Hon. Rosa Galvez, pursuant to notice of November 24, 2021, moved:

That the Senate of Canada recognize that:

(a)climate change is an urgent crisis that requires an immediate and ambitious response;

(b)human activity is unequivocally warming the atmosphere, ocean and land at an unprecedented pace, and is provoking weather and climate extremes in every region across the globe, including in the Arctic, which is warming at more than twice the global rate;

(c)failure to address climate change is resulting in catastrophic consequences especially for Canadian youth, Indigenous Peoples and future generations; and

(d)climate change is negatively impacting the health and safety of Canadians, and the financial stability of Canada;

That the Senate declare that Canada is in a national climate emergency which requires that Canada uphold its international commitments with respect to climate change and increase its climate action in line with the Paris Agreement’s objective of holding global warming well below 2 degrees Celsius and pursuing efforts to keep global warming below 1.5 degrees Celsius; and

That the Senate commit to action on mitigation and adaptation in response to the climate emergency and that it consider this urgency for action while undertaking its parliamentary business.

She said: Honourable colleagues, I rise today in this Forty-fourth Parliament to address you in the hope that we as legislators can work together to respond to the urgent climate change crisis, which has now become pervasive in the lives of all Canadians.

Over the past two years, we have witnessed catastrophic events that are increasingly destructive to humanity and the entire planet. We were overwhelmed by the devastating forest fires in North America, Australia, North Africa and the Mediterranean, and by the torrential rains and flooding in Europe, the deadly heat waves in British Columbia and the record hurricane season in 2020.

In August, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change published the first part of its sixth assessment report. The report on the most recent scientific data notes that climate change is unequivocally attributable to human activity, that the effects are felt in every region of the globe, and that the goal to limit the planet’s warming to 2 degrees Celsius will be out of reach if we do not immediately and massively reduce our greenhouse gas emissions.

United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres called the report a “code red” for humanity. In November, the whole world came together for COP26 in Glasgow to negotiate the terms of more ambitious climate action and greater investment in the fight against climate change. Many promises to take action and invest were made, but the outcome of those promises is uncertain even though it’s one minute to midnight and stabilizing the planet’s climate is of utmost importance.

[English]

In Canada, the consequences are dire and are felt across our whole nation. The average warming in meridional Canada is twice as high than the world average and three times as high in the Arctic. We are suffering major impacts in every facet of our lives.

Climate change affects the social and environmental determinants of health: clean air, safe drinking water, sufficient food and secure shelter. Climate change is already the single biggest health threat facing humanity.

For example, the warming climate causes the spread of infectious diseases, such as Lyme disease, where they have never been before; the number of days per year exceeding temperature threshold where heat-related deaths occur is increasing and associated costs will range from $3 billion to $4 billion per year by mid-century; and heat-related productivity losses are estimated to reach $14.9 billion by the end of the century.

Climate change is destroying basic and vital infrastructure. Canada’s infrastructure is not adapted nor resistant to the increasingly destructive climate. With an already massive infrastructure deficit that is estimated in the hundreds of billions of dollars, Canada cannot afford to add further risk and loss of infrastructure if we are to maintain our current quality of basic services. This is the crisis unfolding in B.C. and you know all about it. The destruction of basic infrastructure has left communities cut off from the rest of the country. It affects supply chains and businesses, with a major portion of Canadian exports depending on a few transport routes to the Pacific Coast, long-term and permanent disruptions from extreme weather will have a long-lasting negative impact on Canada’s GDP.

Every single province and territory has been hit by extreme weather events, causing unprecedented losses for Canadians. In 2020 alone, these catastrophic extreme events caused $2.4 billion in insured damage.

Over the last decade, the damage loss from extreme weather was twice as high as the previous 30 years, and the average cost of losses each year has risen to the equivalent of 5 to 6% of our annual GDP growth.

Climate change could cost Canada an estimated $20 billion to $43 billion per year by 2050 if the present trend is maintained. This year, the B.C. floods could surpass the Fort McMurray wildfires as Canada’s most expensive disaster.

Further, an increasingly volatile climate poses risks to Canada’s financial system and exposes it to multiple and overlapping vulnerabilities. The Canadian Institute for Climate Choices tells us that:

“. . . long-term transition risks are not fully reflected in market prices, tilting capital flows toward riskier emissions-intensive assets and away from low-carbon assets.”

Colleagues, market expectations are changing due to an acceleration in global policies and technological breakthroughs but also due to these infrastructure-destructive extreme weather events. It is causing massive repricing. Billions of dollars’ worth of emissions-intensive assets are becoming stranded. These losses are cascading throughout the entire financial system. Prominent global financial institutions and organizations are warning us. The Financial Stability Board, which reports to the G20, was among the first major international organizations to recognize the links between climate change and financial instability.

