Hon. Donald Neil Plett (Leader of the Opposition): Honourable senators, I rise to pay tribute to one of our esteemed colleagues in this chamber, Senator Leo Housakos. Senator Housakos has served the Senate and the people of Canada for many years and in various capacities, including as Speaker of the Senate in 2015. His particular passion, however, has been his commitment to international human rights, freedom and the rule of law. In that capacity, we know him to have spoken out courageously on matters of human rights all around the world.

Among the peoples he has spoken for are the people of Armenia. Armenia is a country that has suffered significantly in recent years, surrounded as it is by hostile and often aggressive neighbours. In 2020, Armenia was attacked by its neighbour Azerbaijan in the so-called 44-day war. That attack was supported by Turkey.

There were few voices in Canada speaking out for Armenia back then. Turkey is, after all, a NATO ally. The issue was considered too delicate for many. However, Senator Housakos had the courage to speak out. He exposed the silence of the international community on both the war and on the forced uprooting of many Armenian people from their homes. He condemned the lopsided settlement imposed on Armenia by its powerful neighbours.

Senator Housakos did not receive many accolades from the Government of Canada for his actions, but the people of Armenia did take notice. Indeed, he was recently awarded the Order of Friendship through a decree by the President of Armenia. This honour is in recognition of:

. . . his contribution to the strengthening & the development of friendly ties [between] [Armenia] & [Canada], & for his dedication to preserving universal human values.

Colleagues, I can say from a personal perspective that I am particularly proud of Senator Housakos’ work as he defends human rights and the rule of law around the world. I hope all senators will join me in extending our warmest congratulations to our friend Senator Leo Housakos. Congratulations on this well‑deserved honour.

Hon. Jane Cordy: Honourable senators, you have likely heard the expression “march to the beat of one’s own drum.” For those of us from Nova Scotia, the instrument is not a drum, and the expression rather has us tapping our feet to one’s own fiddle tune.

Fiddling and fiddle music is a tradition throughout much of the East Coast that travelled across the ocean with our Celtic ancestors. Like each stitch woven into our Nova Scotia tartan, you could say that fiddle music, along with the bagpipes, make up the double helix of our musical DNA.

This Saturday, May 20, we celebrate National Fiddling Day. The bill to establish a National Fiddling Day was a project of our former colleague P.E.I. Senator Libbe Hubley, herself a fiddler. To celebrate the bill, renowned Ontario fiddler Kelli Trottier even wrote a song called “Fiddle Bill.”

On the third Saturday in May, fiddlers all over Canada get together to celebrate their musical tradition and their own unique styles of fiddling. We Cape Bretoners have our very own style rooted in the Scottish tradition, but in the West, you can find the Métis style or the Anglo-Canadian style, which draws from a mix of many stylistic origins. The French-Canadian style found in Quebec and New Brunswick is different still.

Just how big is fiddle music in Cape Breton? For thousands who arrive to Sydney by cruise ships, the first thing to greet them on the waterfront is the world’s largest fiddle and bow, standing at 60 feet tall. It is a guarantee that their visit will include several good fiddle tunes and the inevitable accompanying step dance.

Honourable senators, if you find yourself in Nova Scotia this summer or fall, a highlight of the Nova Scotia tourist season is the annual Celtic Colours International Festival, which will take place this year from October 6 to 14. This festival features 49 concerts in 35 communities across Cape Breton Island celebrating its culture through music, song and dance.

While you are in Nova Scotia, a visit to the Red Shoe Pub in Mabou is a must, where you will experience lively music and a true East Coast kitchen party. You may even run into a member of the Rankin family, who are the owners of the pub. I challenge you to keep your toes from tapping. I offer my very best wishes to fiddlers across the country and to all those that enjoy fiddle music for a very happy National Fiddling Day.

The Hon. the Speaker: Honourable senators, I wish to draw your attention to the presence in the gallery of Daniel Beaudette, Lynne Sylvestre, Renaud and Léah Lafond, and Marie-Josée Houle.

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

Hon. Senators: Hear, hear.

[English]

Hon. Senators: Hear, hear!

