Hon. Claude Carignan: Yes, to put it in legal terms, I do not dissent from my colleague on this bill. I think an honest mistake was made, and changing the name will correct that mistake. It’s a bit sad that, in the age of high-speed internet, it takes three and a half years to send a message from the House of Commons to the Senate.

I agree, and I move that we proceed immediately to third reading of the bill.

Hon. Claude Carignan: Honourable senators, my question is for the Leader of the Government in the Senate.

Leader, on January 31, Sean Fraser, the federal Minister of Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship, held a press conference on the backlog of 1.8 million immigration files waiting to be processed. He held a press conference in English only and politely asked a francophone journalist to ask his question in English.

Is the Prime Minister aware of this incident? Does the Prime Minister intend to apologize to Canadians for this unilingual anglophone press conference?

Hon. Peter M. Boehm: Honourable senators, I give notice that, at the next sitting of the Senate, I will move:

That the Standing Senate Committee on Foreign Affairs and International Trade, in accordance with rule 12-7(4), be authorized to examine such issues as may arise from time to time relating to foreign relations and international trade generally; and

That the committee report to the Senate no later than June 30, 2025.

Hon. Peter Harder: Honourable senators, my question is for the Government Representative in the Senate.

This week and next, many of us are and will be glued to our television sets cheering on Canadian athletes as they compete in the Olympic Winter Games. But aside from the vicarious pleasure of watching our best athletes compete for medals, participating in sport is an important part of learning how to work with others, improve self-esteem, develop friendships and be a part of something.

The organization Special Olympics Canada works to make these life benefits available to Canadians with intellectual disabilities. It has been a great success. Unfortunately, the pandemic has forced the suspension of much the organization’s in-person programming, which has, in turn, negatively affected participation in the program. As a result, the Special Olympics is asking that the four-year agreement — providing an extra $1.8 million per year — now be made permanent.

With the agreement expiring, would the Government Representative agree to report to this chamber whether the government will be extending this program?

Senator Lankin: Briefly, I think it’s time that a group of us and perhaps some of the folks that are involved in the All-Party Anti-Poverty Caucus — because it involves people from all political parties and, in the Senate, from political caucuses and groups — to meet with Department of Finance officials and get them to spell out their concerns. I know we’ll hear about marginal effective tax rates. Those are design issues; they are not things that are impossible to overcome.

So maybe there is a group of us that need to request a full briefing and a full dialogue, and I would be happy to work with you on getting that set up. Thank you.

Senator Pate: Thank you very much. I would be happy to work with you, as always, on that and many other things. So thank you, and thank you for all your work for gig workers as well. I know that is well appreciated by me and many of the people in my circles. Thank you.

[Translation]

The Hon. the Speaker: Is it your pleasure, honourable senators, to adopt the motion in amendment?

Hon. Pierre J. Dalphond moved third reading of Bill S-207, An Act to change the name of the electoral district of Châteauguay—Lacolle.

He said: Honourable senators, I’ll be brief today. I thank the Standing Senate Committee on Legal and Constitutional Affairs, which has studied this bill and has reported it back without amendment. I would like to acknowledge Senator Audette’s contribution to the debate. She took it upon herself to proactively reach out to the Mohawks of Kahnawà:ke First Nation to ask if they had any comments to make. I hope the electoral boundaries commissions will follow her lead and take the initiative to consult with First Nations in the territories covered by the electoral districts that are being redrawn.

I urge you to pass this bill today and send it back to the House of Commons, where it began nearly three years ago, so we can bring it to a successful conclusion, perhaps even before the next election, which may come sooner than we think.

With that, I will turn it over to Senator Carignan, who may have a few words to say.

The Hon. the Speaker: Senator Plett, we are approaching six o’clock. The rules require that I leave the chair unless we agree not to see the clock. Does anybody wish that we suspend now versus continue? If so, please say, “suspend.”

All right. I will not see the clock and we will continue.

Senator Plett, another senator wishes to enter the debate before the adjournment.