The warming climate is significantly challenging social and political stability worldwide. Here in Canada, our Canadian Armed Forces are feeling the strain of the increasing demand for disaster response. In the spring of 2019, more troops were deployed domestically to respond to climate disasters than they were deployed overseas.

Canadian agriculture is also suffering from the changing temperature and precipitation patterns. The summer of 2021 might have been the driest season ever experienced on the Prairies, provoking dramatic spikes in the price of wheat. The uncertainty in our agricultural systems will fuel significant food price inflation and food insecurity.

For Canada’s Indigenous peoples and racialized communities, climate change and environmental protection has been a priority and an emergency for decades already. Because of environmental racism, racialized communities have systematically borne a disproportionate weight of environmental impacts. Indigenous peoples have also been the target of polluting industries, resulting in the destruction of their lands.

Why make a climate emergency declaration, and why now?

Since 2016, 2,044 jurisdictions and governments in 37 countries, representing over 1 billion people, have declared a climate emergency, the latest one being the City of Calgary, which adopted its declaration two or three weeks ago under the leadership of the newly elected Mayor Jyoti Gondek. In Canada, 518 governments of all levels have made a climate emergency declaration, including the House of Commons, the National Assembly of Quebec and the Yukon Legislative Assembly.

[Translation]

It is time for the Senate to join those governments by declaring a national climate emergency. The environment and climate action have been priority issues for Canadians for years according to multiple surveys, which is not surprising given the climate emergencies being declared across the country.

According to Abacus Data, in 2019, 73% of Canadians claimed to have already felt the effects of climate change. Last month, two thirds of Canadians said they were frustrated by how slowly the federal government was taking climate action. Canadians have made their wishes clear, and lawmakers like us must listen and take action.

By passing this motion, the Senate will demonstrate the solidarity our fellow citizens expect and send a strong message to the House of Commons and the government that the Senate is finally ready to take on the challenge and will henceforth expect more ambitious and meaningful climate action.

[English]

To those who still hesitate to support this motion, I ask you — I beg you — to talk to your children and talk to your grandchildren, and ask them what they think about climate change.

My friends and colleagues, I believe we cannot but stand together collectively and support this motion because the science behind climate change is not a partisan issue. We are all impacted. The evidence collected by thousands of scientists from every country in the world is one of humanity’s most impressive collaborative works. The impacts being felt in Canada right now are real. They are not happening in the future; they are today. They are costly, they are destructive and they deserve to be addressed urgently for the sake of our health, safety and financial stability.

The way we should address climate change is subject to much debate and intense deliberation, not only in this chamber but everywhere, as it should be. That is the democratic process. Through this declaration, however, I am not asking that we all agree on how we will fight climate change but rather that we acknowledge the emergency of the situation, demonstrate solidarity with our fellow Canadians and commit to the constructive advancement of solutions in our parliamentary work.

We say that the Senate is the defender of the regions. All of our regions are hurting now. We owe Canadians the acknowledgment of this climate emergency and the impacts it has on their lives. That is the bare minimum. I hope that from this declaration, we can work together to find solutions and help Canadians in need.

Please stand with me. Thank you. Meegwetch.

Hon. Senators: Hear, hear.

[Translation]

Hon. Kim Pate: Honourable colleagues, I rise today in support of Bill S-213 and meaningful action on all, not only some, mandatory minimum penalties.

Thank you, Senator Jaffer, for generously taking the lead on this legislation to redress the injustices and inequities that mandatory minimum penalties both create and perpetuate.

Mandatory minimums violate Charter and human rights, in particular for Indigenous peoples, African-Canadians and other racialized people, for women, for those living with disabilities and those below the poverty line.

Where mandatory minimum penalties apply, judges cannot apply the sentencing principles that structure their discretion in determining fair and proportionate sentences. Notably, mandatory minimums interfere with judges’ obligations to consider alternatives to prison sentences, in particular as a means of redressing systemic racism and mass incarceration of Black and Indigenous peoples.

Government proposals to address mandatory minimum penalties have so far only focused on repealing a very small fraction of these penalties, as Senator Jaffer has ably pointed out. In particular, they have ignored the harshest mandatory minimums that too often cause the most egregious harms.

For Indigenous women who have experienced violence and abuse, Canada’s longest mandatory minimum penalty, the mandatory life sentence for murder, has resulted in countless miscarriages of justice.

These women’s stories underscore how important it is to take a comprehensive approach to all mandatory minimums taken in Bill S-213 and insisted on by the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, the National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls, and the Parliamentary Black Caucus.

