Hon. Robert Black: Honourable senators, I have risen on a number of occasions in this chamber and in the Committee on Agriculture and Forestry to speak about the importance of soil health. Today, I would like to highlight the United Nations World Soil Day, which takes place every December 5, which is this Sunday. This year’s campaign, Halt soil salinization, Boost soil productivity, aims to raise awareness of the growing challenges in soil management, fighting soil salinization and increasing soil health awareness.

As a longstanding member of Ontario’s agricultural community, I know just how important the health of soils is to all of us. In fact, while I was off the Hill this past summer, I was on the farms and in the fields. During the summer recess and into the fall harvest season, I had the opportunity to visit many communities across Ontario, from Bayfield to Ottawa, Thunder Bay to Wellington County and many communities in between, in addition to touring parts of Alberta, Saskatchewan and Manitoba to learn more about Canadian agriculture, the work being done, the challenges faced and the successes achieved by farmers across this great country. My tours also included meetings with municipal officials; opening agricultural fairs; visits to carrot and potato farms; beef, sheep and bison farms; breweries, wineries and cideries; local research stations; and innovative greenhouses, among many others.

During my tours, I heard about many issues, including those surrounding labour, infrastructure and transportation, irrigation and water, food security, carbon pricing and soil health, just to name a few. As one of Canada’s most precious natural resources, soil health and conservation was a top-of-mind matter as I heard from agriculture from across this country.

Agriculture is a complex and changing industry, and I believe it is in Canada’s best interests to continue to enhance and strengthen this sector to ensure that generations to come will be able to enjoy the fruits of its labours. In order for future generations to continue enjoying these fruits — and vegetables, among other agriculture products — the industry must be given the tools to continue being a leader on the global stage and become even more competitive. For that to be possible, our soils must remain healthy and arable.

Honourable senators, ensuring the health and conservation of Canadian soils is a shared responsibility and will require collective leadership and sustained commitment and action, not only by those directly responsible for managing soil across the country, but by all levels of government as well. I encourage you to take the time to learn more about the state of our soils while marking United Nations World Soil Day on December the 5 and support efforts to raise awareness and celebrate Canadian biodiversity. Thank you. Meegwetch.

[Translation]

The Hon. the Speaker: Senator Martin, I regret to inform you that your time is up.

The Hon. the Speaker: If you’re opposed to leave, please say “no.”

The second thing, honourable senators, is that normally, because of rule 3-3(1), I would be required to leave the chair at six o’clock. But since this is the last matter on the Order Paper, if you’re opposed to going beyond six o’clock so that Senator Harder can have his five minutes, please say “no.”

Then I won’t see the clock. I would ask senators — since we only have five minutes — to please keep their questions brief.

[Translation]

The Hon. the Speaker: If anybody is opposed to leave, please say no.

Senator Batters, do you have a question?

The Hon. the Speaker: Senator Kutcher, there is a senator who wishes to ask a question, but your time is about to expire. Are you asking for five more minutes to take a question?

Senator Kutcher: Certainly, I would be happy to.

Hon Senators: Agreed.

The Hon. the Speaker: Is leave granted, honourable senators?

Hon. Michael L. MacDonald, Chair of the Committee of Selection, presented the following report:

Thursday, December 2, 2021

The Committee of Selection has the honour to present its

THIRD REPORT

On November 25, 2021, the Senate authorized your committee to make recommendations to the Senate on issues relating to the scheduling and coordination of hybrid committee meetings. Your committee now presents an interim report.

Pursuant to the order of the Senate of November 25, 2021, authorizing committees to hold hybrid meetings, and based on the Senate’s current capacity to support hybrid meetings, your committee makes the following recommendations:

1.That Senate committees be authorized to meet according to a fixed committee schedule provided that:

(a)meetings of committees be prioritized for those that are meeting on government business, subject to available capacity;

(b)any changes to the approved schedule be subject to approval by the Government Liaison, the Opposition Whip, and the whips and liaisons of all recognized parties and recognized parliamentary groups.

2.Your committee also appends to this report an interim schedule for hybrid Senate committee meetings, and further recommends that:

(a)the interim schedule be implemented immediately; and

(b)any subsequent changes deemed useful or necessary be done in consultation with the Government Liaison, the Opposition Whip, and the whips and liaisons of all recognized parties and recognized parliamentary groups.

