Senator Cardozo: I am happy to assist in —

Senator Gold: The numbers that I have include $2.5 billion for the grocery rebate, if I can use that colloquial term, and $2 billion for top-up transfers to the provinces and territories.

Senator Gold: The numbers that I have include $2.5 billion for the grocery rebate, if I can use that colloquial term, and $2 billion for top-up transfers to the provinces and territories.

Senator Cardozo: Thank you, for your exposé, Senator Omidvar. It is a serious issue and a problem of worldwide concern. I appreciate your taking the time to inform us about it.

When you talk about the sharks and the little fish, it seems to me that we’re not even talking about little fish. Maybe the little fish are innocent but have been forced to be conscripted.

Are there any other reasons why the government is reluctant? Are there commercial issues that are attached? What would your response be to any of those other issues that people might raise?

Senator Omidvar: Thank you very much for that question. It is, in a way, low-hanging fruit for Canada to designate the IRGC as a terrorist entity. We have no diplomatic relations with Iran. We have very few commercial relationships with Iran. We have a large Iranian diaspora community, and they have links with Iran, but the IRGC terrorist label would not catch them unless their money is somehow associated with the IRGC and its violence.

(On motion of Senator Martin, debate adjourned.)

Senator Housakos: We’ve seen that before.

Senator McCallum: He said “. . . either you must have this labour, or you can’t have the railway.”

As construction of the railway neared completion, MacDonald willingly yielded to prejudiced and discriminatory politicians, trade unionists and public opinion. In 1884, he appointed the Royal Commission on Chinese Immigration to investigate the restriction of Chinese immigrants.

Honourable senators, institutional racism was perpetuated by the Chinese Immigration Act and more than 100 other policies. They denied Chinese people the right to vote, to practise law or medicine, to hold public office, to seek employment on public works or to own Crown land, among other restrictions. The 1885 Chinese Immigration Act levied the head tax on Chinese immigrants who entered Canada between 1885 and 1923. It was the first legislation in Canadian history to exclude immigration on the basis of ethnic background.

During the 38-year period the tax was in effect, approximately 82,000 Chinese immigrants paid nearly $23 million in tax. Then, in 1923, the Chinese Exclusion Act banned all Chinese immigrants until its repeal in 1947. In 2006, the federal government apologized for the head tax and its other racist immigration policies explicitly targeting Chinese people.

Honourable senators, despite the racist, discriminatory and limiting policies and treatment that Chinese people have faced in Canada, there are many individuals who dedicate their life’s work to upholding and promoting Chinese culture and history in Canada today. These individuals share a common story of perseverance, determination and success, whereby they have overcome discriminatory barriers and left an indelible mark on Canadian society. I will happily highlight a small number of individuals who have accomplished this advocacy through their work in the arts.

Arlene Chan, born in Toronto, is a Chinese Canadian historian, activist, athlete and author. Through her work, she highlights the lived experiences and histories of Toronto’s Chinese community as well as important traditions for the Chinese-Canadian diaspora.

Ms. Chan serves as an adviser for the Chinese Canadian Museum, as well as Toronto Public Library’s Chinese Canadian Archive.

Lan Florence Yee, based out of Toronto and Montreal, is a visual artist and cofounder of the Chinatown Biennial. Lan’s work has been featured at countless museums and exhibits, including the Fonderie Darling, Toronto’s Museum of Contemporary Art and the Art Gallery of Ontario.

Alice Ming Wai Jim is an art historian, curator and professor at Montreal’s Concordia University, where she has held the research chair in ethnocultural art history. Ms. Jim focuses her research on diasporic art in Canada, particularly on the relationships between remix culture and place identity. A founding co-editor of the Journal of Asian Diasporic Visual Cultures and the Americas, Ms. Jim has also held the position of research fellow at the Centre of Asian Studies and the Center for the Study of Globalization and Cultures at the University of Hong Kong.

Karen Cho, born in Montreal, is a Chinese-Canadian documentary filmmaker whose credits include the award-winning 2004 National Film Board of Canada documentary entitled In the Shadow of Gold Mountain, which highlights the effects of the Chinese Exclusion Act in Canada. Her second documentary, Seeking Refuge, tells the stories of five asylum seekers who have sought refuge in Canada. This film is being used as an education and advocacy tool by the Canadian Council for Refugees, as well as other organizations and universities across the country.

Honourable senators, this is just a small sampling of Chinese Canadians who are working to elevate their own culture in the face of growing racism. As a society, we are all aware of the misguided and the unfounded aggression being inflicted on our Chinese neighbours today. Issues surrounding COVID-19, Huawei and the allegations of political interference have all ramped up racist sentiments. These issues have had the effect of “othering” our Chinese brothers and sisters in Canada, forcing them to face escalating levels of racism, discrimination and violence — things that no individual living in Canada should have to endure.

Honourable senators, racism and bias are learned behaviours. They are as unnatural as they are unacceptable. People, oftentimes children, learn these damaging behaviours around the kitchen table or within their friend groups, spending time around these narratives and coming to accept them as truth. However, this story of perpetuating racism does not need to continue. Rather, change can be brought through awareness and education, best done through our academic institutions.