Too often, though, these women’s stories go unknown and untold.

Mandatory life sentences reinforce racism and misogyny in a criminal legal system that minimizes the safety concerns of Indigenous women, is unresponsive when they are at risk, blames and stigmatizes women for the violence they experience, therefore effectively deputizing them to protect themselves and then swoops in to hold them criminally responsible when they must protect themselves and/or their children.

Mandatory life sentences transfer discretion from judges to police and prosecutors. Behind closed doors, women are charged with crimes carrying inflexible, lifelong punishments that often leave judges unaware of or forced to ignore the context of the charges, much less the violence women have experienced.

Faced with an unthinkably long and harsh sentence, in a racist and misogynist system, women too often plead guilty to a lesser charge, even if they are not legally responsible. They forgo valid defences and waive their rights to fair trials.

What is at stake when we talk about mandatory life sentences? They ensnare, isolate and wrongfully label as dangerous mothers, daughters, sisters, aunties and grandmothers; they tear apart families and communities; they deepen the destruction caused by colonial policies of forced separation and institutionalization of Indigenous peoples.

Two First Nations sisters, “O” and “N,” have spent the better part of 30 years in prison serving mandatory life sentences. Like their siblings, parents and grandparents, they are residential school survivors. “O” was sexually abused at residential school and struggled with consequent substance use.

As teens, “O” and “N” were charged with the murder of a non-Indigenous residential school caretaker. He was known to offer young people a place to party, alcohol and money, usually with the expectation of sex. He made sexual advances toward “O” and “N” and offered them money when they refused. “O” felt ashamed but also angry and wanted to protect her younger sister. She was too ashamed to tell her lawyer these details.

The 14-year-old male cousin of “O” and “N” confessed to killing the man but said he was induced by police and the Crown, who were focused on holding “O” and “N” primarily responsible, to testify against his cousins.

The sisters were convicted of second-degree murder by an all-White jury in Saskatchewan. By choosing to lay charges that carried a mandatory life sentence, the Crown and police exercised significant decision-making power over the sentences the women received. The judge, usually responsible for considering whether a sentence is fair in light of a person’s individual circumstances, had no power in this regard.

One key reason no one considered, let alone properly contextualized, was the racist and misogynist violence that these two sisters had experienced. As well, no one challenged the gendered myths and stereotypes that resulted in them being seen as more culpable than their male cousin.

Each year, 40 to 50% of women sentenced to life in prison are Indigenous and 91% of them have histories of physical and sexual abuse.

“S” is another residential school survivor of horrendous physical, sexual and psychological abuse. She turned to drugs to anaesthetize herself due to the trauma she experienced and was first jailed as an accomplice to an abusive partner’s drug dealing.

While in prison, “S” pleaded guilty to a murder that correctional staff and prisoners alike are adamant was actually a suicide. The woman who died was like a sister to “S.” She lived with disabling health issues, and prison staff left her to rely on other prisoners for such necessities as cleaning, dressing and feeding herself.

The inquest into her death concluded that the cause of death was unknown; yet “S,” who felt responsible, confessed nearly four years later while suffering severe psychological stress in segregation. Her guilty plea was accepted, despite inconsistencies with the records of the death and despite being based on her feelings of intense guilt and personal responsibility, not her legal responsibility.

Like so many others, “S” was hyper-responsibilized — trained to say sorry and to feel responsible for everything, including things she had not done, or played only a negligible role in — by the misogyny and racism in society and the criminal legal system.

Her hyper-responsibilization meant that the criminal legal system did not spend time determining the true circumstances surrounding an Indigenous woman prisoner’s death, yet sprang rashly into action to ensure that another Indigenous woman would spend the rest of her life serving a mandatory life sentence.

Like “S,” “Y” is an Indigenous survivor of sexual abuse. She was charged alongside several others with killing a man believed to be abusing children in their Alberta community.

Though “Y” played a limited role in the man’s death, police and Crown prosecutors focused on her. As the mother of one of the children believed to have been victimized, and a sexual abuse survivor herself, they suggested, in the absence of any other evidence, that she could have a stronger motive and should therefore be held more responsible than the other accused, including her child’s father.

The motherhood and the history of abuse of “Y” was not considered, although it was used against her to suggest she had a motive.

“Y” was the only person tried for first-degree murder. Because of the resulting mandatory life sentence and 25-year parole ineligibility, she received by far the harshest penalty among equally, if not more, culpable perpetrators.

