Hon. Renée Dupuis: Senator Plett, I know that, as sponsor of this bill, you have access to more documentation than ordinary senators do. Have you asked the government for the gender-based analysis plus that would normally have been conducted when the bill was drafted and had to be submitted to cabinet?

[English]

The Hon. the Speaker: Senator Tannas, Senator Cordy will take a question.

Hon. Senators: Hear, hear.

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

Hon. Marc Gold (Government Representative in the Senate): Thank you for your question. I will certainly have to make inquiries in order to answer your very specific question about the measures that are being taken, have been taken and the additional measures that may very well be called upon to be taken.

I can say two things. First, the government stands committed to that feminist foreign policy, to take into account the disproportionate and unique impact of circumstances of war on women, which you properly underlined. Second, the government announced today additional measures from those announced earlier — serious, strong measures, economic and military, providing military support and economic measures in concert with its NATO allies. It will continue to stand up for the rights of the Ukrainian people and the sovereignty of the Ukrainian nation.

Senator Plett: Well, for all of those people in Canada that are watching and listening to us here — and according to yesterday’s email chain that many of us received there are a lot of people listening — I think the answer to the question that I asked was “no.” If you don’t want to answer that, I guess I have to answer that.

I heard the answer to my question was “no.”

Let’s see if we can do better on the second question.

Last week, the Canadian Pork Council told a House agriculture committee that the Trudeau government’s planned vaccine mandate for interprovincial trucking will be the straw that broke the camel’s back. It’s the Canadian Pork Council that said that, not a politician.

The council says it wasn’t consulted by the Trudeau government about this mandate. Their chair, Rick Bergmann from my province of Manitoba, told the committee this mandate would be devastating for his industry saying that “the implementation of that rule will set us up for guaranteed failure.”

Leader, why is the Trudeau government intent on imposing a new restriction? The Trudeau government has never brought forward the scientific basis for this restriction. Where is it? What happened to following the science?

Senator Gold: Thank you for your question. I answered neither yes nor no to your first question. I said that the government is continuing to study, as it has been, all measures and will make announcements as appropriate.

With regard to your second question, Canadians know already that 90% of truckers are already vaccinated and the truckers’ association said they supported the mandates. With regards to your question and the concerns of the pork producers and others in the agriculture sector, my answer to your first question still stands.

Hon. Marc Gold (Government Representative in the Senate): Well, thank you for your question. I can’t answer definitively that they have all been unfrozen. I suspect that’s probably not the case yet. There have been reports that a number have been unfrozen, especially those who left. I’ll certainly make inquiries to the extent that the information is available and be happy to share it in the chamber.

Senator Gold: I think it’s important for senators to understand — they certainly don’t want to revisit the hours I spent the other day — that at such time as the act, the proclamation, was invoked, the measures were in place and enforced. At such time as the government decided it was no longer necessary, those measures ceased. However, actions taken during the period that were authorized by the regulations promulgated under the Emergencies Act remain subject to those terms.

The government, as prudent as it was in deciding to invoke the Emergencies Act and as responsible as it was in determining — as it had been stating and I had been repeating — based upon the advice of police, law enforcement, the intelligence community and other advisers, that it was no longer required, this chamber should be assured that the government can proceed responsibly and prudently with regard to matters you questioned.

Hon. Marc Gold (Government Representative in the Senate): Thank you, senator, for your question and for underlining the importance of accessible child care to all citizens of Canada regardless of where they live. My understanding is that the Minister of Families, Children and Social Development, Minister Gould, is currently waiting for the Province of Ontario to submit their action plan so that the federal government can understand how Ontario plans to spend the money — $10.2 billion — that has been offered to Ontario under this plan.

Honourable senators, this is an important accountability measure. The government needs to be assured that the families will actually see reductions in cost. We need to see that the number of spaces will be increased and that early childhood education will be properly supported. It’s also an important transparency measure. Ontarians and all Canadians need to know how public money is being spent.

Hon. Stan Kutcher: Honourable senators, I rise today with deep sadness for the citizens of Ukraine and also for the rest of the free world. I am worried about the people of Ukraine, including relatives that I — and many of us in this chamber and across our free and prosperous country — have living there.