Hon. Claude Carignan: Honourable senators, I rise today to express my support for the motion pertaining to section 55 of the Constitution Act, 1982.

The motion has two parts. The first states an objectively verifiable fact, namely that the government has not adopted a French version of all the texts that make up the Canadian Constitution, even though section 55 was intended to ensure that a French version was adopted quickly.

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As Professor Ruth Sullivan explained in her 2014 treatise on statutory interpretation:

Section 55 of the Constitution Act, 1982, provides for a French version of the constitutional laws that are in English only to be prepared as expeditiously as possible. As soon as it is ready, it shall be put forward for enactment pursuant to the procedure applicable to an amendment of the Constitution.

Although section 55 requires expeditious action . . . an official version has not yet been adopted.

The second part of the motion calls upon the federal government to include a requirement to submit a report every five years in its next reform of the Official Languages Act. These reports should detail the efforts it has made to adopt the official French version of the constitutional texts, pursuant to section 55.

[English]

How can one oppose this motion, except to say it should have been brought forward much earlier? For close to 40 years, the federal government did not move, and refused to give Canadians a French version of their Constitution, which would stand as the law. In fact, section 55 compelled the government to table important parts of the French version as soon as they were ready.

[Translation]

I agree with the point of view that Professor Sébastien Grammond expressed in 2017 before being appointed to the bench. In a collective work entitled La Constitution bilingue du Canada, un projet inachevé, he wrote:

The current situation, where the Constitution of a bilingual country is partially unilingual, is indefensible: There is no good reason or principle for refusing to complete the process of enacting a French version. The reason this has not happened in the more than 30 years since the Constitution was repatriated is purely political.

Many of today’s politicians are extremely reluctant to get involved in a project that requires a constitutional amendment.

Such inaction by the federal government obviously has legal consequences for statutory interpretation. I will give you an example, taken from a book entitled Constitutional Law of Canada, by the late professor Peter Hogg:

[English]

So long as the French version of the Constitution Act 1867 remains unofficial, any discrepancy between the English and French version would have to be resolved by recourse to the English version, because it is the only authoritative one.

[Translation]

More importantly, the absence of a complete official French version of the constitutional texts sends a symbolic message that is demoralizing to francophone Canadians. I agree with the professor and lawyer François Larocque, who said the following in May 2021, in a brief submitted to the Standing Senate Committee on Official Languages:

[English]

The persistent unilingualism of the Constitution of Canada sanctions the illegitimate supremacy of English and perpetuates the inequality of the official languages. As long as the purpose of section 55 remains unachieved, French-speaking Canadians will not have the same rights, statuses and privileges as their English-speaking counterparts. As long as Canada refuses to even respect the minimum standard of formal equality by enacting its constitutional texts in both official languages, the aspiration of substantive equality of English and French will remain an illusion.

[Translation]

The federal government can and must take the initiative to try and fulfill its obligation pursuant to section 55. The first step is easy. It just has to invite its provincial counterparts to discuss the French version that has already been prepared by the Department of Justice Canada for all constitutional texts.

In December 1990, the French Constitutional Drafting Committee, which was established by the Department of Justice Canada, completed the French version of 30 constitutional texts set out in the schedule to the Constitution Act, 1982, as well as eight additional texts deemed important by the committee.

Thirty-one years have passed since 1990. The problem is that in the interim, the federal government has practically made no attempt to have this French version become law.

[English]

Of course, even if the federal and provincial governments initiate talks, this does not guarantee that they would quickly come to an agreement, especially considering that adopting the French version of these constitutional documents would require using constitutional amendment procedures.

[Translation]

As you know, the Constitution Act, 1982, provides for different amending formulas. These require either the agreement of one or more provinces or the unanimous agreement of all provinces, depending on the subject of the amendment to be made to the Constitution.

In other words, certain constitutional texts or parts of them may be more complex to adopt, but others could be adopted easily and quickly, depending upon the type of agreement required by the applicable amending formula.

This idea is important. Section 55 does not require that the government simultaneously adopt all of the French versions of the dozens of constitutional texts mentioned in the 1990 report.

