Senator Cordy: That would be great. I understand things are changing on the fly and many people are hoping it changes significantly before spring of 2022.

My supplementary question, Senator Gold, is this: Would you be able to provide us with clarity on the status of Canadians who are ineligible for vaccination in international travel? Specifically, I’m talking about younger Canadians who are under the age of 5. I know that after two years of the pandemic, many Canadian families are anxious to travel again as the world is beginning to open up.

More specifically, my question is about travelling to the United States with young children or grandchildren, as families start to consider spring travel. Will those under the age of 5 be allowed to enter the United States, as they will not be vaccinated?

Hon. Jim Quinn: Honourable senators, my question is for the Leader of the Government in the Senate.

As noted in the Speech from the Throne, our country is witnessing significant disruptions associated with severe weather events due to climate change. These have crippled our supply chains, as is evident from ongoing weather events in British Columbia and now in Atlantic Canada. Local marketplaces, and even those across Canada, are experiencing disruptions in Canada’s supply chain management which, of course, have a direct impact on the availability of essential consumer goods in local and national marketplaces. Global experts at COP26 outlined that our global community will experience more frequent and severe weather events that will disrupt the movement of these essential consumer goods.

Senator Gold, my question is this: What assurances can the government give Canadians that they are looking to provide made-in-Canada transportation options to safeguard the secure supply of essential goods for our country, given the reality of supply chain disruptions that will continue to occur due to climate change?

Hon. Marc Gold (Government Representative in the Senate): Senator, thank you for your question. Welcome, again, to the chamber.

The government is very aware of this serious situation that is caused by flooding and mudslides in B.C., as well as the impact of the weather disruptions on the East Coast and on transportation networks and supply chains. Working with key industry partners and members of the federal and provincial governments, the federal government has formed a joint Supply Chain Recovery Working Group to assess transport networks and plan in the short-term for prioritized movement of goods. I am assured that the government will continue to work closely with these partners to address the broader supply chain issues, including transportation.

Some Hon. Senators: Hear, hear.

Hon. Dennis Glen Patterson: Honourable senators, my question is for the Leader of the Government in the Senate.

Senator Gold, Canadians continue to pay very high rates for home internet and wireless services. In 2019, the Government of Canada issued a policy direction to the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) to ensure that, when exercising its duties, the commission is “implementing the Canadian telecommunications policy objectives to promote competition, affordability, consumer interests and innovation.”

However, there are now three cabinet petitions asking the Minister of Innovation, Science and Industry to overturn the CRTC decision to reverse its 2019 decision on wholesale rates. There is also a cabinet petition asking the Ministers of Innovation, Science and Economic Development Canada (ISED) to review the 2021 decision to limit the access of mobile virtual network operators (MVNOs), which smaller providers have argued only benefit Canada’s largest providers.

My question is this: What concrete action is your government taking to ensure that CRTC decisions are in line with the government’s own 2019 policy direction? Will your government exercise its power to overrule decisions that are, in the end, harming Canadian consumers and small-business owners?

Hon. Marc Gold (Government Representative in the Senate): Thank you for your question and for raising this important issue. If we have learned anything from the pandemic, it is how important reliable and affordable mobile networks are to our well-being and prospects of recovery. The government remains committed to ensuring that all Canadians pay fair prices for reliable telecom and other services.

I will note, however, as honourable senators know, that the CRTC is an independent agency. The government remains committed to working with them and with all other stakeholders as the situation evolves. The government will work with stakeholders and others to drive investment that will make telecom services more affordable in Canada.

Hon. Raymonde Gagné (Legislative Deputy to the Government Representative in the Senate), pursuant to notice of November 24, 2021, moved:

That, when the Senate next adjourns after the adoption of this motion, it do stand adjourned until Tuesday, November 30, 2021, at 2 p.m.

Hon. Mary Jane McCallum, pursuant to notice of November 24, 2021, moved:

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.

(On motion of Senator McCallum, debate adjourned.)

Hon. Pat Duncan: Honourable senators, with leave of the Senate and notwithstanding rule 5-5(j), I move:

That, notwithstanding any provision of the Rules, for the remainder of the current session, the normal duration for Senators’ Statements be 18 minutes.