This morning, I looked at a map. It showed places where missile and air attacks had targeted. Kyiv, Lviv and just outside of Ternopil. My family is there.

We are witnessing a criminal act against Ukraine — an attack on the international rule of law, an attack on the values all those who live in democratic freedom must resist. Although our resistance is coming late, it must be fulsome and impactful, and it must happen now.

The invasion comes as no surprise. It is not the result of an impulsive act by an unhinged mind but the cunning culmination of years of preparation — years during which we and the free world could have acted but did not, years during which the signs were clearly there for us to see but did not see, or, maybe worse, chose not to see, or, maybe even worse, aided and abetted. It was no surprise that, earlier this week, Trump praised the genius of Putin, and Fox News attacked Canada and fawned over Russia.

Sadly, many Canadians may not realize just how real dictators operate. Russia has long been actively destabilizing Western democracies, including Canada, often by interfering in elections and stoking the flames of populism and libertarianism. As the Macdonald-Laurier Institute and DisinfoWatch have pointed out, during this pandemic Russia has been amplifying anti-vaccine rhetoric, pushing narratives that question the existence of COVID, the legitimacy of Canadian public health protocols, the safety of vaccines and inciting people to attack public health measures that were designed to protect them and their communities.

My family knows these techniques all too well. The destabilization of legitimate governments that stand in the way of Russian interests has always been a hallmark of that regime. My ties are deep in Ukraine. My parents were World War II refugees. They knew real tyranny. They lost everything. Most of my relatives were sent to the gulag. Those who survived were cast aside on the scrap heap of life. Some clawed their way back; others did not.

Honourable senators, let’s see Russia for what it is. Let’s make sure it does not destabilize our country and the international rule of law. We need to stand with Ukraine, and we need to act today, not tomorrow.

As the Ukrainian national anthem says, Ukraine’s freedom has not yet perished.

[Editor’s Note: Senator Kutcher spoke in Ukrainian.]

Let’s do all that we can to prove that phrase correct. Thank you and d’akuju.

Hon. Denise Batters: Honourable senators, I rise today to condemn Russia for its unprovoked invasion of Ukraine. We are all horrified by the images streaming from Ukraine in the hours since this invasion. It’s a country under siege from all directions. All at once, its citizens are cowering in subway tunnels and people are gathered together with heads bowed in prayer because there seem to be no other options at this point.

As the granddaughter of Ukrainian immigrants who sought refuge in Canada 100 years ago, I feel this invasion deep in my soul. I visited Ukraine in 2014 as an observer for the presidential elections that year. I was struck then by the deep gratitude of Ukrainian people for their burgeoning democracy and was touched by the elderly women from Ukrainian villages who brought fresh flowers from their gardens to the polling station to give thanks for the opportunity to express their democratic right to vote. I am thinking of those elderly women in Ukraine today, honourable senators.

Canada cannot abandon Ukraine’s citizens to the madman Vladimir Putin. We must condemn, in the strongest possible terms, Putin’s brutal and entirely unprovoked invasion of Ukraine, and we condemn Putin’s flagrant disregard for Russia’s obligations under international law. But we must do more than just stand by and condemn the evil acts of the dictator Putin. Canada must act now to stand up for a peaceful and free Ukraine.

For years, Ukrainian authorities have been pleading with Canada for defensive arms, but the Trudeau government did not provide them. It only agreed to provide some defensive arms on the eve of the invasion. They were provided so late that I do not know if they will even reach Ukrainian soldiers in the field. Now Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy has asked every able Ukrainian citizen to take up arms themselves against Putin’s forces. The Trudeau government’s delay and virtue signalling are ineffective in the face of such a monumental threat.

On February 13, the Prime Minister tweeted, “ . . . we’ll keep standing strong in support of Ukraine’s sovereignty and territorial integrity.” That was the same day that Canadian trainers in Ukraine headed for the Polish border and Canada was evacuating its embassy in Kyiv. What have all these words and those uttered by other Western leaders meant for the Ukrainian people? We can see the results of that today, and it breaks my heart.

The least we can do now is open our borders to the hundreds of thousands of Ukrainians who are now fleeing their country. The official opposition will support this motion, but I implore our Canadian government to understand that this is not the time for weak words. It is our moral duty to act now to help the people of Ukraine.