Indigenous women face numerous barriers when seeking to explain how colonialism, marginalization, and histories of abuse or violence that precede their attempts to protect themselves have shaped their criminalization. Too many are never able to do so, due to shame, stigma and systemic discrimination. Too many more are not believed if they manage to speak.

The mandatory life sentence prevents consideration of these factors during sentencing. Women end up convicted of murder in situations where they were reacting to violence or were induced to act or take responsibility for the actions of another who might also have victimized them and/or be their co-accused.

“C” is also an Indigenous woman, abandoned to the streets as a youth. She received a mandatory life sentence for second-degree murder of a woman involved in procuring her to exploit, including by creating videos and photos of her sexual assaults. “C” reacted with force to try and protect herself. She had a history of childhood trauma and victimization but was too afraid to discuss this history with her male lawyers.

The threat of a life sentence also incentivizes many women to plead guilty to lesser charges rather than raise the context of their attempts to defend themselves or others.

In 1996, the Department of Justice Self-Defence Review examined the cases of 98 women convicted of using lethal force while protecting themselves or their children from abusers. Most women pleaded guilty to manslaughter or even to second-degree murder, despite having a potentially valid claim of self-defence.

Facing a mandatory life sentence with no chance of parole for 25 years, many women accept plea bargains, particularly given the limited financial resources, a legal system that failed to protect them from violence and the prospect of putting their children through the harrowing process of testifying on their behalf in criminal court. In a system that too often fails to believe women, if there are any witnesses, they are likely their children.

Within the prison system, the fact that a woman has received a life sentence is used by authorities to characterize her as dangerous in ways that further obscure her history of marginalization and victimization, not to mention her vital need for health, cultural and community supports. Wrongly labelled as violent because of her mandatory life sentence, “S” spent decades in isolation and suffered psychological damage from which she may never recover.

Another Indigenous woman, “SN,” transferred from the youth to the adult system and has now spent more than three decades in prison serving a mandatory life sentence, mostly in conditions of brutal segregation. This prolonged isolation has caused her mental health to seriously deteriorate.

For all these Indigenous women and more, life sentences remain lifelong burdens. Even on parole, they live under surveillance and isolating parole conditions, such as prohibitions on travelling to see family or on entering into friendships, employment or other relationships. Women end up reincarcerated not because they reoffend but because, even for minor administrative breaches, they can be returned to prison for years on end.

If you close your eyes and picture those who represent the greatest threat to the public, particularly public safety in Canada, do you picture an undereducated, underemployed Indigenous mother struggling in poverty and with past trauma? A survivor of residential school and the forced removal from families of origin by the child welfare system? Someone struggling to care for and protect her kids and living in fear of an abusive partner? Because mandatory minimum penalties are inflexible and because they incentivize guilty pleas to lesser crimes, these women are the ones who are overrepresented among those serving Canada’s harshest sentences.

People who support mandatory minimum penalties usually indicate that they do so because they want to reduce crime and make everyone safer. I know no one, of any ideological or political stripe, who does not share this goal.

After decades of clinging to the empty promise of mandatory minimum penalties, it is our duty as representatives of those most marginalized, in the name of justice and equality, to make clear that the emperor has no clothes. Mandatory minimum penalties do not deliver. They are brutal for those who are most marginalized and victimized. They don’t stop crime. They represent yet another failure of the criminal legal system to protect and do justice for racialized people, in particular women with lived experiences of violence. They require us to pay from $200,000 to $600,000 and more per person per year to jail these women.

Bill S-213 is a step toward redressing the racism and colonialism that has been allowed to persist within the legal system and that harms us all by making Canada less equal and less just. With this bill, we can do better. Meegwetch. Thank you.

(On motion of Senator Martin, debate adjourned.)

On the Order:

Resuming debate on the motion of the Honourable Senator Omidvar, seconded by the Honourable Senator Duncan, for the second reading of Bill S-216, An Act to amend the Income Tax Act (use of resources of a registered charity).

Hon. Ratna Omidvar: Honourable senators, I concluded my remarks yesterday, and brought them in just before 4 o’clock. But I understand that Senator Lankin has a question, and I’m more than happy to answer it or other questions.

Senator Omidvar: Thank you, Senator Lankin. I appreciate the question because I know of your long experience in the charity sector. You led the United Way in my wonderful city and led it ably for many years, so you come from a point of experience and concern. I’m grateful for your question.

On the terminology, “expenditure responsibility” in the U.S. versus “resource accountability,” in this proposal, I have been advised by Canada’s top charity lawyers, who advised me that the term “resource accountability” is more appropriate for the Canadian context.

Now, this is a private member’s bill, so if and when it is passed — and I certainly hope it is passed, honourable senators, with your support — one of the processes that will follow will be consultations by the CRA on how far we go with resource accountability. Is it just money? Is it more than money?