Here are some examples of constitutional texts that could be easier to adopt, according to Professor Grammond:

 . . . it is clear that many constitutional texts that must be translated apply only to a single province or group of provinces. The terms of union for British Columbia, Prince Edward Island and Newfoundland fall under this category, as do the acts creating Alberta, Saskatchewan and Manitoba. The same goes for the Constitution Act, 1930, which applies only to the four western provinces. According to section 43 [of the Constitution Act, 1982], all of these texts can be amended only with the consent of Parliament and the legislative assembly of each province to which the amendment applies. This could make it easier to adopt a French version of these texts, in that only one province would have to provide consent for each of these texts.

Similarly, in the 2017 collective work I mentioned earlier, lawyers Mark C. Power, Marc-André Roy and Emmanuelle Léonard-Dufour stated that even the federal Parliament could unilaterally decide to adopt a certain number of constitutional provisions in French, under its power to amend the Constitution in relation to federal parliamentary institutions.

The federal Parliament is granted this power in accordance with the amending formula set out in section 44 of the Constitution Act, 1982.

In contrast, the constitutional amending formula set out in section 41 requires the unanimous agreement of the provinces. However, this formula applies only to a minority of constitutional provisions for which a French version is desirable, according to Professor Grammond. The examples he offers are sections 9 and 17 of the Constitution Act, 1867. They have to do with the office of the Queen, a subject covered by the formula set out in section 41.

[English]

I agree that the path forward to an agreement between the federal government and the provinces could be long and difficult. However, according to several experts, section 55 of the Constitution Act, 1982 does not allow the federal government to do nothing to restart talks with the provinces. These discussions were interrupted in 1998, as Senator Dalphond mentioned in his speech in December.

[Translation]

The Commissioner of Official Languages is also in favour of reopening a dialogue about this between the federal government and the provinces. His position is in line with the wording of the motion:

In my recommendations for the modernization of the Official Languages Act, I supported the proposal specifically requiring the Minister of Justice of Canada to make every effort to enact the French versions of the constitutional texts.

The author of the article that quotes Mr. Théberge also states the following:

The Canadian Bar Association and other stakeholders also made similar recommendations in their comments on the modernization of the Act.

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I would argue that it would be a historic step forward for all Canadians if our country finally had a fully bilingual Constitution.

According to the same article, the Commissioner of Official Languages is of the opinion that:

 . . . adopting a French version of Canada’s constitutional texts is a fundamental issue that raises important questions about the equal status of our two official languages and goes to the very heart of the foundations of our country.

He also stated, and I quote:

If we want a society in which two official languages coexist and evolve, we must remedy this historic injustice, which has gone on for too long.

Colleagues, for all these reasons, I encourage you to support this motion. It will encourage the federal government to overcome its inaction by requesting periodic reports on its efforts to comply with section 55. If any provinces refuse to adopt the French version of certain constitutional texts or portions of them, the government can still adopt the parts of the Constitution for which it has obtained the necessary agreements in accordance with the constitutional amending formula or formulas applicable to those parts. The government could include those kinds of actions in its periodic reports.

In closing, although I support the motion, I think the five-year deadline to produce a report should be much shorter. A shorter deadline would make it possible to more quickly hold the federal government to account for taking measures to meet its obligation to adopt French texts.

To that end, I draw your attention to the lawsuit filed by François Larocque and our former colleague, the honourable Serge Joyal, that is currently before the Superior Court of Quebec. They are asking the court to rule that the federal and Quebec governments are in violation of section 55. To compensate for that violation, their suit calls for these governments to periodically report to the court on the steps that have been taken and to submit a plan for steps to be taken in future to enact the French version of the Constitution.

Their suit calls for these reports to be produced:

 . . . within six months of the date of the judgment and every twelve months until the French version of the Constitution is enacted . . .

I think their idea of calling for a 12-month deadline for producing periodic reports is a good one.

Hon. Ratna Omidvar: Honourable senators, my question is for Senator Gold, the representative of the government in the Senate.

