Hon. Elizabeth Marshall: Welcome, minister, to the Senate of Canada. I have read your Critical Minerals Strategy and I watched your press conference. Given the billions of dollars to be devoted to this strategy, when will you begin to report to Canadians on the progress of the strategy; the money spent, which will be in the billions of dollars; and the strategy’s achievements? I’m looking for accountability.

Hon. Sabi Marwah: Honourable senators, I rise today to speak about Julia Levy, who was just announced as the newest Rhodes Scholar from British Columbia.

The Rhodes Scholarship is one of the most prestigious postgraduate awards for study at the University of Oxford. Established in 1902, it is the oldest graduate scholarship in the world. Key criteria for the Rhodes Scholarship includes academic excellence, leadership ability and commitment to service with a focus on contributing to positive change in the world.

Julia meets all these requirements and then some. She is a scientist, artist and activist, and she is also the first trans woman to be awarded the Rhodes Scholarship in Canada.

Julia graduated with a major in chemistry and a minor in visual arts from the University of Victoria. During her second year, she combined the two fields of study and invented a virtual reality program to help chemistry students visualize molecules in a better way. She went on to develop an augmented reality format for visualizing complex molecules. Professor Jeremy Wulff said in a statement on Julia that she is “destined for greatness.”

Julia also worked with the university’s Vancouver Island Drug Checking Project and the Gender Generation Project for trans youth and their families.

I spoke with Julia yesterday and asked her if there was a message she wished to share with Canadians. She said:

I want to celebrate how far we have come. Being a transgender woman is the most beautiful and joyous experience of my life.

Transgender people have something vital to contribute to our national community, and I hope that in receiving this award I will have a positive impact on the lives of others.

I am incredibly grateful to share these words with you; as a transwoman, a British Columbian, and as a Canadian. I hope and intend to impact the world in a way that will make Canada proud.

Colleagues, as many of you know, the Rhodes Scholarship comes with a dated set of rules and a history of racial inequality, gender and class discrimination.

Elizabeth Kiss, warden of Rhodes House in Oxford, acknowledged that the Rhodes Trust is grappling with its history. But the negative aspects of the founder’s vision for the scholarship have been rejected, except for the core values that still make sense. For example, Kiss says that Rhodes wanted to develop people with “an energy to lead and a kindness for others.” Levy has that in spades, Kiss said.

As Canada’s first trans woman to be awarded this scholarship, Julia is proving that excellence and success are accessible to everyone regardless of their gender expression or sexual orientation. Thank you.

Hon. Yuen Pau Woo: Apologies to Clement Clarke Moore.

’Twas the week before Christmas, when all through the Senate

Members were stirring for a way to adjourn it.

Speeches were made in the chamber with care,

In hopes that minds would be changed both here and over there.

A report on C-11 had been put to bed,

While visions of 3rd reading danced in the GRO’s head.

As dry leaves that before the wild hurricane fly,

When they meet with an obstacle, mount to the sky,

And so it was with the Broadcasting Act,

Yet “discoverability” was saved, as a matter of fact.

The Speaker in his robe and three-cornered hat,

Had settled down in the chair where he sat.

When out in the foyer there arose such a clatter,

Pages sprang up to deal with the matter.

With Black Rod in charge, so lively and quick,

I knew in a moment it wasn’t St. Nick.

The moon on the breast of the Ottawa snow

Gave lustre of mid-day to objects below,

When, what to my wondering eyes should appear,

But six new senators, bright eyed and clear.

More rapid than eagles the sponsors they came,

as they whistled, and shouted, and called out by name:

“Now, Shugart! now, Osler! now, Greenwood and Burey!

On, Cardozo! on Patterson! Shake hands with Furey!

We welcome you to the hallowed red chamber

And pray the PM will fill the remainder.

And then, in a twinkling, we received a note

From Clerk Gerald, and thusly he wrote:

“When Christmas is over, this Christmas will be

the last of our Christmas for Christmases to see.”

