Hon. Peter M. Boehm: Honourable senators, I rise today to tell you what you already know. The world changed last night and not for the better. The shameless, unprovoked and unjustified invasion of Ukraine by Russia goes against all norms and rules under international law and previous agreements and violates the United Nations Charter. It defies all decent civilized behaviour and must be resoundingly condemned. This invasion was meticulously planned, and entreaties by Russia to achieve a diplomatic solution were deeply cynical and malign. That the largest country in the world by territory should seek to redraw established agreed-upon international borders through a war of aggression to gain more territory, as Russia did by invading and annexing Crimea in early 2014, is beyond credulity. It reflects Vladimir Putin’s twisted need to rewrite history and is redolent of expansionism by might not seen since Hitler’s Germany.

I support the measures taken by our government and the concerted efforts taken by G7 countries under the current German presidency, as well as NATO partners to put pressure on and take action against the autocratic regime of Mr. Putin. There has been much talk of tyrants lately, colleagues. He is one.

My own personal involvement with Russia began when I joined our foreign service. At the time, it was the Soviet Union. I watched, and like many, was encouraged by the advent of glasnost, perestroika; all those new words we learned that signified change and an opening to a freer society in Russia in 1989.

I worked with former prime minister Jean Chrétien toward the 1995 G7 summit in Halifax where then Russian president Boris Yeltsin was invited to join for a meeting. This was an important initiative that eventually led to the creation of the G8. It was felt by all that the days of bellicosity were resigned to the history books, and there were many common projects and initiatives on which we could work together.

I had the honour of being former prime minister Stephen Harper’s personal representative, or sherpa, for what became the last G8 summit in June 2013 at Lough Erne, Northern Ireland. Mr. Harper had just visited Dublin and had made some controversial comments about the value of discussion at the G8 where one member was clearly out of step. Indeed, I recall Mr. Putin dominating the foreign policy discussion with his singular view of the crisis in Syria, to the exclusion of almost any other topic. Leaders were exasperated and Mr. Harper was proven correct.

It was Russia’s turn to host the G8 in Sochi in 2014. I attended one sherpa meeting in Moscow in January and then it was all over. Russia had invaded and taken Crimea and had installed proxy forces in the Donbas region of Ukraine. At Mr. Harper’s request, G7 leaders met on the margins of the Nuclear Security Summit in The Hague in March, where I also served as sherpa, and a decision was taken. The G8 again became the G7, working together for common global purpose.

What we have seen, colleagues, is Russia moving from global pariah to partner and back to pariah. Its actions are unjustified, unacceptable and reprehensible.

Let us all stand together to condemn this outrageous violation of Ukraine’s sovereignty and independence.

Let us all stand together in support of the legitimate government of Ukraine and the strong and resilient people of Ukraine. Thank you.

Hon. Paula Simons: Honourable senators, I am an Edmontonian. I begin that way because in Edmonton we are all honorary Ukrainians of one kind or another, but just like so many Edmontonians, my own family roots in Ukraine run deep.

My mother, Oli Dyck, was born in Ukraine in a German Mennonite colony called Felsenbach in the province of Dnipropetrovsk. My father’s mother, Reisa Hardashnikov, was born and raised in the Jewish community in Poltava. The tides of history brought my Jewish family and my German family from Ukraine to Alberta. But this wasn’t entirely an accident since German, Ukrainian and Jewish immigration to Alberta were intimately intertwined.

Today, whatever our roots, we need to unite as Canadians in the face of utterly illegitimate Russian aggression to stand with our Ukrainian-Canadian friends and relations in this time of terror and uncertainty.

But we can’t just say “we stand with Ukraine” unless there is a real commitment behind those words, a commitment to sanction Russia in real terms, a commitment for Canada to work with NATO and its other allies to let the Putin government know, in meaningful terms, that this act of war is not something we will countenance.

There are actions we must take here to insulate ourselves from more subtle kinds of Russian aggression — from the sophisticated propaganda campaign already under way on Facebook and Twitter, designed to undermine our resolve and undermine the truth. We must push back against the Russian propaganda and disinformation on platforms such as RT and Fox News. Because make no mistake: This war isn’t just being fought on the ground in Ukraine; it’s being fought in the blogosphere, on social media and on cable television. And in a borderless online world, Canada, so far away from Kyiv, is a battleground too.