Senator Gold, I, too, will stick with Afghanistan. My question is about the many Afghan human rights defenders, interpreters, former colleagues of the Government of Canada, Canada’s Armed Forces and Canadian civil society organizations and others who meet all the explicit and stated criteria for resettlement in Canada. However, their files appear to be stuck in bureaucratic logjams. I have to conclude that this happens because there are three different ministries, often with different mandates, protocols and priorities. They are Global Affairs Canada, Public Safety Canada and IRCC.

Senator Gold, can you tell us if the government has or is planning to initiate a high-level cabinet committee comprised of the three ministers of these departments? Only they can break these logjams, not the bureaucrats. Such a proposal has been made in a non-partisan manner by three leaders we all know from different corners of the political spectrum. They are Peter MacKay, former Minister of Foreign Affairs; Ed Broadbent, the former leader of the NDP; and Allan Rock, former Attorney General of Canada.

Is the government planning to act on this sage and sound advice from the voices of experience?

Hon. Robert Black: Honourable senators, I rise today to speak to Senator Galvez’s motion to recognize that climate change is an urgent crisis. As Senator Galvez’s motion states, climate change is indeed an urgent crisis that requires an immediate and ambitious response from coast to coast to coast by governments, industries and individuals.

As you know, I am a staunch supporter of agriculture — it’s what I know best. So as you might surmise, my focus today will be on the way in which climate change has impacted the agricultural community and the industry’s role in the fight against climate change.

Climate change has had widespread effects on almost every industry. Agriculture often sees these effects first due to the nature of the work and the processes involved. For example, farmers know all too well that agriculture is highly dependent on weather. While many modern methods, techniques and technologies have made today’s farms increasingly productive, they still rely on Mother Nature to do her part. At the end of the day, agricultural success depends on getting the right amount of rain and the right amount of heat at the right time of each year.

From large-scale farms to the smallest gardens, agriculture and agri-business depends on climate at every stage in the cycle of production. And as we know, our climate is changing. We have all seen the destruction left in the wake of extreme weather conditions. These incidents, once rare and uncommon occurrences, have become more and more familiar in our changing world. In fact, extreme weather events in 2021 shattered records around the globe.

For farmers, 2021 was a tough year. Extreme heat, droughts, flooding and wildfires affected farms across this country. Late last year, we saw the Fraser Valley in British Columbia consumed by water. These floods and subsequent mudslides have led to widespread destruction of life and livelihoods, particularly in B.C.’s rural and agricultural communities. Thousands of farm animals perished, and thousands more required critical attention. Just last week, the agricultural committee in the other place began studying this matter and the subsequent recovery efforts.

Earlier in 2021, we saw hundreds of thousands of animals succumb to the heat dome in Western Canada, and countless farms struggled during the droughts of this past summer. In fact, the other place also held an emergency debate in December where these very concerns were discussed and debated. While farmers are used to planning for uncertainty, climate change is bringing new extremes, seasonal shifts and increased variability that are likely to push the boundaries of our climate beyond anything they are used to managing.

The effects of climate change have been widespread and vast. A Cornell University-led study found that global farming productivity is 21% lower than it could have been without climate change. This is the equivalent of losing about seven years of farm productivity increases since the 1960s.

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Ariel Ortiz-Bobea, Associate Professor at Cornell’s Charles H. Dyson School of Applied Economics and Management, said:

We find that climate change has basically wiped out about seven years of improvements in agricultural productivity over the past 60 years. It is equivalent to pressing the pause button on productivity growth back in 2013 and experiencing no improvements since then. . . .

This cannot continue to be the trend going forward. Canada is a leader in the agricultural and agri-food sectors. We must work collaboratively to address the effects of climate change to ensure that our farmers, producers and processors, as well as our grocery stores, can continue putting food on Canadians’ plates.

It’s no surprise that the agricultural industry also has an important role in fighting climate change as well. According to the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, in 2016, agriculture contributed about 17% of greenhouse gas emissions globally, and that figure does not include an additional 7% to 14% caused by changes to land use. According to Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada, 10% of Canada’s greenhouse gas emissions are from crop and livestock production, excluding emissions from the use of fossil fuels or from fertilizer production.