While I hope it’s a more fulsome expression of what we mean, it is at the same time a strong underlying expression of accountability, whether it is limited to money or whether it expands to technology, space, staff, et cetera. I hope that answers your question.

(On motion of Senator Dalphond, for Senator Mercer, debate adjourned.)

On the Order:

Resuming debate on the motion of the Honourable Senator Ngo, seconded by the Honourable Senator Patterson:

That the Senate note that, by adopting the Journey to Freedom Day Act on April 23, 2015, and taking into account the first two elements of the preamble of the said Act, the Parliament of Canada unequivocally recognized violations of:

(a)the Agreement on Ending the War and Restoring Peace in Viet-Nam and its protocols (Paris Peace Accords); and

(b)the Act of the International Conference on Viet-Nam; and

That the Senate urge the Government of Canada to call upon six or more of the current parties to the Act of the International Conference on Viet-Nam, which include Canada, France, Hungary, Indonesia, Poland, Russia, the United Kingdom and the United States of America, amongst others, to agree to the reconvention of the International Conference on Viet-Nam pursuant to Article 7(b) of the Act of the International Conference on Viet-Nam in order to settle disputes between the signatory parties due to the violations of the terms of the Paris Peace Accords and the Act of the International Conference on Viet-Nam.

Hon. Dennis Glen Patterson: Honourable senators, I’m pleased to resume my speech in support of Senator Ngo’s motion to recommend Canada’s support in reconvening the International Conference on Viet-Nam as set out in the Paris Peace Accords.

It has been a long time, almost 50 years, since the Paris Peace Accords were signed. Honourable senators, Canada has a proud record of peacekeeping in its history and in Vietnam, having sacrificed troops in the conflict and having been a party to and pledged to uphold the terms of the Paris Peace Accords.

Approving this motion would be of great symbolic importance to Vietnamese Canadians, and would be an important first step to protecting the stability of an important geopolitical region.

I recognize that there must be agreement of at least six parties to the Paris Peace Accord in order to reconvene the conference, unless the U.S. and Vietnam jointly request it per Article 7(b). However, someone always has to go first, and I believe in this instance, it should be Canada.

By supporting this motion, the Senate would call on Canada to be a leader in promoting and protecting peace and order within the Indo-Pacific region, as was signalled in the recent Throne Speech.

Colleagues have heard Senator Ngo’s impassioned hopes for the revival of the peace process for Vietnam. The Paris Peace Accords envisioned long-term peace in a country which so many refugees fled after a bitter, long and costly war. Many of those who fled came to Canada looking for a better life.

Senator Ngo has told me that, by the Senate of Canada passing this motion, we will demonstrate to Vietnamese Canadians that we recognize they were forced to leave their home country because of what it had become — a country with an abysmal human rights record that continues to restrict all basic civil and political rights, including freedom of expression, association, assembly and the rights to freely practise beliefs and religion.

He has told me that we will give the diaspora hope and prove that the Senate of Canada supports their yearning for a peaceful and free Vietnam. In leading by example, Canada can spread this hope amongst the Vietnamese diaspora around the world.

The Senate is a chamber that allows senators to advocate for regions and minorities. This is the chamber that is meant to reflect the passions and priorities of Canadians that may not have as prominent a voice in the other place.

That is why I believe it is so important to listen when the first Vietnamese-Canadian senator stands before us and tells us that it is important to act. That is why I have been moved by Senator Ngo to stand up for Canadian beliefs and values by supporting his motion.

Thank you, Senator Ngo, for your decade of leadership, advocacy and support of the Vietnamese diaspora in Canada.

I urge you, honourable senators, to support this motion and consider the question in a timely manner. Thank you. Qujannamiik.

(On motion of Senator Dean, debate adjourned.)

[Translation]

On the Order:

Resuming debate on the motion of the Honourable Senator Dalphond, seconded by the Honourable Senator Cordy:

That the Senate:

1.recall that, despite the commitment found in section 55 of the Constitution Act, 1982 to have a fully bilingual Constitution, as of today, of the 31 enactments that make up the Canadian Constitution, 22 are official only in their English version, including almost all of the Constitution Act, 1867; and

2.call upon the government to consider, in the context of the review of the Official Languages Act, the addition of a requirement to submit, every five years, a report detailing the efforts made to comply with section 55 of the Constitution Act, 1982.

Hon. René Cormier: Senator Dalphond, I sincerely thank you for your work and leadership on this matter. I would like to remind this chamber that the Standing Senate Committee on Official Languages, as part of its study on the modernization of the Official Languages Act, published a report on the justice sector. The Canadian Bar Association clearly explained at that time the unfortunate consequences of the lack of translation, notably in Caron in Alberta.