We must arm ourselves with common sense and common resolve. As Senator Boehm has said, our world changed overnight. It is time for us to wake up and stand together and stand on guard for Canada, Ukraine and the world we care for.

Thank you, hiy hiy.

Hon. Gwen Boniface: Honourable senators, on January 19, Orillia lost a treasured member of our community. Michael Allen Westover Jones died after a battle with Parkinson’s disease.

Michael was a devoted husband, beloved son, brother, uncle, mentor and friend. He was an internationally recognized leadership educator, facilitator, and a gifted pianist who combined his music and storytelling to inspire and challenge his audiences.

Michael was born in Bramshott, England, in a military hospital during World War II, raised in the Kitchener-Waterloo area and spent the last 35 years in Orillia.

Michael played a key role in helping me develop a Truth and Reconciliation round table and contributed to its growth during the past two and a half years. He supported our regular gatherings with his wise counsel and his expertise in facilitation and sparking dialogue. With Elder John Rice, the two became a formidable team.

Michael devoted his time and energy to many other local projects, including facilitating action towards creating a city commons here in Orillia. He believed deeply that healthy communities need a sense of place, and said it didn’t have to be a physical place, but that it helped.

A celebration of Michael’s life took place on February 9. The ceremony included some of his music and favourite poetry. Friends and family shared stories and memories highlighting the humble, gentle way he touched their lives and helped them discover and share their gifts. Michael authored three books on reimagining leadership: Artful Leadership, Creating an Imaginative Life and, most recently, The Soul of Place. In this book, readers are invited to be the soul of place through their presence, inspiring transformation through a pathway of homecoming, belonging, “regenerativity” and transformative celebration. Michael was also a Juno-nominated composer who recorded 17 albums.

I send my deepest condolences to Judy, his wife of 47 years, his mother Laura, and siblings Myron, Chris and Lisa.

Dear Michael, you will be missed.

Meegwetch, thank you.

The Hon. the Speaker pro tempore: Senator Downe, do you have a question?

Senator Richards: Thank you.

(On motion of Senator Duncan, debate adjourned.)

Leave having been given to revert to Other Business, Motions, Order No. 12:

On the Order:

Resuming debate on the motion of the Honourable Senator McCallum, seconded by the Honourable Senator LaBoucane-Benson:

That the Standing Senate Committee on Energy, the Environment and Natural Resources be authorized to examine and report on the cumulative positive and negative impacts of resource extraction and development, and their effects on environmental, economic and social considerations, when and if the committee is formed; and

That the committee submit its final report no later than December 31, 2022.

Hon. Rosa Galvez: Honourable senators, I rise to speak in support of Motion No. 12 introduced by Senator McCallum requesting that the Standing Senate Committee on Energy, the Environment and Natural Resources be authorized to examine and report on the cumulative positive and negative impacts of resource extraction and development, and their effects on environmental, economic and social considerations.

I’m convinced this study could bring great value in understanding the overall impacts of resource extraction and development in Canada. I say “overall impacts” because Canadians, and especially parliamentarians, are often bombarded by the one-sided promotion of the positive contributions of resource extraction, namely on Canada’s GDP, employment and government revenues.

Next to these amplified voices, communities, NGOs and academics can barely pierce through the noise to present other aspects, positive or negative, and have to resort to protests to get media attention.

I have been teaching engineering students how to conduct and complete environmental impact assessments for almost 30 years. A project that considers and integrates the needs of a host community from its early conception and design will result in a project that is technically sound, cost-efficient, safe, prosperous for all and healthy for the community and the environment. On the contrary, a project that is conceived independently without considering community issues puts at risk the implementation of the entire project and will most certainly create irritants and opposition, which can lead to wasting important investments. Nobody wants this, yet this is still what happens so often.

Effective and successful decision making requires in-depth analysis assessing economic, technical, social and environmental factors with equal consideration.

This study proposal is important because it will encourage conversation around the type of development we want as Canadians. For that, we need to study what happens before, during and after resource-extraction projects arrive in communities. Who benefits? How are communities impacted? If there are negative impacts, what attenuation or compensation measures are being deployed? Is everybody happy with the project?

As parliamentarians, we do our best work when we approach issues holistically, taking into consideration every factor — positive, negative, but also neutral — and making well-informed decisions backed by in-depth studies.

