethenewak is the word we had for ourselves before the Indian Act.

My mother’s father came from Cumberland House, Saskatchewan. My mother passed on in 1957 from thyroid cancer. My remembrance of her comes from stories of family and elders, and she was remembered for being a caring and hardworking mother who had many skills.

I was sent to residential school three weeks after she passed on, and I have not dealt with that trauma to this day, as I have repressed my memories of this time in my life. When my mother married my father, she became treaty and was defined as such by outsiders, the church and the Indian agent, a fantastic woman afforded little to no significance by settlers.

My father, Horace McCallum, was a treaty Indian and arrived in Brochet when he was 16. His mother was from Shoal Lake and his father from Peter Ballantyne, both in Saskatchewan. My father was a hunter, trapper, educator and a single parent. He was determined, innovative, fearless and observant.

In the first years when he started trapping at the age of 16, he walked to his trap line in minus-40-degree weather because he didn’t have a dog team and he pulled the sled behind him. He remains, to this day, my greatest teacher, mentor and role model. He never allowed the colonial system to define him and his life, and I hope I’m staying true to him and following in his footsteps.

Honourable senators, what would you think if I told you that today I have decided that I am going to be a White woman? This country has expended massive amounts of money, time and effort to remove the Indian from me, attempting to remove language, culture, environment and spirituality. They have taught me sin; about the negative aspects of childhood, girlhood and womanhood; derogatory words from your language, such as savage; and the subordinate role that women play. They have developed policies and strategies to keep Indigenous people oppressed while at the same time benefiting because systematically oppressing us provides others with jobs. What do you think? Would you accept me if I were to become White? Would I be treated differently? Isn’t it a ridiculous concept and proposition?

Colleagues, I would like to close with a joint message from the Indigenous Women’s Collective and me.

In Cree, iskotew means fire in a woman’s heart. We have witnessed courage in and with so many Indigenous women standing up publicly to denounce the revelations of Mary Ellen Turpel-Lafond’s deceit and identity fraud. Turpel‑Lafond and others like her, in their very actions, have the capability to stop and silence the advances of colonial violence on Indigenous women, advances championed by women like the Indigenous Women’s Collective. The power and prestige that these individuals who commit Indigenous identity fraud wanted, garnered and displayed publicly silenced many. It subsequently and unfairly left Indigenous women to do the work required to counteract the consequences of the theft, grief and powerlessness that they helped to create. The Indigenous women are left the challenge of holding colonial institutions accountable for enabling and protecting those who knowingly and premeditatedly practice identity fraud.

Each time an Indigenous woman stands up, she lights a fire and uplifts the forgotten, the abused and the silenced. Eden Fineday, Cindy Blackstock, Vice Chief Aly Bear, Audra Simpson and many others are examples of iskotew. What is often not shared is the pressure placed on Indigenous women privately to be quiet: Ka we the aya me — don’t speak. Even the act of preventing speech is a threat — an act of violence. Whether they are in a violent relationship or combatting systemic violence, Indigenous women have always faced the pressure to be quiet. Ka ke to — do not utter a sound. Yet we persist. This is how healing and transformative change happens in real time. So we humbly ask that you share love and support for Indigenous women who speak out because they have fought silent battles we do not see and mounting pressure kept out of the public eye. When we see courage, we need to honour it. This is consistent with the traditions of many Indigenous nations across Turtle Island, to honour the warrior and to dance the victory dance when courage defeats fear. Because that is what you are witnessing today and in the days yet to come: That courage will defeat fear. Kinanâskomitin. Thank you.