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

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

Hon. Dennis Glen Patterson: Honourable senators, Nunavut is facing a housing crisis. I know this statement isn’t a new concept to many of you. However, since this summer’s recess, I’ve been made aware of a major problem facing current and prospective Nunavut homeowners: condo insurance.

There are currently 20 condo corporations in Nunavut. Condominiums are individually owned units. Owners help share the cost of maintaining common elements, making it a cheaper, low-barrier entry point for homeowners in the territories. But inaction on the current pressing issue is causing Nunavut to lose a type of housing along a housing spectrum that already has major gaps.

Skyrocketing condo insurance is one of the major contributors to the low uptake of the Government of Nunavut’s home ownership program, which offers 60 condos for direct sale in Iqaluit. Condo corporations are seeing an average premium increase of 173%, while deductible increases have been anywhere between 100% and 1,900%. That is not a typo. One condominium corporation saw their deductible increase by $95,000 for a 1,900% increase.

For many homeowners, this is an untenable situation. No one wants or can afford to take on the increased stress of these high insurance rates, and presently people are walking away from their investments and returning to public housing, adding more stress to an already overstressed system. At least one condo corporation presently has no insurance coverage, which is unsafe and illegal.

It is also important to note that a survey recently showed 43% of condo owners in Nunavut are Inuit.

I urge the federal and territorial governments to work together to provide immediate relief to homeowners. We need to also work on long-term solutions to lowering the overall cost of insurance so that we can make sure that people’s investments are properly insured and that Nunavummiut are protected should their homes face catastrophe. We need to eliminate barriers to home ownership, so that those who can buy can do so and alleviate the stress on our public housing system. We need to solve the housing crisis, but we need to be aware that that doesn’t always mean more money to build more units.

Thank you. Qujannamiik. Taima.

Hon. Mary Coyle: Honourable senators, as we gather here in our Senate Chamber, welcoming our remarkable new colleagues and greeting each other joyfully after our COVID-imposed separation and, at the same time, overcome by great sadness as we grieve our beloved colleagues Judith and Josée, I rise to make my first statement in this, Canada’s Forty-fourth Parliament.

Colleagues, like all Canadians, today I have water on my mind — the current crises and the hope.

Colleagues, today we are witnessing water-related destruction from coast-to-coast-to-coast. On the West Coast, we see the devastating flooding, mudslides, loss of human lives, loss of animal lives, loss of homes, loss of farmland, loss of vital infrastructure and Indigenous communities hard hit. Our Arctic coast neighbours have been plagued with melting ice, sea level rising and domestic water infrastructure breakdowns long before the recent issues with Iqaluit’s toxic drinking water supply.

Now our East Coast communities are being ravaged by severe wind and rainstorms. I need to get home to attend to the tree in my yard that knocked out the power to my street. You may have read in today’s Globe of the residents of a trailer park in Antigonish having to be rescued from the windows of their homes and ferried to safety in boats — again, the vulnerable being the hardest hit.

Colleagues, the Canadian Institute for Climate Choices reported last year the number of catastrophic weather events in Canada was three times higher this past decade than in the 1980s. And the average cost of each disaster jumped by 1,250% since the 1970s.

While these climate-related water crises are severe and on the increase, I wanted to turn to an important source of water-related climate hope: our oceans.

Last week, while visiting Dr. Anya Waite, CEO of the Ocean Frontier Institute, who recently returned from COP26, Senator Kutcher and I learned that the ocean is the most important global storage depot of carbon on earth. It holds 50 times more carbon than the atmosphere, soaking up more emissions than all the world’s rainforests combined, and that the North Atlantic is the most intense carbon sink on the planet.

We also learned that we need to invest in understanding our changing oceans better. Colleagues, in closing, it would serve us all well to defy the words of Jacques-Yves Cousteau who said, “We forget that the water cycle and the life cycle are one.”

Thank you, Wela’lioq.

Hon. Wanda Elaine Thomas Bernard: Honourable senators, I rise today to bring attention to the work of a former senator, the first Black man appointed to the Senate and my mentor, the Honourable Don Oliver. Senator Oliver is an elder statesman, ambassador, community builder and strong advocate for human rights. Throughout his career, he broke barriers to enact social change. Honourable colleagues, we are still building on the social change that he imagined here in the Senate on equity and diversity.