[Translation]

I’ll reiterate one of the points I made during the previous Parliament. The ignorance that prevails when decisions are being made about resource extraction results in the unequal distribution of profits and losses. Some people might think that doesn’t happen or happens only in developing countries, but that’s not true. My work took me to many places around the world and most of the provinces in Canada specifically to address situations involving negotiations with stakeholders, impact mitigation, contamination clean-up, human exposure to toxic products and many other very serious situations.

Here’s one of hundreds of examples. The people of Limoilou, which is in Quebec City, were exposed to wind-borne nickel particles from activities at the Port of Quebec. Neither government nor the industry deny it. The government’s proposed solution is to okay a higher exposure level, a decision that is making headlines these days. It wants to increase the limit to 60 times the current allowable level. Knowing that, esteemed colleagues, would you go live in Limoilou?

Quite often, too much focus is placed on the economic advantages. From 2014 to 2019, the oil and gas industry achieved record production while reducing its workforce by 23%. This industry receives billions of dollars in subsidies every year. It recently received $1.7 billion in public funds to clean up abandoned wells. However, that money did not increase the number of wells that were cleaned up, because companies just used the government’s money for the clean-up efforts rather than their own. Whatever happened to the polluter pays principle?

What is more, the industry is on the verge of getting approval to discharge 1.4 trillion litres of liquid effluent into the environment in areas where Indigenous people live. Humans do not drink oil or its pollutants. We need clean air and clean water to survive.

Other impacts include climate instability, because of greenhouse gas emissions, and the destabilization of our economy, because of extreme weather events. Just think of the destruction caused by the recent flooding in B.C. and Newfoundland and the impact these floods had on supply chains and inflation.

As senators, we have a responsibility to understand the positive, negative and neutral effects in order to be better legislators and promote the well-being of all Canadians.

[English]

Colleagues, I have worked all my career with industry in several areas, from infrastructure to mining and the oil and gas sector. Please believe me, I understand the value of engineering work in increasing the quality of life, and I see how society trusts engineers to help build resilience and reduce vulnerability in adapting infrastructure to extreme weather events brought by climate change. Of course I know that.

We can make intelligent, holistic decisions when we analyze all the impacts — positive, negative, cumulative, direct, indirect. It would be for the benefit of our communities and our industries. When the needs of our communities are addressed, industry can thrive instead of fighting Canadians.

I encourage you to support this motion so we can offer the federal government and all Canadians a thoughtful and balanced study on successful extractive resource development. Thank you, meegwetch.

Hon. Pierre-Hugues Boisvenu introduced Bill S-238, An Act to amend the Criminal Code and the Canadian Victims Bill of Rights (information about the victim).

(Bill read first time.)

Senator Housakos: Senator Gold, my wish is not to belittle you. You know I have the utmost personal respect for you. But we have a Prime Minister — and the facts remain — who is ill‑equipped to lead this country in a time of crisis, who is ill‑equipped and doesn’t have the desire to unite Canadians, who has done nothing but provoke and stoke the flames of division and that’s the reality. He had had his Government Representative — I feel sorry for that Government Representative on his feet in this place yesterday — defending something which, minutes later while you were defending it, he pulled the plug on. That speaks volumes. That speaks volumes for many others who were defending that yesterday while he was pulling the plug on you.

The problems facing Canada and facing the world today are profoundly serious. We see that there’s massive inflation going on, Canadian families are struggling. We see what’s happening in Ukraine. We know the threat of China on our country and our Western democracies. And the Prime Minister at this particular point in time has lost international credibility.

Where is the leadership, Senator Gold? Where is the Prime Minister’s sense of personal responsibility for all that has happened over the last few weeks? Does the Prime Minister believe this is yet another learning experience for everyone except himself? When will this government take any accountability in either one of these chambers?

Senator Gold: I have to answer and would be happy to.

Senator Dupuis: Senator Gold, we’ve gotten a number of emails in recent days and weeks. I am still hearing today in the Senate that you’re being asked about the Emergencies Act being revoked. For the benefit of anyone who is watching these proceedings, and perhaps also for senators, could you clarify what the government revoked yesterday?

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

Let me first thank you, Senator Gold, for your measured responses and for acknowledging that the voices of many senators of racialized origins are essentially being ignored by some of the commentary in questions today.

My question is about Ukraine and, specifically, it’s about Ukrainian women. We know that, in war, rape is a weapon of war far too often.

