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.)

Hon. Raymonde Saint-Germain: Honourable senators, with leave of the Senate and notwithstanding rule 5-5(j), I move, seconded by the Honourable Senators Gold, P.C., Plett, Tannas and Cordy:

That the Senate of Canada:

(a)condemn in the strongest terms Russia and its entirely unprovoked invasion of Ukraine following continued violations of its territorial independence and sovereignty;

(b)condemn Russia’s flagrant disregard for its obligations under international law and as a member of the United Nations, particularly as a permanent member of the UN Security Council;

(c)recognize the right of the Ukrainian people to live in peace, security and freedom in their own country and to determine their own future and government without foreign interference of any kind; and

(d)affirm its steadfast support for the people of Ukraine and those Canadians of Ukrainian origin in Canada.

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.

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.

Hon. David Richards: Would Senator Griffin take a question, please?

Hon. Patricia Bovey: Honourable senators, I have worked with Ukrainian organizations, and I echo all that has been said today.

I now move home to our inner cities, with amazing organizations doing amazing things, supporting their communities by giving meaningful opportunities to their residents. Art City in Winnipeg’s West Broadway is one such oasis. This community’s population is 5,590, its density is 402% higher than Winnipeg as a whole and its median age 14% lower.

Led by professional artists, Art City offers a wide range of art activities, using all sorts of donated materials. Of their participants, 96% are children and youth; 35% are Indigenous; 38% are immigrants and refugees — including those from Ukraine; 12% are persons with disabilities; and 25% are single‑parent families.

The kids develop their code of behaviour; it hangs by the door. “Zero tolerance” allows for total focus on creativity. This is a free drop-in program. No one has to be there. The spirit is imaginative and positive, sensitive to the area’s wide cultural diversities. Participants work on their own and do group projects.

A recent theme, “decolonializing comics,” was an inspired way to engage the kids. Each year, they build stunning themed floats for their neighbourhood parade, and they make banners on request for local groups and organizations.

Founded in 1998, by acclaimed artist Wanda Koop, Art City’s impact is transformational. One young medical student who grew up in the neighbourhood told me that Art City was his haven. His dream was to give back, and live and practise family medicine there. He is doing so.

During the two hard COVID years, Art City determinedly served 5,335 people — less than the pre-pandemic 9,828, but significant given the lockdowns. Art City’s reach expanded to other parts of the city, too. In addition, they packaged free art kits, with instructions, for pickup, and they inaugurated a program for northern Manitoba, delivering thousands of kits to many northern communities.

Their social responsibility to meet immediate community needs and working with community organizations is also paramount. Enhancing the safety of the area, Art City teams join the district’s weekly Bear Clan Patrol. In regular contact with the Assembly of Manitoba Chiefs, Art City ensures their programs and outreach are appropriately sensitive to cultural and reconciliation concerns.

With Winnipeg reopening, kids are returning to Art City. As Eddie Ayoub, Artistic Director and Senate 150 medal recipient, said, “For them, art is everything.”

I commend Art City. Thank you.

Hon. Dennis Glen Patterson: Honourable senators, I rise today to share with you a success story. I think we could all use some positive news in light of the tragic events in Ukraine today.

On January 31, 2022, the Government of Canada awarded a seven-year contract worth $592 million to operate and maintain the North Warning System to Nasittuq, a joint venture between Pan Arctic Inuit Logistics Corporation, also known as PAIL, and ATCO’s Frontec Logistics Corp. The contract could be extended a further eight years, for a total valuation of $1.38 billion.

PAIL is a wholly owned Inuit venture that represents Inuit beneficiary organizations throughout Inuit Nunangat, making Nasittuq an Inuit-majority-owned company. As a result, great emphasis is being placed on recruitment and training of Inuit. Funding to the tune of $25 million have been set aside for training, and Nasittuq is actively recruiting for all positions, including management roles.

According to PAIL Chairperson, Harry Flaherty, in a February 2, 2022, Nunatsiaq News article:

Having managers, supervisors and labourers that are all Inuit would help improve communication on the job.

Colleagues, this is a major step in diversifying the economic opportunities of Inuit and ensuring that Inuit play a central role in the defence of their homeland. The next step is to ensure that there is sufficient space for Inuit in any current and future plans to expand and modernize the North Warning System.

A December 20, 2019, Treasury Board directive ensured that preference would go to Inuit contractors within the Nunavut Settlement Area in line with obligations under Article 24 of the Nunavut Land Claims Agreement. That was a good start, but we must continue to push for procurement strategies that create opportunities for Indigenous-owned businesses that have, for far too long, been shut out of the government procurement process.

I commend the government for doing the right thing by awarding this major contract to Nasittuq and urge them to continue to put an emphasis on supporting Inuit-led companies in future contract bids across the North.

Thank you, qujannamiik, taima.