We awed at this portent and wondered who?

It was Dan, our senator and friend from Membertou.

He was humble and wise, and a right jolly old elf,

with a name like Christmas, he could hardly help himself.

The gifts he left us are abundant and rare,

Above all, kindness and patience and, well, savoir faire.

When we return, he will have retired,

But his example for us will long be admired.

As we spring to our sleighs, and give the whistle,

before we fly away like the down of a thistle.

We will exclaim, ere Dan leaves our sight,

CHRISTMAS is ever with us because he did right!

Happy holidays to one and all.

Hon. Mary Jane McCallum: Honourable senators, I would like to thank the Canadian Senators Group for allowing me space to speak today. I rise today in collaboration with the Indigenous Women’s Collective to address a pervasive and critical issue facing our nation: that of Indigenous identity fraud, or pretendianism.

This issue is not a victimless crime. It harms all Indigenous people, but it particularly harms Indigenous women. It allows interlopers to steal our voice, our power and our hard-earned places in society. These pretendians are cunning. They find cracks left by centuries of colonialism and squeeze through them. They then rely on the ambivalence of these colonial institutions and the silence of many Indigenous male leaders to claim support and legitimacy.

This deceit has allowed pretendians to infiltrate academia, politics, the judiciary, corrections and various other branches of power. This stealing of identity and parading of trauma for such personal gain is blatantly opportunistic racism. If such activity is not being outwardly renounced and combatted, it is being enabled — for it is the silence that surrounds colonial violence against Indigenous women that is killing us. The continued marginalization of Indigenous women that this fraud yields makes us further vulnerable to all forms of violence. It keeps us silent and isolated, with devastating effects.

Yet these pretendians do more than just harm Indigenous peoples. They harm those with whom they have worked and walked with. They hurt the causes these fraudsters pretend to support, and the individuals who rely on that work. They hurt reconciliation in Canada.

However, we Indigenous women are tired of being silent while our abusers enjoy impunity. We have value. We matter. We will continue to speak up and speak out in the face of the various forms of violence that oppress us — whether that violence is systemic, lateral, patriarchal, gender or otherwise.

If the Senate is committed to reconciliation, we must end the deafening silence surrounding pretendianism. We must denounce and renounce such shameful conduct and acknowledge the harm it causes to Indigenous people, particularly Indigenous women and children. It takes all of us, colleagues, to shed our complacency and ensure this violence is no longer empowered to further marginalize Indigenous women, thereby stealing their voice and power. Let us have the courage to be good allies and walk shoulder to shoulder in solidarity against this insidious activity.

Kinanâskomitin. Thank you.

(Pursuant to the order adopted by the Senate on December 7, 2021, to receive a Minister of the Crown, the Honourable Jonathan Wilkinson, P.C., M.P., Minister of Natural Resources, appeared before honourable senators during Question Period.)

Hon. Jonathan Wilkinson, P.C., M.P., Minister of Natural Resources: Thank you for the very important question. The Atlantic Loop is, as you say, a critical project with respect to electricity for Atlantic Canada — enabling the phase-out of coal, and the utilization of non-emitting energy, but also setting up Atlantic Canada for what will be necessary in terms of the augmentation of electricity, which we will need if we are looking to electrify transportation, home heating and a whole range of applications — let alone the need to have an abundance of clean energy to attract industry to come and produce products.

The Atlantic Loop is extremely important. I have been actively working with all of the provinces by speaking with Premier Houston, Premier Higgs and Premier Furey and, of course, with the Government of Quebec. It is a priority for all of us, but it is also something we have to be thoughtful about in terms of how we put it together. Certainly, the federal government recognizes it needs to come to the table to be part of the solution. That is something that we are actively working on. I would say, though, that we do intend to target arriving at some kind of agreement in principle within the first several months of next year. As you say, time is of the essence.