We also know that Canada is an expert and a leader on gender-based analysis, and we have a feminist foreign policy.

Senator Gold, may I ask for assurance by way of this question that Canada is using gender-based analysis and employing the principles of our feminist foreign policy in everything that is being considered by Canada in relation to the illegal invasion of Ukraine?

Senator Gold: Senator Plett, out of respect for you and this debate, I did not rise in the course of your debate to raise a point of order, and I will not do that. However, you made allusions to statements that I made about how this bill should be treated which I did not make in the chamber; and if I said anything on that subject, it would have been in the context of a confidential leaders’ meeting. I have never, in the two years I have been Government Representative, treated those meetings as anything other than confidential. I’m going to assume that was inadvertent on your part and I simply want to now move to my question.

In the interests of making sure that the chamber is not under some confusion, I wonder if you could help clarify. Would you agree then that the drafting error to which Senator Griffin referred is not in fact a drafting error in Bill C-12 but is indeed another section of the Old Age Security Act? Would you agree that it is important that Bill C-12 be studied properly but implemented in a timely fashion so that the bottom line of our seniors is not negatively affected?

Senator Plett: I think I made that clear at the end of my speech. We support the bill and we support it moving to committee, and we support it moving to committee today, so we are again reluctantly helping this government. Yes, I would say that is in the affirmative to your question.

Senator Plett: We attended briefings on this bill as we always do. No, I did not ask the government for anything personally.

[Translation]

Senator Dupuis: I wanted to know whether the government offered to provide you, as sponsor of this bill, with this analysis, either in its full version or in summary form.

[English]

Hon. Raymonde Saint-Germain: Honourable senators, I ask leave for today’s sitting to begin with 15 minutes of Senators’ Statements concerning the situation in Ukraine, followed by regular statements.

Hon. Donna Dasko: Honourable senators, I speak to you today as a proud third-generation Canadian of Ukrainian background. My grandparents immigrated to rural Manitoba, the Pine Ridge community, from western Ukraine, in 1909. Although I have no existing family ties with Ukraine after a century of my family being here, my Ukrainian identity is strong, and I cherish my ties to friends and family, especially in my hometown of Winnipeg.

I was delighted to shake hands with President Zelenskyy here in Toronto at the Ukraine Reform Conference in 2019.

I was honoured to be a panellist at the Ukrainian Women’s Congress in Kyiv later that year. I could see there with my own eyes what I had been reading about for many years — that Ukraine was becoming a pluralist, open society where people could advocate for social change and vote in free elections.

It was so different from the Ukraine that I first visited back in 1987 during the end days and the dark days of the Soviet regime.

Since the fall of the Soviet Union, Ukraine has set out on a path toward democracy and an open economy. That path has taken many turns and has had many ups and downs, but the direction has become clearer and stronger over this past decade.

Vladimir Putin despises this western-facing direction. His goal is to destroy this new Ukraine and return it to the dark days of authoritarian rule.

Russia declared war on Ukraine today, and world history has changed. There is now a world before February 24, 2022, and a world after February 24, 2022. The Europe that was previously at peace has now ended.

This invasion threatens the international order, the rule of law and democracy. The free world must rally to the Ukrainian cause and do so immediately.

We have to implement stronger sanctions against Russia’s economy, banks and the property that oligarchs own, and Russian assets in the West need to be seized.

Ukraine needs more assistance with weapons with which to defend itself. A no-fly zone needs to be implemented over Ukrainian airspace by Ukraine’s friends and allies.

Ukraine will need economic support and humanitarian aid in the days ahead.

In the 1930s, the world was slow to recognize the danger that Adolf Hitler posed to our civilization. We cannot make that same mistake again. Thank you.

Hon. Percy E. Downe: My concern, Senator McCallum, about this bill is the intention. Although it’s very credible, I’m concerned that the unintended impact is that it is restrictive. It doesn’t recognize that when French and English came to this part of North America, there were already at least 90 Indigenous languages. This has become more a bill of exclusion than the original intent. I’m wondering if you share my concern on that.

Senator McCallum: Yes, I do share your concern. That’s why I said it should go to committee, because we need to explore all the areas around language and see where it is that we need to go with the Aboriginal languages. Thank you.

(On motion of Senator Wells, debate adjourned.)

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.