Hon. Pamela Wallin: Honourable senators, I have the honour to inform the Senate that pursuant to the order adopted by the Senate on May 4, 2022, the Standing Senate Committee on Banking, Trade and Commerce deposited with the Clerk of the Senate on June 6, 2022, its second report, which deals with the subject matter of those elements contained in Divisions 5, 10, 11, 15, 16, 17 and 30 of Part 5 of Bill C-19, An Act to implement certain provisions of the budget tabled in Parliament on April 7, 2022 and other measures.

Hon. Salma Ataullahjan: Honourable senators, I have the honour to table, in both official languages, the report of the Inter-Parliamentary Union concerning the One Hundred and Forty-Second Inter-Parliamentary Union Assembly and Related Meetings, held by video conference from April 13 to May 27, 2021.

Hon. Donald Neil Plett (Leader of the Opposition): Honourable senators, my question is for Senator Gold, the Leader of the Government in the Senate.

Leader, while the Senate debated your government’s request for two pre-studies last Thursday, the House Finance Committee amended Bill C-19, including striking out a complete section of the bill — section 32 of Part 5. Government members supported most of these amendments, including throwing out section 32. The Senate Social Affairs Committee was scheduled to study section 32 on Thursday as part of their pre-study of Bill C-19. It had witnesses lined up, and senators made their travel arrangements accordingly. Less than two hours before the meeting was supposed to start, it was cancelled.

Last week, several senators raised the fact that pre-studying bills that could be amended in the House is a loss of valuable time and resources for the Senate. You brushed aside these concerns by saying that when doing a pre-study, the committee is studying the issues in general, not specifically the bill’s text.

Leader, why do you think the Social Affairs Committee decided to cancel its meeting? Isn’t this proof that we were right that considering pre-studies carries a risk of wasting resources on matters that will no longer be in the bill when the bill gets here?

Hon. Marc Gold (Government Representative in the Senate): Thank you for the question. I will resist the obvious response about the use of this chamber’s time.

The fact is that pre-studies for budget implementation bills are a regular practice. The two issues to which you referred have related to different bills.

To your question, it is a measure of the utility of the pre-study of Bill C-19 that the issue about the section which was removed was raised by senators on the committee, indeed, and the views of the Senate were communicated to the government as they always are in these matters. In that regard, rather than a demonstration that it was futile or wrong to do it, this demonstrates the validity of the pre-study, and, I hope, as the pre‑studies that we in this chamber approve will demonstrate as well.

Senator Plett: Well, of course, they were set to study the part of the bill that was taken out, so I’m not sure how the Senate gave the instruction before they were even able to study it.

Senator Gold, as Leader of the Government in the Senate, you must have known the government would support deleting section 32 of Bill C-19. It had been discussed at another House committee on May 26, and this was supported by Liberal members there.

Why did you let the Social Affairs Committee organize a meeting on section 32 knowing that it would be deleted?

Senator Gold, you are not just a bystander in this Senate. You and your office have a role to play in making sure that the Senate is efficient and does not waste its time. Why didn’t you give more consideration to the witnesses and committee members?

Senator Gold: The senators who were studying this bill, as all senators, I hope — certainly senators with whom I’m familiar — do their homework well before a bill is actually to be studied on the day of the committee hearing. That is the partial answer to the first aspect of your questions, though views of senators were well communicated before the meeting.

As for the rest, I stand by my answer, honourable colleague. This was an example of the Senate working appropriately and collaboratively. As such, the bill that is ultimately passed is the best bill to serve Canadians.

[Translation]

Hon. Kim Pate: Honourable senators, my question is for Senator Gold, the government leader in the Senate. In light of the report released last week by the Auditor General chronicling the mass incarceration and disproportionate and discriminatory maximum security classification of Black and Indigenous peoples — most particularly Indigenous women, who are more than three times more likely than non-Indigenous women to be classified and released to the community for maximum security — my question is: Will the government commit to implementing the recommendations of the Senate Human Rights Committee report, as well as the measures proposed in 2019 by this chamber, to address these issues and ensure judicial oversight and effective remedial options for these and other miscarriages of justice?