Respectfully submitted,

MICHAEL L. MACDONALD

Chair

Hon. Senators: Question.

The Hon. the Speaker: Are honourable senators ready for the question?

Hon. Peter Harder rose pursuant to notice of November 25, 2021:

That he will call the attention of the Senate to the role and mandate of the RCMP, the skills and capabilities required for it to fulfill its role and mandate, and how it should be organized and resourced in the 21st century.

He said: Honourable senators, I appreciate your indulgence at this hour for me to rise on this inquiry. But I want to remind those of you who aren’t particular Order Paper aficionados that this inquiry has been on the Order Paper since March 14 and this is the first day since then that we actually got to this point on the Order Paper, so I want to take full advantage.

I rise on a matter of compelling national interest, one that has special relevance to members of this house, because it has to do with the health, competence and future of a once-great institution. That institution is the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. I speak as a former deputy solicitor general and deputy minister of public security. Also, prior to my appointment to the Senate, I served as the volunteer chair of the National Police Services Advisory Council.

As honourable senators will know, the RCMP was the subject of a recent, scathing report by the Honourable Michel Bastarache, a former justice of the Supreme Court of Canada. The report was entitled Broken Dreams, Broken Lives and it makes for harrowing reading.

Justice Bastarache was appointed in 2017 as the independent assessor responsible for adjudicating claims of sexual harassment and assault by more than 3,000 current and former female employees of the RCMP, regular members, civilian members and public servants over a period of more than 30 years. He and his colleagues spent literally hundreds of hours interviewing women whose dreams of a rewarding career as members of an iconic Canadian institution were destroyed by what he calls “. . . a toxic work environment . . .” and an institutional culture that, in his words:

. . . has resulted in incalculable damage to female members of the RCMP as well as those working for the public service.

It is a damning report. According to Justice Bastarache, “The level of violence and sexual assault that was reported was shocking.”

This is not a problem of a few bad apples. It is a systemic problem. He says:

. . . the culture of the RCMP is toxic and tolerates misogyny and homophobia at all ranks and in all provinces and territories.

Justice Bastarache, like others before him — including a distinguished former Auditor General — described a deeply troubled institution whose problems stem from an outdated paramilitary culture, from poor management over many decades and, importantly for this house, a mandate that is simply too large and too heavily oriented to a provincial policing role that is no longer appropriate for a critically important federal organization. It’s too big to succeed.

The RCMP mandate today includes everything from municipal policing, even in large urban areas such as Surrey and Richmond, B.C.; to provincial policing in 8 of 10 provinces and three territories; policing on hundreds of First Nations and responsibility as Canada’s federal police service dealing with everything from organized crime to terrorism to drugs and human smuggling. To that, you can add responsibility for providing forensic and other technical services in support of police agencies across the country.

This is an enormous mandate. Many members of the RCMP will tell you this uniquely comprehensive policing role brings great advantages. They will tell you that time spent chasing police cars on the Trans-Canada Highway is useful training for white-collar investigations of money laundering or online sexual abuse of children. I don’t agree. Many Canadians, especially in Western Canada, see the RCMP as a much-loved symbol of a measured and responsible approach to policing in their communities.

The scarlet coat, the iconic image of the mounted police officer, the rigorous training at Depot in Regina — these are all seen as noteworthy elements of Canadian history and worthy subjects of national pride. Honourable senators, that was the view of the RCMP I grew up with, as I’m sure many of you did, and some of you joined. I not only believe but I know the vast majority of men and women in the RCMP are serving their community and country with honour. It is not the individuals as much as the institution that is often failing Canada today.

Today, we are asking the RCMP and its employees to do the impossible. An increasing number of thoughtful people in the criminal justice world see the RCMP today as an organization that is simply ill-equipped and unprepared to deal with the new challenges to public safety we face in 2021.

Challenges that require new kinds of people, different skills, different training, a different organizational structure and focus and a dramatically different allocation of resources. Is the RCMP in those eight provinces — all but Ontario and Quebec — a province police force or a federal one? Speaking as a former deputy minister of the federal department responsible for the RCMP, I can tell you the answer is never clear. In fact, the RCMP in those eight provinces sees itself as both federal and provincial, something that does nothing to clarify accountability when things go wrong.

