Senator McPhedran: Senator Gold, could you please commit to conveying to the government the specific request that they take action and do what they need as cabinet and confirm this decision of 40,000 spaces, release the second 20,000 spaces and get the allotments out to the organizations that are waiting to help? They are paralyzed because this commitment has not been made.

Hon. Marilou McPhedran: Honourable senators, my question is for the Government Representative in the Senate.

As some of my colleagues have already mentioned, we have less than 8,000 of the initial 20,000 Afghan refugees resettled in Canada. We have a problem, Senator Gold, and my question is with regard to the inaction of cabinet in actually following through on the election promise to increase our commitment to 40,000 — a promise that was then placed in Minister Fraser’s mandate letter.

Now many senators face a situation where, in trying to assist people to get to Canada — people whom we have managed to help to get out of Afghanistan — are now caught in limbo in many different countries, Ukraine being one example and Sri Lanka another.

For example, there is a 20-year-old woman very much at risk in another country. In trying to find a place for her in the allotments, what became clear, in speaking to agencies that are supposed to have the spaces allocated to them by our government, is that there are currently no spaces.

Why is that? Because cabinet has not yet officially followed through on that promise to increase the number to 40,000. We therefore have not yet had an allocation of the spaces. In some cases we are able to facilitate bringing Afghans to Canada, including women at risk, but the agencies that can help them don’t have the spaces they need.

My question to you, Senator Gold, and to the government is this: What is the delay? When can we see this very simple, straightforward decision to implement a promise actually fulfilled?

Senator McPhedran: I would appreciate it. I can wrap up in one minute, Your Honour.

Senator McPhedran: Thank you very much.

I support this motion by Senator Galvez. I commit to use my position and privilege as a senator to contribute to needed change. The climate emergency is a race we are losing, but it is a race we cannot afford to quit.

Allow me to close with a message sent to me yesterday from Aleksi Toiviainen, the member of my youth advisory, who suggested our climate justice work group. He says to each of you:

The Parliamentary Budget Officer recently reported that the clean-up of abandoned oil and gas wells has been dumped on the taxpayer instead of the industries responsible. Ontario’s Auditor General uncovered a similar story about that province’s toxic spills.

These alone should hint at where government’s true priorities lie. The federal government claims to pursue a just transition with net-zero emissions by 2050 while still expanding the Trans Mountain pipeline and while new oil projects plan to produce tens of millions of oil barrels each year.

Young people are not fooled. They know this means that we are waiting for them to grow up so we can foist the obligation onto them. This is what it means when the government makes promises for tomorrow. This is why we must declare a climate emergency.

Thank you, meegwetch.

(On motion of Senator Wells, debate adjourned.)

On the Order:

Resuming debate on the motion of the Honourable Senator Kutcher, seconded by the Honourable Senator Boehm:

That the Standing Senate Committee on Social Affairs, Science and Technology be authorized, when and if it is formed, to examine and report on the Federal Framework for Suicide Prevention, including, but not limited to:

(a)evaluating the effectiveness of the Framework in significantly, substantially and sustainably decreasing rates of suicide since it was enacted;

(b)examining the rates of suicide in Canada as a whole and in unique populations, such as Indigenous, racialized and youth communities;

(c)reporting on the amount of federal funding provided to all suicide prevention programs or initiatives for the period 2000-2020 and determining what evidence-based criteria for suicide prevention was used in each selection;

(d)determining for each of the programs or interventions funded in paragraph (c), whether there was a demonstrated significant, substantive and sustained decrease in suicide rates in the population(s) targeted; and

(e)providing recommendations to ensure that Canada’s Federal Framework for Suicide Prevention and federal funding for suicide prevention activities are based on the best available evidence of the impact on suicide rate reduction; and

That the committee submit its final report on this study to the Senate no later than December 16, 2022.