Hon. Hassan Yussuff: Thank you, minister, for being here today. I want to thank you again for all the good work that’s happening across the country, especially on the file you’re responsible for.

As you may know, I spend a great deal of my time advocating on behalf of working people across this country. In that context, I was a co-chair of the task force to phase out coal-fired generation in our country. Workers embraced the 10 recommendations that were made as part of our task force report. I know that the government has certainly been consulting workers in regard to implementing Just Transition legislation.

Can you assure our colleagues here in the Senate that sometime in the near future — which means spring of next year — we could see your government acting on the Just Transition program? Would that also include all of the elements recommended by our Just Transition Task Force for Canadian Coal Power Workers and Communities?

Hon. Jonathan Wilkinson, P.C., M.P., Minister of Natural Resources: Thank you. Yes, as you say, forests are an important carbon sink, alongside wetlands and peatlands. Certainly, we are focused on trying to enhance the carbon sinks through programs like the 2 Billion Trees program. But as you also rightly point out, forestry, and particularly anything related to things like the waste that we leave in the forests, create methane and, at times, CO₂, which contribute to climate change.

Canada does account for all of that. We use guidelines that are recognized by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. There are some environmental organizations who think that some of those guidelines should be different and changed. We have engaged with them — Nature Canada is one of them; Natural Resources Defense Council is another. We are engaged in conversations with them, but, of course, Canada doesn’t want to invent its own guidelines. We want to work in lockstep with our international partners, and we are doing that on an ongoing basis.

Certainly, we are focused very much going forward on trying to find ways, for example, to better utilize the value that exists — for example, in waste which presently is often left in the forest, creating methane but also costing our economy dollars.

[Translation]

Hon. Clément Gignac: Hello, minister.

As the former Quebec Minister of Natural Resources, I want to recognize the great work you’ve been doing and point out that Canadians should know how important natural resource development is as a means of creating wealth while respecting the environment.

I want to continue the conversation that my colleague started about the Atlantic Loop. I’d like to hear more of your thoughts on it. The 2030 timeline is very short when it comes to getting infrastructure built. I’d like to know what kind of financial support could be granted for this project.

Hon. Jonathan Wilkinson, P.C., M.P., Minister of Natural Resources: Thank you for the question. I will answer in English to be clearer.

[English]

I certainly welcome Mr. DeMarco’s report, and there were many elements of it that I agreed with. What I would say is what Natural Resources Canada did was different from what Environment and Climate Change Canada did. Environment and Climate Change Canada developed a climate plan that was actually based on what hydrogen could do in terms of emissions reductions within the relevant time frame, and they looked really only at one application. Natural Resources Canada looked at what’s called a “full potential,” which is all of the applications for which hydrogen could be utilized — if you actually seized all of those opportunities, what is the full potential you could look at?

Often, businesses, as you will know, do a full potential to try to understand what may be possible. It doesn’t mean that’s what you choose to do in terms of the specific avenues you will go down. But I would say the full potential is useful in terms of trying to actually ensure that we understand where the biggest opportunities are from both an emissions reduction and an economic perspective.

I am very comfortable that the work we did and will do going forward is helping us to move that forward with respect to the hydrogen strategy. I used to run a hydrogen business. It’s an area I know reasonably well, and I do think hydrogen represents an enormous economic opportunity for Canada. It is also one of those things that we are going to need for applications that are very hard to use electricity in, for example, like heavy-duty trucking or even, in some cases, home heating.

So I welcome Mr. DeMarco’s report, but I do think it is important to understand they are slightly different in terms of the focus.

Hon. Jonathan Wilkinson, P.C., M.P., Minister of Natural Resources: It’s a very good question, senator. As you know, the money for the Critical Minerals Strategy was in the 2022 budget. It was $3.8 billion. It is actually very unusual for a government to effectively pre-fund a strategy that has not been fully finalized, but that’s what we did in the budget, and then we launched the final version of the strategy just last week.