For our youth, this education should be ongoing and continuous, from elementary school right to post-secondary education. However, as we know, unlearning racist behaviour is of great value and necessity for individuals of all ages, including in our society and our chamber. Just as racist attitudes and behaviours can be learned through ignorance, they can be unlearned through education, awareness and a commitment to compassion for all our brothers and sisters, regardless of the colour of their skin or their country of origin. Kinanâskomitin. Thank you.

(On motion of Senator Clement, debate adjourned.)

The Hon. the Speaker pro tempore: Honourable senators, I wish to draw your attention to the presence in the gallery of participants in the Parliamentary Officers’ Study Program.

On behalf of all honourable senators, I welcome you to the Senate of Canada.

Senator Woo: If I could just elaborate on your point with a half question, I hope that same committee will be able to clarify that there is no form of child pornography that is acceptable. I see you are nodding in agreement with that. Thank you.

Senator Yussuff: Honourable senators, I rise today to speak to Bill S-244, dealing with the creation of the employment insurance council. I want to first, of course, thank Senator Bellemare, who is not here today, for the work she has done on this bill and for her efforts to promote social dialogue in the Employment Insurance system, or EI, to make it more fair, effective and accountable to its stakeholders.

Guy Ryder, the former director-general of the International Labour Organization, or ILO, and a good friend of mine, has said that social dialogue was, is and will remain the key to forge the future of work.

The world of work as we know it is undergoing transformative change for a whole host of reasons. From crises like COVID to climate change to changes in our economy and the labour markets through technological advances such as AI, the world of work is rapidly changing. This creates challenges for workers, employers and policy-makers like governments.

If we are to overcome these challenges, either in our labour markets in general or specifically with programs such as EI, we will need governments, employers and employees to better and more effectively organize in our collective actions. Strong social dialogue, of course, will be essential to this goal.

Only solutions that are widely shared and underpinned by successful social dialogue will be truly effective and equitable for all. That is because social dialogue builds not only trust but ownership and accountability by the stakeholders involved.

Colleagues, there are many academic studies, research reports and evidence that support the positive economic effects and effective efforts of social dialogue processes, such as what this bill, of course, proposes for workers, businesses and governments. Today, I will focus my comments not on the research but, instead, on my experiences of what effective social dialogue and tripartism mean to working people and how creating a formal employment insurance council could play a positive role in ensuring an EI system that is more accountable, responsible and sustainable for all stakeholders.

Senators, how can we have an effective solution to complex problems we face if we do not talk to one another? How do we trust each other if there is no formal process to help build relationships? You cannot be effective without relationships, and you cannot have effective relationships without trust. That is the heart of this bill.

Effective social dialogue is not just a theory. It is a real tool that can produce real and practical results. I would like to take a few minutes to talk about some real-world experience of the power of social dialogue to produce real and practical solutions that benefit workers, employers and, equally, government.

One example, of course, is the Canada Labour Code Part II. Late in 1999, there was a very broad consultation with employers, government and workers about reforming the Canada Labour Code Part II because of the changes that had been occurring, of course, in the real world of work. It did take an exhaustive amount of time, but the outcome was unanimous consent by workers, employers and government that these changes would bring positive results for workers and the country, but equally they were supported by employers.

As a result of the hard collaborative work that was done under the labour department, the subsequent result was that legislation was passed unanimously both by the House and by the Senate. Of course, those impacts are still having transformative change to workers’ lives today in this country at the national level.

Most recently, of course, employers, workers, unions and governments embarked on dealing with the issue of harassment and violence in the workplace. As a result of this work, C190 was the convention initiated at the ILO. This was led by the Canadian government. It was co-chaired by the workers’ representative, my former colleague Marie Clarke Walker, and by employers on the employers’ side. There was an exhaustive amount of work that took place at the ILO. The convention was finally passed by the ILO, and earlier this year Canada finally adopted the convention. What this brings into clear perspective for all of us is that when you collaborate and work together, you can achieve great things.

Now, this is a very small convention, but I know it will have a lasting impact on the men and women whose lives have been disrupted by harassment and violence in the workplace. Now there is an international standard as a result of that.

I will use one country as an example. In Germany, all changes that occur when it comes to the economy are done in a tripartite manner. Workers and employers sit down. They deliberate. They argue. They, of course, work with government to achieve the common objective. Very few people would argue the German economy is not performing to its full extent. What is achieved? Collaboration — they do not always agree, but for the most part, they recognize they have to work together if they are going to succeed in a competitive world. No matter how well they can do things, if they do not have collaboration and cooperation, they can’t continue to be an effective economy in the world.

I would also note that in our own country, in the 1980s — not so long ago — Canada wanted to enhance business and labour partnerships for human resources development in specific industry sectors. To achieve this goal, they created an innovative tripartite approach to industrial relations — sector councils. Over 30 sector councils were created in the following decades to foster joint dialogue and action on training, worker participation, job creation and other sector concerns.

Sector councils were eliminated in 2013 by the previous government, and I think it was a tremendous loss to our country because those opportunities for workers, employers and government to come together were no longer there. We talk at each other, but we do not talk to each other to build a collaboration.