Last April, we witnessed a tragic incident in Nova Scotia where 22 people were killed. There are questions over the immediate response and confusion over which level of government — provincial or federal — should be responsible for the subsequent inquiry.

Sadly, experience suggests the RCMP is a provincial force accountable to the provincial Attorney General when that suits the interests of the divisional commander, and a federal force when the advantage tips the other way.

(1750)

One thing that seems to always be true is that the focus of the organization as a whole is on its traditional policing responsibilities at the provincial level — serving communities, responding to individual problems and dealing with local offences. After all, those eight provinces pay at least 70% of the cost of provincial policing, and in some cases as high as 90%. Many would argue that they should pay the full cost, let alone the bizarre situation of taxpayers in have-not provinces subsidizing police offerings in the other half of the provinces. What all of this means, however, is that in a very real sense, the provinces call the tune for a large part of the policing activity of a $3.5 billion federal organization with over 30,000 employees.

At the same time, the RCMP is widely seen as neglecting its critical federal role, a role that only it can play. Canada’s capacity to deal with 21st century threats such as money laundering, human smuggling, transnational crime, hate crime, illegal immigration and opioid smuggling is, in the minds of most observers, simply inadequate. Something doesn’t add up here. Our national police service is spending most of its efforts on activities the provinces can and should be doing while neglecting the job that only it can do. In summary, the RCMP is both too big to succeed and unfit for its purpose.

Honourable senators, I believe we need to take a look at this. I believe the members of this chamber are well equipped to do what Justice Bastarache recommended, which was to carry out:

. . . an in depth, external and independent review of the organization and future of the RCMP as a federal policing organization.

I’m not suggesting we go over ground already covered all too thoroughly by Justice Bastarache or by the office of previous reports on problems of the RCMP. Rather, I am proposing that we conduct an inquiry into the future of the organization; its role and mandate; how it should be organized and resourced to deliver on what we see as an appropriate role and an appropriate mandate for the 21st century; the skills and other capabilities required to be an effective national police force; related issues of recruitment, training and development; and any other issues that, in the view of the honourable senators, are relevant to the affirmation and renewal of a great national institution.

There should be no doubt in the mind of any Canadian that a vital national institution that we’ve all been brought up to admire and respect has serious problems that require rigorous examination, public debate and an openness by the government to consider significant change. Again, in the words of Justice Bastarache:

. . . the time has come for an in depth, external and independent review of the organization and future of the RCMP as a federal policing organization.

Honourable senators, this is a job we can do. It is a job where we have within our ranks the experience, knowledge and judgment to carry out this vital role both expertly and responsibly. We can even do it efficiently. I’ve always believed that one of the essential responsibilities of this legislative body is the care of Canada’s national institutions. We can exercise that duty in a relatively non-partisan way. We can bring a national perspective to national concerns.

The RCMP is too important a Canadian institution to be ignored at this critical juncture in its history. I am therefore suggesting the creation of a special Senate committee to inquire into the future of the RCMP with membership to be determined after consultation with all groups in this chamber. I hope that this inquiry can spark some Senate interest and urge senators who have an interest in this matter to speak so in the future of this inquiry’s discussions. Thank you.

The Hon. the Speaker: Senator Harder, you have a little less than five minutes left in your time and there are three senators who wish to ask questions. Would you take a question?

Senator Harder: Certainly.

Hon. Larry W. Campbell: Would the honourable senator take a question?

Senator Harder: Certainly.

The Hon. the Speaker: Senator Harder, you are coming to the end of your time and there are three other senators who wish to ask questions. We are also going to bump up against six o’clock, the time when I’m required to leave the chair.

First, would you ask for five more minutes to answer questions from three other senators?

Senator Harder: I’d be happy to.

The Hon. the Speaker: Senator Boniface, we have one minute for your question and an answer.

The Hon. the Speaker: Honourable senators, when shall this bill be read the second time?

(On motion of Senator Carignan, bill placed on the Orders of the Day for second reading two days hence.)