Senator Dalphond, do you agree with me that the failure to translate these documents has a real impact on the development and growth —

Hon. Éric Forest: Esteemed colleagues, I am pleased to speak to Senator Galvez’s motion about declaring a national climate emergency so Canada will step up its action against climate change in accordance with the Paris Agreement targets.

[English]

I thank Senator Galvez for this motion, which would allow the Senate to join the House of Commons and 500 other provincial and municipal governments in Canada that have declared a climate emergency, including the City of Rimouski, which recognized the climate emergency with a formal resolution in November 2018.

[Translation]

This resolution comes at a pivotal moment as the UN Climate Change Conference, COP26, ended without delivering on its promises.

Despite some progress, it seems that the final agreement will not slow climate change. Even though the international community is not as resolute as we would wish it to be in addressing climate change, I believe it is important to keep hope alive and to keep fighting. The worst thing we can do right now is give up.

I listened closely to the Speech from the Throne and I was pleased to see that the government is making this issue a priority by announcing certain measures, such as capping greenhouse gas emissions, investing in public transit, mandating the sale of zero-emissions vehicles and helping communities deal with the effects of climate change. The federal government’s moment of epiphany may be a bit late in coming, but better late than never.

Personally, when I look at local governments, that is where I see the most hope when it comes to fighting climate change. Hope comes from cities and our local communities. The old adage, think globally and act locally has never been more apt.

Several surveys on the priorities of citizens in municipal elections have shown that climate change is the top priority for people in many parts of Canada. It’s also refreshing to see that many of the young people who supported these ideas were elected. One example that comes to mind is the new Mayor of Laval, Stéphane Boyer, who presented a very elaborate green platform and hired the well-known environmentalist Laure Waridel as an advisor to lead the green transition. Another example is the leader of Transition Québec, Jackie Smith, who won a seat in Quebec City with an electoral platform focused primarily on the green transition. There is also the new Mayor of Sherbrooke, Évelyne Beaudin, who promised to provide the city with a credible and ambitious plan to fight climate change, developed in collaboration with the stakeholders involved, in order to achieve the greenhouse gas reduction targets set out in the city’s document declaring and planning for a climate emergency.

Several Quebec media outlets have noted that environmentalists seem to be taking municipal elections by storm, with Quebec following a strong trend that has emerged in other parts of the world. It seems that citizens concerned about the environment are choosing to redirect their political activism to the municipal levels, where they feel they can make a difference.

In France, for example, environmentalists had their best showing yet in the June 2020 municipal elections and even won in several major cities such as Lyon, Marseille, Bordeaux and Strasbourg.

Let us quickly look at the impact of climate change on municipalities.

Local elected officials care about climate change because municipalities are on the front lines when it comes to experiencing the effects of climate disturbances.

The risks associated with climate change are very real: fires, storms, erosion and flooding that destroy neighbourhoods and public infrastructure, as we are currently seeing in British Columbia and the Maritimes; smog and heat islands that threaten the most vulnerable people; droughts that reduce the supply of drinking water; premature wear on water pipes because conditions have changed since they were built. The climate emergency is already having a significant impact on our municipalities, and our communities have a vested interest in taking action.

What is the role of municipalities in this context? Municipalities are responsible for land use, so their actions have a direct impact on our greenhouse gas emissions. Municipalities have the power to influence the choice of modes of transportation.

By providing safe bicycle paths, sufficient pedestrian crossings, and accessible, effective public transit, municipalities enable residents to make choices that are more environmentally friendly. The same thing happens when they make the effort to design communities that minimize travel and facilitate access to public transit.

However, that takes money.

As local governments, municipalities can put in place measures that seek to address climate change and prepare us for extreme weather events. We must ensure they are given the means to do that.

It is unrealistic to think that municipalities will be able to respond to the climate emergency with only their existing tax base, which relies too heavily on property taxes. According to a 2018 study conducted by Group AGÉCO, the 10 largest cities in Quebec would require more than $2 billion over five years to adapt their infrastructure to withstand climate change. The whole of Quebec would require $4 billion. This is on top of municipalities’ other responsibilities, for example, those pertaining to social development.

In conclusion, I wholeheartedly support this motion.

[English]

Climate change, which represents the main threat to humanity and our public finances, is an emergency that demands an immediate and ambitious response.

[Translation]

That said, I would like the federal government to recognize that municipalities are responsible for 60% of public infrastructure and that, although they are victims of climate change, they are also in the best position to properly respond to the challenges of the climate emergency.