These are significant numbers that we need to work to bring down. However, the onus cannot be placed solely on the farmers and the agricultural industry. They work hard to provide us with food, and most of them are good stewards of the land. As stewards of the land, farmers are heavily invested in the fight against climate change and mitigating its impacts. After all, they too eat what they produce.

In fact, many farmers have introduced innovative ways to reduce these emissions and have pursued land-use practices that help to mitigate climate change. Many have already taken steps over the years to make their land a zero-till operation. This technique increases the retention of organic matter and nutrient cycling, which in turn increases carbon sequestration, or to have and use perennial forage coverage. There is more carbon in soils under perennial forage than annual crops, due in part to the farmer’s ability to better transfer carbon to the soil. In fact, the Canadian Federation of Agriculture shared that farmers have kept their emissions steady for 20 years while almost doubling production, resulting in a decrease of greenhouse gas emission intensity by half. There are many opportunities in this sector for technical innovation that can help to ensure both climate mitigation and economic benefits.

Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada also recognizes that agriculture helps slow climate change by storing carbon on agricultural lands. Storing, or sequestering, carbon in soil as organic matter, perennial vegetation and in trees reduces carbon dioxide amounts in the atmosphere.

We have also seen more technological advancements and innovations, including precision agriculture and the use of artificial intelligence and drones, that aim to decrease negative environmental impacts while also increasing profitability. We can also explore the possibility of scaling up technologies that we already know about to yield positive environmental outcomes.

There are many other innovative methods farmers are employing in order to protect the environment without sacrificing profitability. An example of this is reintegrating livestock and crops on farms and incorporating the use of managed grazing, which can increase livestock’s nutrient consumption as well as increase soil organic matter.

Additionally, vertical farming and urban farming have gained popularity in recent years. These innovative ways of farming allow us to grow crops in cities without taking up much space. We also see the use of hydroponics, meaning growing crops directly in nutrient-enriched water rather than soil.

The challenge for the agriculture and agri-food sector will be to mitigate greenhouse gases while adapting to the impacts of climate change without jeopardizing food security. To do so, Canadian agriculture producers and food processors will need the government’s help and support in transitioning their operations to be more sustainable, and they will also require the government’s support while they seek to change decades-long practices and procedures.

Many organizations, including the Canadian Federation of Agriculture, the Ontario Federation of Agriculture, the Canadian Cattlemen’s Association, the Dairy Farmers of Canada and the Canadian Pork Council, among others, have highlighted their dedication to supporting Canada’s fight against climate change. There are, of course, specific concerns to each sector regarding such issues as fair carbon pricing and other potential impacts to the overall sustainability of the industry and sector, but, ultimately, Canadian agriculture knows that they have a critical role to play as stewards of the land, which involves preserving ecosystems and resources, such as soil and water, as well as minimizing the environmental impacts of their activities through the implementation of beneficial agricultural practices.

In December, I attended a meeting hosted by the Canadian Cattlemen’s Association, where they screened the “Guardians of the Grasslands” documentary. I highly encourage everyone to take time to watch it. This short documentary was created by a group of dedicated conservationists, ranchers and Canadian filmmakers.

The film explores the current state of one of the world’s most endangered ecosystems, the Great Plains grasslands, and the role that cattle play in its survival. Unfortunately, 74% of our grasslands are already gone. It is critical to note that the grasslands are home to over 60 Canadian species at risk and is also one of the world’s most stable carbon sinks. This is just another example of the environment we need to work to protect.

I am proud to highlight the ranchers who are doing their utmost to conserve the natural prairie grasslands by using beef cows to mimic the vital role that bison played in forming these landscapes through grazing over thousands of years.

At this time, I would like to quote Kristine Tapley of Ducks Unlimited Canada:

The beef industry relies on the grass landscape as part of its production cycle and the prairie ecosystem needs the impact of grazing in order to rejuvenate grass and plants. It’s a necessary and symbiotic relationship. When ranches disappear, we lose the grass that goes along with it.