[Editor’s Note: Senator Batters spoke in Ukrainian.]

Hon. Ratna Omidvar: My question is for the Leader of the Government in the Senate, Senator Gold, and it is about child care. Now that Nunavut has struck a deal on child care with the federal government, that leaves my home province, Ontario, as the only jurisdiction not to sign on to the federal government’s $10-a-day child care. It also happens to be the most populous province in Canada, along with the rather dubious distinction of having the most expensive child care. Parents in Ontario pay upward of $2,000 a month for child care, whereas other jurisdictions are paying as little as $10 a day.

Of course, Senator Gold, you understand what an impact that has, particularly on low-income Canadians, because holding down a job without affordable child care becomes impossible. Can you please give us an update on where the negotiations stand, what some of the hurdles are and when we can expect an agreement to be signed?

Senator Omidvar: Senator Gold, do you have any idea if there is a deadline for getting this agreement signed?

Hon. Chantal Petitclerc: My question is for Senator Gold, the Government Representative in the Senate. As Senator Deacon said earlier, our Olympic athletes are returning to Canada with an impressive haul of 26 medals, including four golds. We are very proud of them, we congratulate them and we support them. In Canada, as in many countries, our medallists receive a bonus, a performance award. In Canada, we are talking about $20,000 for a gold medal, $15,000 for a silver medal and $10,000 for a bronze medal.

Meanwhile, our 49 Paralympic athletes are nine days away from the games for which they have been training for years. When they return, we will be proud of them too. We will applaud them just as we applauded today in this chamber. The government will congratulate them, but will they receive a performance award? No. They will receive absolutely nothing, no matter what colour medal they win.

I myself experienced this injustice in 2008 and, sadly, this has not yet been fixed. Senator Gold, it’s easy to say that the Canadian Olympic Committee has more resources than the Paralympic Committee, but that does not justify this unequal treatment. Other countries have found solutions, including the United States, Italy, Singapore and many others. This is discrimination based on disability and, you will agree, that has no place in Canada.

Senator Gold, do you agree that this situation is unacceptable and that Paralympic athletes deserve the same treatment as Olympic athletes? Can you reassure me and assure me that now that we have a new Minister of Sport, the government will do everything in its power to correct this injustice?

Senator Griffin: Let me put it this way — I don’t know if you were here the other day when I received the answer about Registered Education Savings Plans and why they can’t be protected during bankruptcy proceedings. What I heard back via the Government Representative in the Senate were all the answers why they couldn’t be done. My response to that was this: Let’s find some reasons why we can do something as opposed to why we can’t. If it’s convenient or inconvenient, that doesn’t count. What counts is what is for the betterment of our population. That’s why we’re here.

Hon. Pamela Wallin: Senator Gold, with the Emergencies Act now rescinded, the review process has been halted. It appears there is no longer a legal requirement for the government to provide Parliament, including this chamber, with the confidential documents or information that triggered the invocation of the act. Reflecting the concerns of my colleague, Senator Tannas, who asked you the other day about this issue, can we have some assurance that this chamber will be included in any forthcoming review process so that we might have access to the crucial information that I just referenced?

Hon. Marc Gold (Government Representative in the Senate): Thank you for your question, senator. I am ashamed to admit that I was not aware that our athletes are being treated differently, as you described. I’ll look into it. I’ll speak to the Minister of Sport, who is the MP in my riding, in the Eastern Townships, and I will try to get back to you with more information as soon as possible.

[English]

Senator Griffin: Yes, I understand what the official is saying. I come back to my point: The law is the law. We have a chance here to correct it very efficiently and expeditiously. Let’s do it. It can go to committee. We can vote on sending it to committee today. The committee can meet next week. The committee can report back to this chamber and, theoretically, by Thursday, it can be out of this chamber and back over to the House of Commons.

I’m not sure where their break week lands — I know theirs is not always the same as ours — but the point is that they can fix it quickly and relatively easily via this act, or very shortly via the budget implementation act, and make it retroactive. It wouldn’t be the first time governments have ever done something like that.

Thank you for the question.