Hon. Marc Gold (Government Representative in the Senate): Thank you for the question. The government understands very well the frustration felt by Canadians who want to travel outside Canada or in Canada and those coming home.

That said, the government does not agree that all the measures we have put in place to protect Canadians are ineffective or useless. The government has invested and continues to invest significantly to reduce the delays.

Hon. Dennis Glen Patterson: Honourable senators, my question is for the government leader in the Senate.

Senator Gold, the Canada Infrastructure Bank, or CIB, has launched a new Knowledge and Research initiative aimed at building “a centre of expertise,” with a goal to “partner with leading experts from across Canada.”

Senator Gold, on the face of it, so far all the money in this initiative seems to be going to big think tanks. Could you please name and tell us how many Indigenous-led, as well as northern-led, knowledge-gathering project proposals are planned under this initiative?

Hon. Marc Gold (Government Representative in the Senate): Thank you for your question. The government is committed to making critical infrastructure investments across the country. In that regard, the Indigenous infrastructure partnerships and projects include the following: the Kahkewistahaw Landing Infrastructure; the Kivalliq Hydro-Fibre Link; the Oneida Energy Storage, which is under the Investment-Focused Centre of Expertise; and the Tshiuetin Railway. I also note that in the Northwest Territories, there is the Taltson Hydroelectricity Expansion; and in Atlin, British Columbia, and Yukon Territory, there is the Atlin Hydroelectricity Expansion.

Senator Seidman: The Tobacco and Vaping Products Act amended the Tobacco Act to add a new and separate class of products, vaping products, for which there was little scientific evidence available about the harms and benefits. We did not know if vaping was effective for smoking cessation. We did not know the harms of vaping flavours, and we did not know the overall effect of vaping as a gateway to tobacco use for youth. That is why the requirement that a legislative review be conducted is of critical importance. It allows parliamentarians to update this innovative health legislation as the science evolves, to address potential unintended consequences.

Senator Gold, how can we ensure that this important legislative review is completed, and the report is tabled here in the Senate and in the other place as soon as possible?

Senator Patterson: Senator Gold, northern leaders say that we need to properly inventory existing northern infrastructure to make sure we’re making smart, targeted investments. This could be in the form of an interactive map. However, an initiative to do just that was turned down by the CIB.

Does the CIB have an equivalent tool already at their disposal? If not, would such a tool not be useful given the difficulty the CIB has had getting money out the door to northern projects?

You mentioned some projects, not all of which are in the North. For context, my research shows the CIB website only lists four nascent, embryonic projects in the Arctic: one is an MOU and another is classified as advisory.

Senator Plett: Hopefully, that won’t take another year.

One of the recommendations in the final report was the creation of a national task force to review and reinvestigate unresolved files of missing and murdered Indigenous women and girls. A report released last week by the Native Women’s Association of Canada found that there has been no update on the status of a national task force. The report called this extremely concerning and said it was critical that cases be reinvestigated to bring closure to the families.

Leader, a year ago the NDP-Liberal government finally responded to the national inquiry with a so-called action plan of its own. Why hasn’t there been any action taken on the creation of a task force? Will the families see one established this year?

On the Order:

Resuming debate on the motion of the Honourable Senator Pate, seconded by the Honourable Senator Dean, for the second reading of Bill S-233, An Act to develop a national framework for a guaranteed livable basic income.

Hon. Colin Deacon: Honourable senators, I rise to speak in support of the principle of Bill S-233 and ask the Senate to have the courage to vote in favour of studying this bill.

Let me start by reminding us of the fact that, contrary to the vast majority of the 10,000-plus emails that we have received on Bill S-233, it’s not about controlling people’s lives or arbitrarily cutting off access to cherished government programs. On the contrary, Bill S-233 is designed to explore how to better empower some of our society’s most marginalized and vulnerable in a more effective and, potentially, more cost-efficient manner.

There are two reasons why I think the study of Bill S-233 is so important. The first is the deeply troubling level of disinformation associated with this bill. Some groups are knowingly creating and sharing false information, and too many vulnerable Canadians believe and share this false information. They are fearful that their access to various government programs will be arbitrarily cut off if Bill S-233 somehow becomes law.