It is critically important for Canada. I think it represents, as you would have seen me say in the press conference, a generational economic opportunity for this country, not just around extraction but around processing and the manufacturing of batteries and electric vehicles. It is also important, as we move forward, that we are transparent with Canadians about the progress that is being made along the chain. Of that $3.8 billion, some is for projects, some is for infrastructure and some is for geological science.

My expectation going forward is that at least annually we would be reporting out on the progress of the strategy.

[Translation]

Hon. Jonathan Wilkinson, P.C., M.P., Minister of Natural Resources: Thank you for the question. I would say that the responsibility for the list of banned individuals falls to Minister Joly. I am very open to the idea of having a conversation, if you can give me the information you were talking about. It is important because Canada is a leader when it comes to banning bad actors, including Russia, which invaded Ukraine. I am very open to the idea of having a conversation with you and then with Minister Joly.

[English]

Hon. Jonathan Wilkinson, P.C., M.P., Minister of Natural Resources: It’s a great question. I would say that Canada has been doing everything it possibly can to support our European friends and allies in the aftermath of the brutal and illegal invasion of Ukraine. That started with the commitment we made to augment production of oil and gas in this country by 300,000 barrels a day such that we were creating more liquidity in the global market to enable countries like Germany to move away from Russian oil and gas. But it certainly also involves the conversation around hydrogen.

Chancellor Scholz and my counterpart, Vice-Chancellor Habeck, were here for a very important and, I think, successful visit. As you say, part of that was the signing of the memorandum on hydrogen. It relates to Newfoundland and Labrador and also Nova Scotia, which also has very significant aspirations in this area.

The first step is putting in place a regulatory regime to be able to appropriately regulate offshore wind. Some of these projects are starting with onshore, where there is a regime in place, or one can be put into place relatively quickly by the province. Then there is a federal-provincial offshore regulatory piece that we are working on with both of those provinces right now, and we are looking at ways we can do work even as that progresses.

The target is to be in a position to start to ship hydrogen to Germany by as early as 2025, which is not very far away. The Government of Nova Scotia, in particular, has set very aggressive public targets as to what they would like to see with respect to hydrogen going forward. So it’s an area in which I am working closely with both of those provinces and territories.

More generally, hydrogen is an enormous opportunity also for Western Canada, but it will more likely be hydrogen derived from natural gas, with appropriate carbon capture. It is one of those things that Canada can actually do to help energy security around the world.

Hon. Donna Dasko: Welcome, minister.

The Ring of Fire in Ontario’s James Bay Lowlands region has been identified as a region of critical minerals since the year 2006. It has been repeatedly described as a unique resource and opportunity.

The current pace of development, however, is discouraging. In fact, it’s not at all clear whether that rich region will ever be developed.

I also understand that consultation with Indigenous communities is important — it is, in fact, vital — as are the various environmental and other assessments that must be conducted.

My questions to you are as follows: What will move that project forward? Is there a realistic and actual timetable that you can share with us for the development of the Ring of Fire? If it’s clear in your view that it will not proceed, can the people involved know this sooner rather than later? Thank you.

Hon. Jonathan Wilkinson, P.C., M.P., Minister of Natural Resources: Thank you.

I will speak generally and then speak to the Ring of Fire. More generally, we do have work to do to ensure our regulatory processes are able to move at the speed we need to in order for us to have access to the minerals that are required for the energy transition. We need to do that in a manner that is sensitive to the environment — not cutting corners on environmental sustainability — and in a matter that respects our duty to discharge and that respects the rights of Indigenous peoples.

We are working actively within the federal family to figure out ways to do that; there are a number of initiatives under way. We are working directly with most of the provinces and territories under the Regional Energy and Resource Tables to look at aligning those things.