Honourable colleagues, we know that climate change is one of the biggest issues facing our world today, and it is clear that the agriculture industry understands and supports the call to action to fight climate change.

As stewards of the land, they continue to see first-hand the negative effects of climate change, and they are also among the front lines of mitigation efforts. And, as I mentioned earlier, our farmers face the brunt of climate change in many cases as Canadian agriculture suffers greatly from the effects. The frequency of extreme weather events has doubled since the 1990s. There has been an increase in floods, droughts, forest fires and storms that, unsurprisingly, interfere with planting to harvests, which disproportionately affects farms of all sizes.

While we recognize that agriculture is a part of the problem when it comes to climate change, the agricultural sector has demonstrated continuous improvement over many years while emissions from other sectors have risen over time. So agriculture also has amazing potential to be an important part of the solution.

All that being said, we are asking a lot of our farmers. Many agricultural operations rely on decades-old practices that have only recently been deemed to be environmentally detrimental. Making the switch to new technology costs a lot of money and, while I’ve never met a farmer who was in it for the money, it does impact the viability of their businesses and enterprises.

I am taking this opportunity to once again call upon the Canadian government to work collaboratively with our agricultural industry so they can help make the journey to environmental sustainability a little easier for everyone. They can and will be part of the solution, but we also need to give them the tools necessary to do so. And those tools must be science-based and harmonized across the country and around the world with all our trading partners to ensure that they can continue to be viable participants in the fight against climate change.

I am confident that the agriculture industry, which has been innovating for as long as it has existed, will continue to rise to the challenge. Of course, initiatives must come from all sectors and be a joint effort from all of us and, in order to achieve our goals in greenhouse gas reduction, government and industry must work together.

The second-to-last point of Senator Galvez’s motion highlights that the failure to address climate change will result in catastrophic consequences, especially for Canadian youth, Indigenous peoples and future generations. Honourable colleagues, I know that many of us in this chamber have children and grandchildren. Without working together to challenge and change the effects of climate change, I fear they will be living in a world entirely different than the one we know today.

Countless Canadian farmers are working across the country to ensure that our ecosystems, such as the grasslands, are preserved for generations to come. The climate crisis is clear. Let’s do our best to support all sectors that are working to save our planet.

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Thank you, meegwetch.

Hon. Marc Gold (Government Representative in the Senate): Thank you for your question, honourable colleague. It’s good to have you back.

The Prime Minister and the Government of Canada have been working closely with the police, the Mayor of Ottawa and provincial authorities to seek a proper resolution to this situation.

The situation is an intolerable one for residents of the city who have been subjected to harassment and intimidation, to say nothing of inconvenience. Of course, protests are never convenient, but peaceful protests do not include the behaviour we have seen: the desecration of national monuments, the brandishing of Confederate flags and swastikas. The government remains committed to its approach to getting us out of this pandemic and will work constructively with all who are willing to work constructively to that end.

Hon. Marc Gold (Government Representative in the Senate): Thank you for raising this important issue. It is important for so many people in rural areas.

I have made inquiries of the government regarding this question, but I have not yet received an answer. As soon as I do, I will report to the chamber in a timely fashion.

Senator Poirier: The government also has a nasty habit of sending us bills at the last minute, which prevents us from reviewing and debating the proposed legislation properly.

This bill will require serious study, and all this delay on the part of your government worries me, because I’m afraid that, come June, we’ll be urged to pass it quickly.

Can you promise us that once this bill reaches the Senate, it will be given serious consideration and properly debated?

Hon. Pierre-Hugues Boisvenu: Senator Gold, on December 7, I asked you a question about the position of the Federal Ombudsman for Victims of Crime. For five months, victims of crime have had no representation in our federal institutions. Your government has again shown that victims are not a priority by violating their rights, which are guaranteed by the Canadian Victims Bill of Rights.

I would like to quote a passage from an article published on January 17 in the Toronto Star, describing the position of former ombudsman Heidi Illingworth.