The current government claims that addressing climate change is a priority in its upcoming mandate, so it must use the next budget to partner with municipalities and ensure that they have the money and flexibility they need to fully contribute to the fight against climate change.

Hon. Stan Kutcher, pursuant to notice of November 24, 2021, moved:

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 best available evidence of 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.

He said: Honourable senators, today I rise to speak about the importance of preventing suicide and to expand upon why I am bringing this motion forward for the study of the Federal Framework for Suicide Prevention by the Standing Senate Committee on Social Affairs, Science and Technology. Suicide is an issue that we are all aware of, and a tragedy that has touched many of us in this chamber.

I ask that you consider voting in favour of this when it comes forward. Let me explain why I feel this study is timely and greatly needed.

Prior to my arrival at the Senate, I spent my professional career trying to help improve the lives of young people and families touched by mental illness. This has included doing all I could to assist them during some of their darkest moments, such as when they were convinced that their lives were not worth living and that they would be better off dead.

I have sat with families who lost a loved one to suicide — usually unexpected and mostly unexplained. In their grief and their sorrow, they often blamed themselves and wondered why. Rarely could this question be answered.

I have also sat with colleagues as they struggled with the sudden death of one of their patients and questioned the care they had provided and whether they had the skills to be a clinician.

I have also studied suicide from many angles, mostly in young people, and taught psychiatrists and physicians how to support, assess and manage patients at risk of suicide — indeed, I have written a textbook on this.

Beyond this professional experience, I have, like others in this place, been deeply wounded by the sudden and unexpected death of a beloved family member. It was my uncle, a highly successful banker with a loving and caring family. Nobody picked up on his depression. He sought medical attention, but his physician focused on his sleep difficulties and fatigue. He sought solace from his pastor who attributed his anguish to a loss of faith. At work, his performance deteriorated but, because he was in charge, nobody spoke up.

He — as was his wont for always tying up loose ends — prepared his will, organized his affairs and made sure that every family member would not have financial difficulties after he was gone. All this we learned after the fact.

For me, although I had not seen or spoken to him for many months prior to his death — he lived in Vancouver and I in Toronto — I blamed myself, that as someone who has taught others about suicide prevention, I had failed miserably in regard to my own family. Not only had I failed him, but I had failed all of us.

So I have a personal as well as a professional interest in helping develop and deploy suicide prevention interventions that can demonstrate, when they are applied, that the rates of suicide decrease and stay that way.

In turn, I have no time for those who use the anguish of suicide and the pain and suffering of others to sell, promote or initiate activities, programs or products that they claim will prevent suicide but do not.

I do not expect every specific suicide prevention intervention will stop all suicides from happening. But I do expect that if someone is telling Canadians that the intervention they are promoting prevents suicide, that there is robust and solid best-available evidence, independently determined and published in peer-reviewed journals, that demonstrates that the specified intervention actually does prevent many suicides.

What we want to do is apply interventions that we know prevent suicide. What we do not want to do is apply interventions that, appealing as they may be, have marginal or no clearly demonstrated impact on preventing suicide.

Canada’s national suicide prevention framework unveiled in 2012, following the passage of Bill C-300, an Act respecting a Federal Framework for Suicide Prevention, is supposed to do that. The question is, does it? What impact has it had on suicide rates in Canada and in specific populations within Canada since its inception? We need to know.

Suicide is an emotional topic, thus when we address suicide prevention, we must be certain to use our sober second thought to ensure that, in our wish to find something that works, we don’t end up supporting, promoting and funding those things that do not. In short, doing something is not the same as doing the right thing.

Robust scientific study, using appropriate design methods and analytics, is needed to measure rates of suicide reduction. Through a committee study, I propose we examine all aspects of the framework’s guidance on what should be done and determine the effectiveness of each individual component. Then Canadians can have comfort that what is needed to be done to prevent suicide is indeed being done, and we are not spending valuable resources on what sounds good but may not be helpful in decreasing suicide rates and not investing at the margins but where our returns will be the greatest.

A study could additionally look at other measures that would at least demonstrate important secondary benefits of suicide prevention. Some reassurance could come from knowing if what we saw were significant and substantive decreases in visits to emergency rooms and hospitalizations for suicide attempts. At the same time, we need to demonstrate what else needs to be done to show that suicides are, indeed, being prevented.

We would like to be assured that the interventions that are being put into place have robust and solid evidence that they worked prior to them being applied. Not to do so is the same as taking a treatment for a potentially fatal condition that had never been scientifically studied and demonstrated to be effective.

We would not condone spending large amounts of taxpayers’ money for interventions that had little or no evidence of effectiveness.