As our colleague Senator Simons said in a well-articulated Twitter thread, an unelected Senate “. . . CANNOT commit the government to spend any money.” Studying this bill, let alone passing it, will not take away people’s rights to existing social programs and does not initiate the World Economic Forum’s takeover of our democracy. Rather, the bill proposes to look into how our social support programs and payments might be streamlined with the intention of improving delivery of such programs, particularly to vulnerable Canadians.

I believe that the scourge of disinformation can only be countered with evidence and transparency, and that’s something we can proudly say is reliably delivered through our Senate reports.

The second reason I would like us to study Bill S-233 is that I’m increasingly worried about Canada’s addiction to creating, and never reducing, regulatory burden. Particularly, we have a concerning affinity for command-and-control regulations, regulations that maintain the status quo, limit innovation and too often create economically unsustainable programs. In business terms, we call this “red tape.”

But too often we forget that it is not just businesses that have to deal with Canada’s OECD-leading levels of regulatory burden; it is all of us, and it is also our country’s most vulnerable. That is why I think it is important for us to study Bill S-233, to address the plague of disinformation head-on and to reduce regulatory burden and red tape.

Interestingly, the desire to reduce regulatory complexities and red tape is what caused guaranteed annual income to be studied at a major policy conference for a national political party back in 1969. A fellow Nova Scotian tabled the idea of implementing a simple and effective guaranteed annual income and highlighted its promise of ending costly and inefficient rules-based income support programs that were weighed down by overlapping and often competing federal, provincial and territorial authorities.

Over 50 years ago, the principle of Bill S-233 was being discussed and debated at a national policy conference. The focus was on replacing the inefficient status quo with an income-tax-based minimum income that would be available to all Canadians if and when their income fell below a predefined level. So who was that Nova Scotian, and what was his political party? It was the Honourable Robert Stanfield, leader of the Progressive Conservative Party of Canada.

The reality is the idea behind Bill S-233 is far from new and might even represent one of the first times that Senator Pate has actually promoted Conservative Party policy. Actually, Senator Pate, I am hoping that Senator Plett does not accuse you of plagiarism.

More seriously, I want to see S-233 go to committee so that the Senate can explore, identify and better understand innovative approaches to addressing pervasive poverty. I believe Robert Stanfield’s vision of our inefficient status quo being replaced with a more efficient system of helping Canadians if and when their income falls below a predefined level is a very powerful one indeed.

Perhaps unfairly — but prove me wrong — I believe that our income support to vulnerable and marginalized Canadians is fraught with inefficiency, limitations and constraints that severely limit how effectively we enable these Canadians to access the support needed to create success in their lives. In addition, this support exists at the always complex intersection of federal, provincial and municipal jurisdictional authorities and the oft-competing departmental authorities within each level of government. It’s a recipe for program gaps, overlaps and administrative burden.

I’d like to describe four stories that have shaped my support for the study of Bill S-233 and have me believing in its promise.

The first story is from my youth, retold to me more recently. The increasingly neglected plight of Ontario’s seniors in the early 1970s resulted in a bit of shenanigans at the powerful Treasury, Economics and Intergovernmental Affairs Committee, TEIGA, of the Ontario legislature.

At the time, newspapers were telling stories of seniors whose only source of affordable protein was cat food because 35% of them over 65 in Ontario had incomes below the poverty line. My dad, who was an Ontario MPP at the time, found this to be reprehensible as the vast majority were women, and they were the ones who had struggled through the Great Depression and then worked tirelessly to hold Canada’s families, factories and country together during World War II.

I had never heard about the shenanigans part of the story from my dad. I did hear about it from retired senator Hugh Segal about three years ago. At a TEIGA committee meeting during a minority government, the majority of members voted to reduce the salaries of the minister and deputy minister of what would now be Ontario’s Ministry of Finance to $1 per year. The purpose was to familiarize those gentlemen with the effects of poverty. Former Senator Segal was working with Premier Bill Davis at the time and suddenly he had a very worried group of MPPs arriving at the door of his office. Hugh’s response was to learn more.