[English]

Hon. Julie Miville-Dechêne: Will Senator Moodie take a question?

Hon. Claude Carignan introducedBill S-231, An Act to amend the Criminal Code, the Criminal Records Act, the National Defence Act and the DNA Identification Act.

(Bill read first time.)

Hon. Pierre J. Dalphond: Honourable senators, I urge you to support this motion whose purpose is twofold: First, to serve as a reminder that despite the commitment made in 1982 to have a fully bilingual Constitution, in accordance with section 55 of the Constitution Act, 1982, to this day 22 of the 31 texts forming the Constitution of Canada are official in English only, including most of the Constitution Act, 1867; second, to call on the government to include, in the context of the review of the Official Languages Act, the obligation to periodically report back on the efforts made to implement section 55 and the constitutional commitment made almost 40 years ago.

With its Bill 96 to amend the Charter of the French Language, the National Assembly of Quebec is preparing to propose that two provisions be added to the Constitution Act, 1867, to affirm that French is the official language of the Quebec nation and the common language of Quebecers. In the recent election campaign, all federal parties promised to support this bilateral constitutional amendment.

At the same time, the government made a commitment in the Throne Speech to table a bill to modernize the Official Languages Act in order to reaffirm the importance of French in Canada and to promote its use.

While the status of French is becoming an issue of concern, both in Parliament and at the Quebec National Assembly, we keep forgetting that although our country’s official languages are French and English, there is still no official French version of the Constitution Act, 1867. The majority of the founding document, an imperial statute adopted by the Westminster Parliament, is only legally valid in English. Canada is probably the only country in the world that claims bilingual status but has a Constitution essentially written in just one of its official languages.

It is even more surprising that this is the case in 2021, since section 55 of the Constitution Act, 1982, states the following:

A French version of the portions of the Constitution of Canada referred to in the schedule shall be prepared by the Minister of Justice of Canada as expeditiously as possible and, when any portion thereof sufficient to warrant action being taken has been so prepared, it shall be put forward for enactment by proclamation issued by the Governor General under the Great Seal of Canada pursuant to the procedure then applicable to an amendment of the same provisions of the Constitution of Canada.

(1630)

[English]

As you know, our Constitution is made principally of the Constitution Act, 1867, often called the British North America Act, or the BNA Act, and is complemented by 30 other pieces of legislation, including acts to officially add the colonies of Prince Edward Island, British Columbia and Newfoundland to Confederation.

While eight of these additional texts, including federal statutes creating new provinces, including Manitoba, Alberta and Saskatchewan, were adopted in both official languages, to this day, 22 constitutional documents remain official in English only, including, as I said previously, most of the Constitution Act, 1867, the foundational text of our federation.

While French-speaking Canadians have the constitutional right to rely on the French text of all ordinary federal statutes, they lack the means to exercise this fundamental right in regard to nearly all of Canada’s constitutional texts, despite the country being officially bilingual since 1968.

During the patriation of the Constitution in 1982, following the Quebec referendum, two things were promised to rectify this situation, which was no longer acceptable, with the adoption of section 55 of the Constitution Act, 1982: first, a constitutional obligation for the Minister of Justice to have the French version of all texts that are part of the Constitution drafted as soon as possible; and second, the obligation of the governments of the country to take the necessary steps for the coming into force of these French texts as soon as available.

[Translation]

In 1984, the Honourable Donald Johnston, Canada’s justice minister, created the constitutional drafting committee to draft the French text of the Constitution. The committee was made up of distinguished jurists, including Senator Gérald Beaudoin, former Supreme Court of Canada justice Louis-Philippe Pigeon, Robert Décary, who was later appointed to the Federal Court of Appeal, and Gil Rémillard, who later became Quebec’s justice minister.

In 1990, the committee submitted its final report to the Minister of Justice, the Honourable Kim Campbell, who then tabled it in the House of Commons and the Senate in December 1990. That fulfilled the first institutional obligation in section 55. Unfortunately, the second obligation is a whole different story.

Over the next seven years, governments took no concrete action to adopt the French versions of the constitutional texts. It wasn’t until April 1997, a little more than a year after Quebec’s second referendum, that the Right Honourable Jean Chrétien’s federal government invited the Government of Quebec to start talking about fulfilling the second obligation. The provincial government, under the Honourable Lucien Bouchard at the time, declined the offer.