Senator Don Oliver’s impact on Canada is not limited to his impressive career working to dismantle systemic racism and systems of oppression; his legacy lives strong within the young scholars of African descent that he has mentored. He has committed himself to removing the barriers for young Black people to access further education through scholarship and mentorship.

I happen to be one of the many students who have benefited from his advocacy. Don Oliver was the first African-Nova Scotian senator, and I now stand on his shoulders. The word Ubuntu comes to mind: I am because you are, you are therefore I am.

Senator Oliver embodies the commitment to give back to one’s community, and that theme has taken root in my own journey in my community and now in the Senate.

Senator Oliver recently released an autobiography called A Matter of Equality, which serves as a Call to Action to people in leadership positions, especially those with White privilege who have the power and ability to fulfill his vision of a racism-free society.

Learning from those who came before us, we must use our power to move the dial on public policy that will elevate and improve members of equity-deserving groups and communities.

Honourable senators, it is an honour to recognize the work and contributions of Senator Don Oliver today, and to bring this message of inspiration as we begin this Forty-fourth Parliament. Asante. Thank you.

Hon. Pamela Wallin: Honourable senators, this week we have witnessed the deadly impact of severe weather on both coasts of our country, with the loss of human and animal life, the loss of homes and businesses and the loss of incomes and futures.

Weather is the Canadian reality — winter whiteouts, ice storms, forest fires and even atmospheric rivers are a fact of life. We are ruled by weather as any travelling senator knows.

But what the parade of rainstorms has put into sharp relief is the sorry state of infrastructure across Canada. In the last two years, COVID has also exposed other serious infrastructure issues. We need only remember the frightening story of the millions of dollars’ worth of much-needed PPE — masks, gowns and gloves — that were recklessly discarded but never replaced, leaving us at risk for months as the pandemic unfolded.

In fact, hospitals, seniors’ homes and even schools were not prepared and already facing critical staff and equipment shortages or faulty air circulation systems. Our health system virtually collapsed as many were denied service for a vast array of other life-threatening illnesses.

Entire communities often wait hours or days for police assistance. Others wait for an ambulance to take a stroke victim to a hospital or finally just decide to put them in a vehicle to drive them to an emergency room down the road. But if you don’t have a road or a bus or a train or a car to get to the hospital, then we know the outcome.

Supply chains come to a halt too, keeping food and medicine — not just Christmas presents — out of reach.

Infrastructure is in crisis. A 2019 report from the Federation of Canadian Municipalities showed that 40% of roads are in poor condition. Water and sewage infrastructure is out of date. Today, we still have boil-water advisories in First Nations and in many small towns, mine included.

Funding is piecemeal, which leaves provinces and municipalities to fix the potholes rather than moving the road to higher ground or securing the bridge. So we just patch things up or rebuild a road or the home in the same problematic place. It is all well and good to have aspirational goals to meet the climate change issues, but today we must deal with our reality.

Of course, we can always call in the army to fill sandbags or fight fires or clean bedpans, but that is not the answer. We need less bureaucracy and more common sense, more coordination and less finger pointing. We need a national infrastructure revitalization commitment. Let’s set a goal to update and modernize by 2030. Surely, in a wealthy G7 country, we can put the health and safety and lives and livelihoods of Canadians at the top of our agenda.

Hon. Salma Ataullahjan: Honourable senators, as a young child in Pakistan, there were few things I would look forward to more than a journey to Kabul. I have fond memories of summers spent in Afghanistan where the people are generous, the landscapes are breathtaking and the food incomparable.

Women had a very visible presence in every place in society, and it was common to see women owning businesses. I never would have expected the region to be plunged into devastation and have all the world’s eyes on it.

Because of my love and concern for that part of the world, as a new senator in 2010, I proposed a study on the role of the Canadian government in supporting women’s rights after ending combat operations in Afghanistan. The committee recommended concrete ways that Canada could make the advancement of women’s rights a fundamental element of its approach to Afghanistan post-2011.

For the past three months, I have been receiving desperate emails from Afghans trying to flee Kabul and from Canadians concerned about their loved ones. The Canada-Afghanistan Parliamentary Friendship Group has been very active since January 2021.

