Hon. Claude Carignan: My question is for the Leader of the Government.

Maine has adopted new regulations that prohibit the spreading of municipal sewage sludge. We are talking about sludge from municipal water treatment plants. To get rid of these substances, the sludge and biosolids are exported to Canada and spread on farmers’ fields in Quebec.

International trade experts say that there is no rule prohibiting the import — or export, as the case may be — of municipal sewage sludge. What is the government planning to do to stop the importing of municipal sewage sludge? You can imagine what it contains.

Hon. Claude Carignan: I’d like to congratulate the sponsor of the bill on her speech, because she brought to life a very technical bill. That is talent.

I rise today to support Bill S-11 at third reading. Its short title is Federal Law–Civil Law Harmonization Act, No. 4. Bill S-11 was studied at a fast pace because the government wanted it passed before the holidays.

Although imposing because of the sheer number of pages, this bill is different than other government bills. It has garnered a consensus. It simply wants to clarify the terminology of legislative provisions without changing the rules of law at the heart of the 52 acts amended by Bill S-11.

To borrow the words that the officials used during the Senate committee’s study, the principle of a harmonization bill is not to alter the policy underlying the legislation’s provisions. The testimony of the officials at committee have convinced me that the content of Bill S-11 respects this principle.

That said, while recognizing the exceptional work of the officials who produced this technical bill that has garnered consensus, the parameters for the Senate committee’s study were not optimal given the government’s very tight deadline for passage of Bill S-11 this week.

Here are some examples of things that should be improved. I’m mentioning them in hopes the government will keep them in mind if it asks the Senate to study other harmonization bills in the future.

First, the Department of Justice Canada was very slow to send Senate committee members the list of groups and individuals consulted in 2017 when the bill was being drafted. Even though consultations wrapped up over five years ago, the government didn’t send us the list until yesterday. By then, the Senate committee had already completed its study.

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For future bills, I’d suggest that the government promptly provide a list of the stakeholders it has consulted, so that there is no need for us to ask officials for it.

I also suggest that we be provided not only with the list of names of the stakeholders consulted, but also with a summary of what they said during the consultations, including their criticisms and suggestions for amendments to the bill.

If we were to receive these documents up front, it would increase the transparency of the government’s consultation process. These documents would also help us quickly identify key stakeholders who were not consulted, so we could invite them to the Senate committee.

Take, for example, the case of Bill S-11. Officials told senators in the technical briefing that Justice Canada had sought input from over 400 key stakeholders and members of the legal community. I believe that this consultation was certainly comprehensive, as the list of stakeholders contacted by the government includes a very impressive number of academic experts or organizations that could be impacted by the measures in the bill.

However, the only witnesses the Senate committee heard during its study of Bill S-11 were representatives from Justice Canada, including Minister Lametti. In other words, there were no non-governmental witnesses. The committee study lasted just one day and was held only five days after the committee received the order of reference to examine the bill.

I advise against using the same approach the next time we study a harmonization bill. I would remind senators that, unlike Bill S-11, the last three harmonization bills were studied over the course of several committee meetings. For example, in 2010, there was Bill S-12, which I sponsored.

As with Bill S-11, the government was trying to get its bill passed before the holidays, but its deadline left slightly more time for the committee to conduct its study. The committee was able to hold four meetings in 2010 to study Bill S-12, from December 1 to 9, which allowed it to be passed by the Senate on December 14, before Parliament rose for the holidays. Unfortunately, Bill S-12 died on the Order Paper, but its provisions were carried over in an identical bill, Bill S-3, which came into force in 2011.

That being said, although the Senate committee studied Bill S-11 for only one day, we were able to glean a lot of useful and necessary information that helped us properly analyze the bill’s content.

For example, the committee was able to examine the Chambre des notaires du Québec’s comments on Bill S-11, which were sent via letter on December 9.

Furthermore, departmental officials provided the committee with relevant explanations as to why they did not incorporate certain suggestions they had received from stakeholders, including some of those made by the Chambre des notaires du Québec, during the 2017 consultations.

The officials told us that they had dismissed those suggestions for one of four reasons. The first was that the suggestion would have had an impact on the legislative direction of the provisions to be harmonized. The second was that the suggestion was not required to clarify the legislative provisions to be harmonized. The third was that the suggestion proposed drafting choices that were not in keeping with federal legislative drafting conventions.

The fourth reason some of the comments received during the consultations were not incorporated was that they had to do with laws that were not on the list of acts that the government chose to harmonize in this bill.

It is important to understand that Bill S-11 amends 52 acts that were selected based on their sector and the departments responsible for them, so even though Bill S-11 is the fourth harmonization act, there are still other acts to harmonize in the future.

To summarize, even though the Senate committee’s study of Bill S-11 had some shortcomings because of the government’s tight timeline, I believe, based on the wording of the bill, the documentation we received from government officials, and their testimony in committee, that the bill deserves to pass.

In closing, I would like to come back to a question from Senator Clement and a comment from Senator Dalphond. Senator Clement asked me if, given Bill S-11’s contribution to advancing bijuralism in Canada, it was well received by my civil law colleagues, who are mostly francophones in Canada. I believe that Bill S-11 is a step forward. However, I would point out that federal legislation is supposed to be not only bijural, but also bilingual. I believe we have a long way to go in that regard and that Justice Canada still has a lot of work to do to uphold the principle of legislative bilingualism in Canada.

I am therefore in full agreement with Senator Dalphond’s demand, which he put forward in a question to Minister Lametti during his testimony in committee. This is what he asked him:

 . . . you spoke about access to justice and access to federal laws. The country’s most important law, the Constitution Act, 1867, contains only seven sections, or perhaps eight since last week, that have been enacted in both languages and have a bilingual version. There are still many sections, more than 100, that are official in English only.

What is the department doing to put an end to this unacceptable situation, which is contrary to section 55 of the Constitution Act, 1982?

If Bill S-11 can amend 52 acts to improve the harmonization of federal law with civil law, I am sure Minister Lametti has the power to do something to get the French version of Canadian constitutional texts enacted.

For instance, what is stopping the federal government from amending Bill C-13 on official languages to implement the recommendation set out in the Senate motion adopted on March 29? That motion simply calls on the government to consider, in its reform of the Official Languages Act, adding a requirement that the government submit an annual report detailing its efforts to enact the French version of the Canadian Constitution.

If the government truly believes that the principle of bilingualism in federal legislation is important, when will it finally do something to enact the French version of constitutional texts, which are the most important laws in the country?

This obligation has existed for 40 years, since the entry into force of section 55 of the Constitution Act, 1982. I have been a lawyer since 1988, and I wouldn’t want another generation of francophone lawyers to spend their entire professional careers working with Canada’s most important laws without having a French version or a version properly drafted according to the principles of bijuralism and bilingualism.

Esteemed colleagues, thank you for your attention. I would like to take this opportunity to wish you happy holidays. I hope the Leader of the Government has a good rest.

[English]

Senator Carignan: Could you also ask whether there are existing studies on the potential impacts of using sludge from municipal treatment plants on the products consumed? Should we not exercise caution, given the uncertainty around the situation?