The Ring of Fire, however, is a particularly complex area. Much of it is in peatlands, which are a huge carbon sink. The last thing we want to do when fighting climate change is to make climate change worse. Second, there are legitimate Indigenous concerns in the area that need to be heard and addressed.

There is a process going on in terms of assessing two roads, but those are largely independent of any project; they are for Indigenous communities. There is a regional assessment going on, which should help to enable specific project assessments going forward.

We do not yet have a specific project proposal. A lot of people think there is some project for the Ring of Fire. I know that Wyloo Metals, which holds the rights, is interested in moving forward, but we have not had any project enter the environmental assessment stage. There is the regional assessment going on.

At the end of the day, we are interested in finding pathways through which some portions of that region could be mined in a manner that is sensitive environmentally, but we have to address the environmental concern around the peat. We also have to address the legitimate issues the environmental communities have if we are going to find a pathway forward. That is the work that I am doing with every day.

Hon. Brian Francis: Welcome, Minister Wilkinson. Last October, the CBC reported that few federal public servants are taking part in the Indigenous-related training offered by the Canada School of Public Service, or CSPS. Given their key role in the design, implementation and maintenance of laws, policies and other measures that may adversely impact Indigenous people, those findings are alarming.

Could you please confirm whether you support issuing a directive to make Indigenous-related training mandatory for employees at Natural Resources Canada and all other federal departments and agencies?

Hon. Denise Batters: Minister, one of Canada’s most abundant natural resources are the agricultural products produced by our farmers, but the Trudeau government’s tripling carbon tax threatens their livelihoods. While your government claims that farm fuels are exempt from carbon tax, natural gas and propane are not. Farmers who rely on those fuels to dry their grain and heat their barns see bills in the tens of thousands of dollars. The average $860 carbon tax rebate you promise provides pennies on the dollar.

Canadian farmers are already careful environmental stewards, but they pay the Trudeau carbon tax on fuel, fertilizer and transporting grain and cattle to market, again and again. That drives up the price of food, which, again, affects the farmers as consumers. It also affects the grocery bills of every Canadian, rural and urban.

When will your government axe the carbon tax on all farm fuels and give our farmers and all Canadian consumers a much‑needed break?

Hon. Jonathan Wilkinson, P.C., M.P., Minister of Natural Resources: Thank you for the question, senator.

I am from Saskatchewan and used to work for the premier of Saskatchewan. I certainly understand the agriculture sector and some of the concerns that have been raised.

The price on pollution is an important component of fighting climate change, both in terms of reducing emissions and in terms of incentivizing innovation and the development of technologies that can be zero- or ultra-low-emitting. We have put in place a retail rebate, including in Saskatchewan, where 80% of families get more money back than they pay. We have also come forward with a rebate for farm families to try to address the issue you raised, which was not addressed previously, but there is a repayment at this point in time.

It is important for politicians in both chambers of Parliament to really understand that climate change is a threat. It is an existential threat to the future of the human race. It is something that terrifies our children, in terms of the future going forward. It is not a responsible position for any political party to take that simply averts our eyes from the climate crisis. We must have a thoughtful approach, and it should be on the part of all political parties. From our perspective, it shouldn’t be free to pollute anywhere in this country. Putting a price on pollution is an important component of having a credible climate plan that also accounts for economic realities.

Hon. Jonathan Wilkinson, P.C., M.P., Minister of Natural Resources: Yes, it is a critical project; I agree with you, senator. It is something that we have been working on actively over the past few years. I have been speaking regularly with Premier Houston about this. My view is that it is critical, and from what he has expressed to me — and I take him at his word — it is a critical project for him.

Obviously, we need to ensure we are doing this in a manner that works for ratepayers, for the province and other provinces that are involved, but that it also works for the federal government from a financial perspective. I do believe there is a pathway to doing that. That is what we are working to define. It is not straightforward or simple, but it is urgent. As I said in response to the previous question, my hope is to have some kind of an agreement in principle in place some time early in the new year.

[Translation]