In our last meeting with women parliamentarians in June, there was a sense of desperation and we were begged for help. Those who remain in Afghanistan face economic hardship, a lack of essential services, hunger and the threat of violence.

The United Nations currently estimates that nearly half of the country’s population — 23 million people — is facing acute hunger, and 3.2 million children under the age of 5 are expected to suffer from acute malnutrition by the end of the year.

Already, the Ministry of Women’s Affairs has been replaced by the Ministry of Vice and Virtue, known for its public beatings of women. Humanitarian groups worry that 97% of the country will sink below the poverty line over the next few months.

I also worry about the thousands of years of history, culture and music that are under threat. We are hearing reports from old Kabul of musical instruments being dismantled, of the silencing of the voices that sung of the majesty of Afghanistan, of its mountains, rivers and valleys.

One story that struck a chord with me is that of an ustad, or master, who buried his rabab, a stringed instrument. For me, the burying of the rabab is a significant act. The strings of the rabab pull at the heartstrings of everyone for that region. For me, it signifies the burying of the heart and the soul of Afghanistan.

My fear is that as the news cycle changes, the world will forget about Afghanistan again. Already, the story is starting to fade from our headlines. Already, a space women had carved out in society is disappearing. Already, they are becoming invisible. How long before their plight fades from our headlines completely and they become invisible to us too?

Thank you, and as I say in Pashto, manana.

Hon. Gwen Boniface: Honourable senators, on a rare occasion, you meet someone whose friendship lasts a lifetime. This makes loss even more difficult.

Carol-Ann Marshall walked into our lives in 1978 at our Ontario Provincial Police detachment. She was the first Black female officer to join the OPP at a time when her peers were White and overwhelmingly male. She was courageous, fearless, brilliant, had a vivacious laugh and suffered no fools.

Carol-Ann was born in Kirtons, Saint Phillip, Barbados, in 1953. Her father, Ashton, was an assistant commissioner with the Barbados police and her mother, Doreen, a nurse. She grew up attending Rices Methodist Church, singing in the choir and honing her beautiful classical soprano voice.

At 17, Carol-Ann left Barbados to study in Virginia on an international scholarship, eventually finding her way to Canada to attend Trent University. She earned a Bachelor of Science degree in geography and an education degree from the University of Toronto.

A woman always taking on new adventures, she was a teacher in Ontario public schools, she served six years with us in the Ontario Provincial Police and moved on to a variety of roles in public service, including the Ontario Human Rights Commission. She taught English language to adults in Japan and Toronto and took classical voice training at the Victoria Conservatory of Music. Her work was never done.

In 2017, she wrote a book called I Dare You! to help women assess emotional abuse in their relationship and to provide them with practical and legal resources to leave toxic relationships. She drew on her personal experience.

Carol-Ann was taken from us both suddenly and unexpectedly on October 28. She had a second book in the making, a new business to run, another mountain to climb after mastering Machu Picchu and so many dreams to fulfill.

She would want me to remind you, senators, that this is International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women. I encourage all of us to continue the important work that meant so much to her.

I send my condolences to her many friends — particularly the ”posse,” as she called them, who cared for her during her short illness — and to her family in Barbados and in England. She was a remarkable person, and will be missed.

Hon. Marc Gold (Government Representative in the Senate): Honourable senators, I have the honour to table, in both official languages, copies of commissions appointing the Right Honourable Richard Wagner, the Honourable Andromache Karakatsanis, the Honourable Michael J. Moldaver, the Honourable Suzanne Côté, the Honourable Russell S. Brown, the Honourable Malcolm H. Rowe, the Honourable Sheilah L. Martin, the Honourable Nicholas P. Kasirer, the Honourable Mahmud Jamal, Mr. Ian McCowan and Ms. Christine MacIntyre as deputies of the Governor General.

The Hon. the Speaker: Honourable senators, I wish to advise you that hybrid sittings of the Senate will begin on Tuesday, November 30, 2021, using Zoom with multi-factor authentication. As of that time, the terms of the order of Thursday, November 25, 2021, concerning hybrid sittings, will govern proceedings.