Canadians need to know that the framework provides the best directions possible for achieving significant, substantive and sustainable decreases in rates, and that it does not promote a myriad of activities that may seem at first glance to be effective suicide prevention interventions but, on close critical examination, are shown not to be so.

We know that suicide rates are not equally distributed across Canada. Rates are considerably higher in Indigenous populations compared to the national average, especially in young people. The need for effective suicide prevention programs in these communities is essential. Year after year, we are reminded that this need has not been addressed. Year after year, we hear calls for the creation and deployment of effective suicide prevention programs, especially for young people.

Has the framework made a significant and substantial difference in addressing this pressing need? We need to know.

Prior to and following the creation of the framework, considerable amounts of money have been spent by various federal ministries in pursuit of suicide prevention. However, to my knowledge, it is not usually known what impact this spending has made on significantly and substantively reducing suicide rates. For example, a paper published recently in BMC Public Health in 2018 described this concern. It noted that between 2005-06 and 2015-16. The federal government had spent $108 million on a national Aboriginal youth suicide prevention strategy, but an evaluation of the impact of this program noted that “. . . there was no clear picture of whether or not the NAYSPS had an impact, positive or negative, on suicide rates.”

We do not know if the framework demands rigorous, independent evaluation of all federal government investment in suicide prevention, and we need to know that.

A plethora of training programs and other interventions purporting to prevent suicide have been nationally marketed and rolled out by the private sector and civil society organizations over the past decade. With these, a number of questions have arisen. What relationship, if any, should the framework have with these initiatives? What independent, robust evidence is there that any of these products actually prevent suicide? Should taxpayer funds be used to purchase and support these programs? Does the framework now appropriately engage with these issues and provide appropriate guidance? These are all important questions that the committee studied and addressed.

As parliamentarians, we need to ensure that the framework is built on the best available evidence that has identified what works and what does not. There is good information to guide the design of a committee study. For example, there have been a number of helpful reviews of suicide prevention interventions, and these have identified some interventions that have reasonable evidence that they may actually prevent suicide and some for which evidence is lacking. Has the framework used this evidence in its development and application? We need to know.

If we want to make an impact on suicide prevention, we need to look at those populations where the rates are greatest. I have already raised the sad reality of excessively high suicide rates in Indigenous communities, but there are other groups on which we must also focus. While Canada’s suicide rates range from 10 to 12 per 100,000 in people who live with a mental illness like schizophrenia, the lifetime rate is about 5%. For the math, this translates into 5,000 per 100,000, not 10 or 12 per 100,000.

There are about 360,000 Canadians living with schizophrenia right now. For comparison, that equals more people with schizophrenia dying of suicide than the total number of Canadians who died from suicide in 2014 to 2018 inclusive. For those living with a bipolar disorder, the rates of suicide are estimated to be between 10 and 30 times higher than the general population. Individuals who live with a substance-use disorder are also more likely to die by suicide, and this increase is even greater in women than in men. We need to know if the framework does enough to address the needs of these high-risk populations.

Senators, I have laid out some of the issues that a committee study examining the substance of the framework and its impact over the last decade can tell us. Such a study can also recommend what adjustments may be needed to the framework to guide suicide prevention in Canada over the next decade and longer.

Honourable senators, Canada’s national suicide prevention framework should be able to demonstrate a positive impact on significantly and substantively decreasing rates of suicide in the general population and particularly in those unique populations where the rates are the highest. To achieve this goal, it must identify and drive the application of interventions that, based on best available scientific evidence, are known to be effective. It must invest in what works to actually prevent suicide, not in what some hope might work or in interventions with marginal impact on the primary outcome. And it must protect Canadians from opportunistic promotion and sale of so-called suicide prevention interventions if there is insufficient evidence for their effectiveness.

Colleagues, we have a golden opportunity to conduct a constructively critical and comprehensive study of this important issue. In their election platforms, the Liberal Party, the Conservative Party and the NDP all identified mental health as an area of action. A new Ministry of Mental Health and Addictions has just been established, a first in the history of the Canadian federal government. The time is right for us to move quickly.

I realize that committees are masters of their own fate and will decide what they deem necessary to study and when. That said, our committees can be informed by what this chamber considers to be priority areas. Social Affairs is the ideal committee in which to undertake this work.

Thank you for your consideration. I hope when the time comes, you see it proper to vote in support of this motion. Thank you. Welalioq.

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

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]

The Hon. the Speaker: Honourable senators, when shall this report be taken into consideration?

(On motion of Senator MacDonald, report placed on the Orders of the Day for consideration at the next sitting of the Senate.)

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

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.)

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