In April 1998, the federal Department of Justice again contacted the Government of Quebec to advise it that Prince Edward Island, New Brunswick and Saskatchewan had indicated that the French texts were acceptable to them and that other provinces were awaiting approval from Quebec and Ontario before giving their final response.

This request was ignored by Quebec City, and no one in Ottawa seemed to want to restart the process that would have finally led to an official French version of the country’s most important law, the Constitution Act, 1867.

Accordingly, nearly 40 years after the solemn commitment made in 1982 and 30 years after the tabling of the French versions of some of the texts, we still don’t have a French version of the founding text of the country, on the grounds that an adoption of the whole text requires, in accordance with the amendment procedure put in place in 1982 at the time of the repatriation of the Constitution, a resolution passed by both houses of Parliament and a majority of the provinces representing more than 50 per cent of Canada’s population, or, according to some, perhaps even unanimity among the provinces.

[English]

As the Commissioner of Official Languages, Mr. Raymond Théberge, explained in his appearance before the Standing Senate Committee on Official Languages last June, in response to a question from Senator Bovey:

The timeline is in the hands of the Minister of Justice and the Attorneys General across the country. In order to do that, we have to bring the provinces around the table so that they can agree.

Mr. Théberge also said that:

The work still has to be done. It is up to the federal government to bring people around the table from the other provinces and territories to do this.

[Translation]

Fearing the risks involved in starting such a process, successive Conservative and Liberal governments have done nothing for over 20 years to ensure that Canada has a bilingual Constitution. They nevertheless have recognized that Quebec is a distinct society, a nation, that the Acadian nation is important, and that the government wants to promote the use of French across Canada, especially in regions where many francophones live.

Because Canadian governments have shown such a lack of appetite to use an amendment process that yet would change nothing in terms of the division of powers, the structure of the federation and its institutions, these governments have clearly neglected their constitutional obligation set out in section 55 of the Constitution Act, 1982.

It is of course a travesty that Canada does not have a bilingual Constitution that reflects a fundamental characteristic of our country, but there are also practical implications. In an October 2018 report entitled Access to Justice in French and English in the Context of Modernizing the Official Languages Act, the Canadian Bar Association stated the following:

The absence of an official French version has practical implications for the development of law and devalues French-speaking jurists’ and litigants’ participation in discussions on the interpretation of our society’s most fundamental legal texts.

Honourable senators, it would be an understatement to say that not having an official French version of our Constitution, despite the constitutional obligation under section 55, is a source of embarrassment, particularly for federalists living in Quebec; it is also evidence of a lack of political leadership. I am not the first person to point this out, but I am doing so today in a very specific context. As indicated in the Speech from the Throne, the government plans to modernize the Official Languages Act to strengthen the use of French in Quebec, in Acadia and elsewhere in the country.

As the government works on drafting the proposals it intends to table in the other place in the near future, I would like to see this chamber invite it to include a provision requiring reports to Parliament every five years outlining efforts made to finally ensure compliance with section 55 of the Constitution Act, 1982. Incorporating this provision into the Official Languages Act would ensure that the government’s efforts are periodically shared with the public and would remind other governments in this country of their constitutional obligation to complete this woefully incomplete part of the repatriation of the Constitution. As the Canadian Bar Association explained in its report, the addition of a requirement to report every five years would contribute to the accountability of all the stakeholders whose participation is essential to making the applicable constitutional amendment procedure work.

As a final point, I would like to highlight another initiative taken to remind the government of its obligation to remedy the unilingualism of the Constitution of Canada. In August 2019, Senator Serge Joyal, our former colleague, together with Professor François Larocque of the University of Ottawa, filed an application for a declaratory judgment and judicial review before the Quebec Superior Court.

(1640)

The purpose of this process is to have the federal government initiate talks on the accuracy of the French version of the text as soon as possible with the provinces whose approval is required, in accordance with the applicable procedure for amending the Constitution.

In closing, honourable senators, I invite you, by means of this motion, to call on the government to do what is required to ensure that the constitutional rights of the francophones of the country are fully respected.

Thank you, meegwetch.