The result was that, within six weeks, the Ontario legislature unanimously passed a new guaranteed income supplement. What were the results? The supplement helped to reduce the poverty rate for those over 65 to under 5% of the population within three years.

The second story I want to tell you was also discussed around our kitchen table when I was in my youth; it was Manitoba’s MINCOME program, which ran in Dauphin, Manitoba, from 1974 to 1979. The focus was to empower versus control those living in poverty. It became highly politicized and was shut down, with all the data collected being locked away in the Winnipeg regional office of Library and Archives Canada.

What were the results? Well, 25 years later, a health economist by the name of Dr. Evelyn Forget rediscovered the project and was able to analyze the data. Dr. Forget’s analysis illuminated some successes of the project. Dauphin’s hospitalization rate for accidents, injuries and mental health-related issues dropped by 8.5% for those who received basic income. School performance for children in the town improved, with a surge in enrollment rates for Grade 12 students.

But because Dr. Forget’s analysis focused mainly on health outcomes of basic income, there was not sufficient data to assess the causal relationship between basic income and other social or economic outcomes.

The third story that I want to tell you is also from the Prairies. It’s a powerful social innovation called Housing First, developed and refined in the courageous and caring Prairie town of Medicine Hat. In 2015, Medicine Hat became the first community in Canada to end chronic homelessness, meaning that no more than three people were chronically homeless for more than three months.

Housing First worked because it identified individual and structural risk factors of homelessness, such as chronic health issues, disabilities, addictions and abuse, and centred programming on reducing these risks as well as providing opportunities to build social relationships, earn adequate income and gain access to affordable housing.

What were the results? Between 2009 and 2014, the amount of time participants spent in jail reduced by 67%; the number of days spent in hospital reduced by 32%. But some questions remain. For instance, it is unknown what the total net cost savings of the Housing First initiative in Medicine Hat are over the period it has been active, which existing programs were eliminated and which other programs may have been made redundant as a result of it.

The fourth and last story I want to tell you is about a more recent experiment, the Ontario Basic Income Pilot Project; it was commissioned as part of a larger poverty-reduction strategy following recommendations from retired Senator Segal. When asking the government to consider implementing a pilot, Segal reflected on what a pilot should and shouldn’t do. I’d like to quote him:

A pilot project must begin with an understanding of the costs of poverty, not only in present welfare and disability payments, but also in terms of added pressures on our health system, and the Ontario economy as a whole, through its impacts on economic productivity and existing government revenues.

Senator Pate reviewed the interim results of this program when she introduced Bill S-233, so I will not repeat them, despite their merit. Suffice it to say, I still find it very sad that former Senator Segal’s lifelong efforts to have a well-controlled study in GBI were cut short in Ontario in such an abrupt manner.

In closing, for me, Bill S-233 is about reducing red tape for those who require society’s support because they have not been able to get their feet under them, be it through their own choices or circumstances beyond their control.

As I’ve said, too often, accessing support is highly complex and unnecessarily restrictive. I hazard to guess that there likely aren’t many of us who would have the patience to navigate the current system. Many like to think that is a good thing, I expect, because it’s a deterrent, but I don’t agree.

Why? Because I believe it’s possible for us to have a system that empowers versus controls those who need it most. For those who are already struggling to cope, why would we ever think that imposing administrative complexities would help them turn their lives around?

I also believe that administrative burden is the enemy of productivity; moreover, due to my Scottish heritage, choosing to maintain an inefficient and less effective system causes me to have an allergic reaction.

Canada’s moribund productivity growth continues to worsen because we do not innovate in everything we do. Canadians are hard-working, innovative and determined. But too many of our public services are constrained by a legacy of habit, not evidence of effectiveness.

The OECD now predicts that Canada will have the worst-performing economy through 2060. I’m not willing to lay this at the feet of any single political party or level of government. I believe it’s due to a culture that is not committed to innovating in everything we do. We must stop tolerating the sentence, “But that’s not how we do it.”

Let’s have the courage to innovate. Yes, innovation and change bring risk, but they also bring the evidence of what to do and what not to do.