In conclusion, colleagues, there is no question that creating an institutional social dialogue structure like the bill proposes will have a positive effect for workers, employers and government. Simply put, more opportunity for dialogue is better than less. Trust cannot be built between stakeholders when you do not talk to one another. Ownership in the system does not happen if stakeholders feel as though their opinions and solutions are not being heard. Colleagues, the success of my past career representing workers was dependent upon having meaningful social dialogue, either formal or informal, to represent their interests in finding practical and real solutions that make sense for all parties.

The Employment Insurance — EI — system is an employer and worker system that must have the trust of these two groups to be effective. The simple fact is that the workers pay half the premium and the employer pays the other half. That trust can only be created if they feel their views are being heard, and for that to happen, we need an institutional process like what this bill proposes to ensure it does.

I believe Bill S-244 will strengthen and not weaken the Employment Insurance system because it will help better our understanding of the problem and produce more innovative and practical solutions in our EI system from social partnerships that fund it and who are most impacted by it. It will also create stronger accountability and more equitable and fairer outcomes for workers and employers — a goal I think we all share.

That is why I urge colleagues to support this bill, and hopefully we can get it to committee and make it a reality for workers and employers in this country.

Thank you so much.

Senator Plett: He’s got another assistant.

Senator Batters: It is in the budget implementation act, but what about the actual budgeting? That’s what I am wondering about. Is it in the budget that we had more recently, or will it be in an upcoming budget?

The last question that I have on this is as follows: I have previously heard much talk about the 11 million Canadians, or something like that, who will be eligible for this, but what is the actual income threshold that will be applicable to this measure?

Senator Gold: Thank you for the question. I will have to look into that. As you correctly point out, the incentives are not in this bill. This bill is about two things: It is about getting money into the hands of 11 million low-income and moderate-income Canadians as quickly as possible in order to help them with rising costs, and, of course, getting money to the provinces and territories dedicated to health care. Whether these measures and others will appear in other bills, if they are to appear, I will have to make inquiries and get back to you on it.

Senator Gold: Thank you. That’s a very good question.

It allows me to remind colleagues that one of the elements of the agreements in principle that have been struck is precisely that they call for bilateral agreements. That is important because every province has its own needs in health care, its own priorities and its own programs in place for which it needs and seeks additional funds to operate even more effectively for the benefit of its citizens.

Again, without knowing what is going on in negotiations between the federal government and, say, Manitoba, Nova Scotia or any of the other provinces or territories, if it is a priority of the provincial government, they will bring that to the table, and they will have a willing partner in the federal government in the course of those negotiations.

Senator Gold: Once again, thank you for sharing what has been made public, but you’ll understand that some things are not yet public and I’m not in a position to share them. This shows that the government is serious not only about the principle, but also about making it work on the ground.

I’m confident that once the full details of the bill are released, Canadians will see a more robust system than what’s in place now.

[English]

Senator Plett: We won’t need time allocation. We’ll move it ahead.

Senator Tannas: I would.

Senator Ataullahjan: Senator Gold, I have asked three former Liberal immigration ministers and the current minister, Minister Fraser, when the visa office would be shifted back to Islamabad. Pakistan, at one time, was not considered a safe country. However, most of our allies have their embassies open. It has become a family station again. Canada continues to have an office in Abu Dhabi, which adds to the wait times.

I have brought up the issue to the current immigration minister, Minister Fraser. The response I always get is, “We are aware of the issue. It has been brought to our attention.”

If the Liberal government is aware of the issue, why is it not acting on it? Why is it not attempting to fix the problem?

Senator Batters: Thank you. So it sounds like it’s $4.5 billion. If there is something else, can you please let us know? Also, I’m wondering if that cost was already included in the budget that the Trudeau government just presented, or if this cost is yet to be included in a budget.

Senator Tannas: Those are very good questions. There is not a similar bill like this in the Senate, as you mentioned. There isn’t one in the House of Commons because they defeated it, so it has been tossed.

Again, the principles that brought me to my position were, first, what the success chance is. I think it is zero. I think we are wasting our time with the bill. There may be some merit in having young people come to a committee and talk about it. We could do that with a study. We could perhaps put out a document that the House of Commons could read and maybe reconsider.

But we also have the issue of this prior question. We could get it all the way over there, spend all the committee time, listen to all these folks, raise their hopes that this bill will be passed and just have it dismissed. That’s the likely outcome. The prior question is something that’s pretty clear.

Third, we have a limited amount of time where the committees can do their work. And we’re running out of time, I suggest, certainly in this session of Parliament. Maybe there will be prorogation. Maybe there will be an election. Who knows? But we are all getting a sense that we are running out of time in this Parliament.

I think we have to be mindful of what we spend our time on. It is for those reasons that I am making the recommendation.

Senator Tannas: Thank you for the question, Senator McCallum. I’m not arguing that there is anything other than common sense preventing us from pressing ahead. We could pass this bill through second reading. We could consider it at third. Let’s say we pass it; that does not get the bill passed.

So if it is an academic exercise to go through, if that’s what the idea is, I suggest we do a committee study rather than a bill that will be dead on arrival in the House of Commons.