[English]

Illingworth told the Toronto Star that it’s a “significant gap” when the position is vacant and expressed hope that it’s “filled sooner rather than later” given what she described as “high levels of private violence and victimization” happening in homes during the pandemic.

Illingworth suggested that the position “has a critical role in highlighting and reviewing systemic issues that negatively affect victims and emerging issues.”

[Translation]

Senator Gold, you promised this chamber that you would come back with a response from the government explaining these delays.

The position of Correctional Investigator, the ombudsman for criminals, has never been vacant longer than 24 hours in the past 10 years. What do you have to say to victims of crime about the fact that the position of Federal Ombudsman for Victims of Crime went unfilled for a year in 2017 and has been vacant for the past five months?

Hon. Marc Gold (Government Representative in the Senate): Thank you for the question, dear colleague.

I have made inquiries about this with the government. Unfortunately, I haven’t heard back, but I will follow up in order to answer your question.

Hon. Jane Cordy: Honourable senators, I am speaking to you today from the unceded land of the Mi’kmaq people.

Honourable senators, leadership can come from the most unsuspected places. It need not be loud. It need not be boastful, but instead a quiet dignity that, once recognized and given an opportunity to flourish, can be an inspiration to all. Such was the life and political career of Alexa McDonough. Sadly, Alexa passed away on January 15 of this year. Although she suffered a lengthy struggle with Alzheimer’s disease over the past number of years, our memories of her life and achievements remain intact.

Alexa’s early career was spent as a social worker in Nova Scotia. This work offered her an exposure to the true needs and social dilemmas experienced by many, and insight into the gaps between work on the ground and corresponding policies. While this knowledge would be what would propel her into a career of politics, in truth her involvement with social activism began much earlier. She was exposed to progressive politics by her father, a businessperson, Lloyd Shaw.

At the age of 14, Alexa led her church group in publicizing the conditions of Africville, a low-income, predominantly Black neighbourhood in Halifax.

After graduating from Dalhousie University, Alexa became a social worker. In 1979 and 1980, she made her first bid at electoral politics, running for the New Democrats in the riding of Halifax, though unsuccessfully. Later that same year, despite not having a seat in the provincial house of assembly, Alexa made a bid for leadership of the Nova Scotia NDP party, which she handily won. The following election, she won a seat representing the district of Chebucto. She spent the next three years as a caucus of one. She was the only woman in the Nova Scotia Legislature.

Alexa was not one to shy away from the difficulties she faced in this position, and she spoke out often about the misogynistic and sexist personal attacks she endured, even highlighting the lack of a separate women’s washroom for MLAs. She held this position until she resigned in 1994.

Although having left with no expectations of what the future might hold, she decided to put her name forward for the leadership of the federal NDP party in 1995. Again, seemingly defying odds, she was successful. She won her first seat in the House of Commons in 1997. She held the position of leader until 2003, and she retired from elected politics in 2008.

Throughout her political career, Alexa remained a champion for strong social programs and gender equality. In 2009, she was announced as interim president of Mount Saint Vincent University. That same year Alexa was appointed an Officer of the Order of Canada, and received the Order of Nova Scotia in 2012.

Underestimated at every turn, honourable senators, nevertheless, she persisted. This determination and, indeed, Alexa’s life as a whole, serve as an inspiration to all Canadians and particularly to Canadian women.

My thoughts are with her family and friends. I know they are proud of the legacy of leadership that is Alexa McDonough’s.

Honourable senators, a true measure of the legacy of Alexa McDonough was one of her life’s lessons to her sons, Travis and Justin. That was, “How you treat people who can do nothing in return is the ultimate judge of your character.” That is, I believe, a lesson for each of us. Thank you.

Senator Boisvenu: I would remind you that in the past six and a half years, the Liberal government has not introduced or proposed a single bill to improve the lives and rights of victims of crime. The article I mentioned earlier also pointed out that the five-year review of the Canadian Victims Bill of Rights was scheduled for 2020 but still has not been completed by the government.

When will the government do its job and complete the review of the Canadian Victims Bill of Rights?

Hon. Senators: Agreed.

(Motion agreed to.)