Colleagues, let’s send Bill S-233 to committee and ask them to focus on how the federal government might work with one willing province or territory to complete a well-documented study of the principle underlying Bill S-233. Let’s not just look at the costs but at all of the programs and services across all levels of government that might be replaced or eliminated, the savings potentially enabled and the opportunities that might create.

If we value the prosperity of our grandchildren, we must embrace change and innovation. We must eliminate unnecessary rules and red tape, and focus our attention firmly on the intended result. If we do not do so as it relates to supporting the most vulnerable in our society, then for whom?

Thank you, colleagues.

[Translation]

Senator Bellemare: Here’s my question. I believe, as you do, that it is very important to empower people. In your opinion, what level of guaranteed income should people receive as part of a guaranteed minimum income program so they can truly escape poverty?

Which programs do you believe involve so much red tape they should be abolished?

[English]

Senator C. Deacon: Senator Bellemare, those would be the questions I hope we would answer in committee as we look at this program and see all the areas that it reaches into, such as health care services and paramedic services. Certainly in my own community, the fire department recognizes that a great many of their calls relate to health crises and issues from those who are not getting appropriate health care.

So who knows to where we should limit this and who knows what programs could be delivered more effectively? But it’s arguable that the patchwork — and I would argue this — provides the evidence to the contrary that a great many efficiencies can be gained.

To answer your question, I would look at that as being something that would come from a Senate study.

Senator Simons: Absolutely. I think those first Lebanese pioneers laid down a foundation that has allowed Muslim immigrants from around the world to come and find a home in Edmonton, whether they are coming from North Africa, East Africa or Indonesia. Wherever Muslims have come from to Edmonton, the Al Rashid Mosque community has been there to welcome them.

You mentioned Lila Fahlman. I didn’t raise her in my speech for one reason, which is that her family was Syrian rather than Lebanese. I know the border is liminal, but as this was about Lebanese heritage month, I wanted to focus on Hilwie Hamdon, who was the remarkable woman who fought for the Al Rashid Mosque, which was, indeed, the first mosque in Canada.

Interestingly enough, the first mosque in North America was, I believe, in North Dakota and not in Chicago or New York as you might have expected. There was really an important Lebanese diaspora that came and filled up that whole prairie west on both sides of the Canadian-American border.

(On motion of Senator Dean, debate adjourned.)

Hon. Pamela Wallin moved second reading of Bill S-248, An Act to amend the Criminal Code (medical assistance in dying).

She said: Honourable senators, I have some brief remarks on Bill S-248, the Senate public bill that I tabled last Thursday.

The bill amends sections of the Criminal Code relating to medical assistance in dying to allow individuals diagnosed with an incurable illness, disorder or disability to make an advance request for medical assistance in dying.

This bill is a result of many years of careful consideration and consultation with dozens of stakeholders, organizations, experts and those, most importantly, with lived experiences.

Last year, we passed an amendment here in the Senate to the government’s bill regarding advance requests. Sadly, that amendment was rejected by the government. Still, I am proud to be trying again after another year of further consultation and study.

I wish to speak only briefly to the bill now and provide more fulsome comments when we return in the fall and have time for proper debate and study. However, I believe it is important that this bill be tabled now for two reasons. Our Special Joint Committee on MAID has been looking at advanced requests, mature minors, mental disorders as a sole underlying condition, the state of palliative care and the protection of Canadians with disabilities. We have a decade of federal reports and expert panels on these subjects, and particularly on advanced requests. They are wide-ranging and have set out recommendations in support of advance requests, but it is still unclear whether the committee will hear from further witnesses on advanced requests before the reporting deadline in October. So I am uncertain that the review will be able to examine a potential gap in the law.

It is necessary that we seek legal clarity on the issue. A few weeks ago, the Quebec government tabled advanced request legislation. It is a reasoned bill based on the recommendations of the Quebec all-party committee on the end of life. This report and subsequent bill established a framework and a timeline for advanced requests, outlined requirements for a registry and for the process of updating an advanced request and its notarization. I believe it offers an appropriate balance between safeguards and respecting the autonomy of the individual. However, if this bill is passed in Quebec, there will be a gap between the exemptions for medical assistance in dying established in the Criminal Code and the advanced request framework being created in provincial legislation. That obviously creates some concerns about criminal liability and could lead to another Supreme Court challenge. So the aim here is to anticipate and avoid any federal-provincial ambiguity and to begin to look at this. A Senate committee will reassure all of us and, I hope, the Canadian public, as our goal would be to educate, anticipate, prepare and give us all time for more fulsome consideration of the legal issues.

I believe an advanced request is a right to a dignified death. Public support is already there. The government has been a bit reluctant to take the lead, so I believe this is our opportunity to do just that. This is our responsibility, as legislators, to do the heavy lifting, to look at how to provide safeguards and to create a path forward. I look forward to working with you to fix the gap in our MAID laws.

(On motion of Senator Wallin, debate adjourned.)

The Senate proceeded to consideration of the fourth report (interim) of the Standing Committee on Audit and Oversight, entitled Senate Audit and Oversight Charter, presented in the Senate on June 2, 2022.

Hon. David M. Wells: Honourable senators, the charter that is now being considered by the Senate is part of the overall work of the Audit and Oversight Committee. It’s a governance document that outlines how the committee will carry out its mandate.

It has been a long road that started back in 2014 with the recommendation from the Auditor General to establish independent oversight and to retain an internal auditor. The Subcommittee on the Senate Estimates and Committee Budgets, which I chaired at the time with Senator Jaffer as my deputy chair, was charged with addressing this recommendation.

To preserve the rights of senators to be the masters of their own house, we developed a novel approach that protected our rights but also gave confidence that the best practices were employed in our work. The Auditor General recommended that the committee look at senators’ office expenses only, but we believed that it would be better to have an entity that had oversight over all Senate expenditures — not just the 10% that was recommended, but 100% of the full expenditures of the Senate, now at approximately $120 million.

In order to establish this process and, eventually, this committee, we had to develop novel approaches. Some of these were that the Chair of the Internal Economy Committee and Audit and Oversight Committee cannot be from the same caucus or group. And we have external expertise, unlike other committees that have internal expertise, in some cases by good fortune. On the Fisheries and Oceans Committee we might have fisheries experts, on the Agriculture and Forestry Committee we might have agricultural experts, and obviously we are fortunate to have lawyers and legal scholars on our Justice Committee, but this is not mandated; it’s really by chance. We are fortunate to have the opportunity of nominating and having external members that have the expertise join our Audit and Oversight Committee.

The committee is unique in that we targeted candidates with that specific expertise. I’ll note that, at the time, the original steering committee was made up of Senator Downe, our deputy chair, Senator Dupuis, and me, as chair. We targeted candidates with specific backgrounds and special expertise. Through a rigorous process, we were able to have Robert Plamondon and Hélène Fortin, two highly qualified chartered professional accountants, join our committee. There is an overlap in the initial terms of these individuals so that there is continuity for the committee, and only parliamentarians on the committee can vote, although thus far we have easily and successfully worked based on discussion and consensus.

As well, the audit world is a very rules-based place, as I’m finding out, and that guides our processes as well. In the absence of external members having a vote, any member of the committee can include a dissenting opinion in any report, which is unlike any other committee that we have in the Senate.

In addition, the Audit and Oversight Committee doesn’t have a code like the Ethics and Conflict of Interest Committee has, so for good governance we developed this charter, which is what is before us today. It maps out our processes, our standards and our operating procedure. The rules that we have in the Senate are a general document for all committees. The Senate Administrative Rules apply to the administration of the whole Senate. This charter is such a document for this committee. This is the only instance in the history of the Senate that a committee has developed a charter, one more groundbreaking item designed for continuity of its activities and operations.

Honourable senators, none of us should expect the Canadian public, the media, or the “abolish the Senate” crowd to applaud this significant initiative and accomplishment. Of course, we didn’t do it for that reason. We did it because we needed to get it done, and we did it for the right reasons. Honourable senators, it’s for this reason that our new charter is before us today and will be the guiding document that assists the Audit and Oversight Committee in carrying out its mandate. This is a novel model for a novel institution, and one for which we should all be proud. Thank you.

[Translation]