Hon. Pierrette Ringuette: Honourable senators, I wish to join all of you in extending my sincere congratulations to our new Speaker, the Forty-sixth Speaker, Senator Gagné, and wishing her all the best in this new chapter of her parliamentary life. I am even more thrilled that, after 44 years, a woman is finally serving as the Speaker of the Senate, and what’s more, she’s a francophone from a minority community.

The Hon. the Speaker: Honourable senators, I wish to draw your attention to the presence in the gallery of Daniel Beaudette, Lynne Sylvestre, Renaud and Léah Lafond, and Marie-Josée Houle.

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

The Hon. the Speaker: Honourable senators, I wish to draw your attention to the presence in the gallery of Lucy and Larry Duke. They are the guests of the Honourable Senator Black.

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

Hon. Pierre-Hugues Boisvenu: Madam Speaker, like my colleagues, I want to congratulate you and say that there’s no better choice than you for Speaker of the Senate. Congratulations.

Honourable senators, this week, we are marking the seventeenth annual Victims and Survivors of Crime Week. In June, it will be eight years since the Canadian Victims Bill of Rights was adopted.

To mark these two accomplishments by the previous Conservative government, last Saturday I went to Winnipeg to the Canadian Museum for Human Rights with my colleague, the member from the region, Raquel Dancho, to give the director of the museum a copy of the Canadian Victims Bill of Rights to have it displayed there with all the other charters adopted by Canada and elsewhere in the world.

We took the opportunity to meet with victims and the families of victims of violent crime. Listening to them made me realize, sadly, just how much their rights have eroded in our justice system since the change in government. All these families had lost confidence in our justice system, and to them, adopting the bill of rights meant that they might, at long last, have rights equal to those of criminals — rights they had been hoping for for decades.

We talked to a family whose loved one’s murderer was never brought to justice. We talked to a victim of intimate partner violence whose abuser threatened them repeatedly without ever facing legal consequences. We talked to a mother who was never told that her son’s murderer had been released not far from her home.

How can there be so many stories, so many injustices here in Canada?

For Ms. Dancho, the museum CEO and me, it was a deeply emotional and very enlightening encounter. When victims’ families see the degree to which our justice system prioritizes respect for offenders’ rights, it is obvious to them that their own rights get very short shrift in comparison. They still feel they’re not being treated fairly, they still lack confidence in the system and they’re still being revictimized by a system that should protect and respect them above all else.

Is this why the government has been downplaying this awareness week for so many years?

Honourable colleagues, during this Victims and Survivors of Crime Week, words alone will no longer be enough to restore victims’ and their families’ confidence in our justice system.

We must take action and stand by them by taking concrete measures the likes of which have been rare indeed in Canada over the past eight years.

This week, in solidarity with all victims of crime and their families, and in memory of all victims whose lives were tragically taken, I’m going to introduce an important bill that will strengthen the enforcement and broaden the scope of the Canadian Victims Bill of Rights.

Honourable senators, I know this matters to you, and I sincerely hope that, together, we can seize the opportunity to do something meaningful for victims by supporting this important bill for them. Thank you.

The Hon. the Speaker: Honourable senators, I wish to draw your attention to the presence in the gallery of Odette Lord and Jean-Pierre Carlos. They are the guests of the Honourable Senator Boisvenu.

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

Hon. Donna Dasko: Your Honour, I’m so pleased and proud that you are our new Speaker.

Honourable senators, in a national survey I commissioned in 2021, violence against women was seen by Canadians as the most important issue facing women in this country.

As we continue to search for ways to deal with this significant problem, I rise today to highlight one of the most simple, yet innovative, approaches in recent years. It was created right here in Canada three years ago, and just this year, it received a Governor General’s Innovation Award.

What is it? It’s a simple hand signal, a gesture, that can be used by women and others in distress situations to signal that they are in grave danger. I will explain the signal in a moment, but first let me describe the origins of this simple invention.

It was created by the Canadian Women’s Foundation, or CWF, a national foundation headquartered in Toronto, which funds vital community programs across the country that advance gender equality, address root causes and assist women in need. I often think of the foundation as a kind of United Way for women, since it raises funds from donors and distributes them to those in need. But, in fact, CWF is one of the largest women’s foundations in the world. Since 1991 it has raised more than $100 million and funded almost 2,000 programs right across Canada.

In 2020, prompted by reports of increased domestic violence during the pandemic, the foundation began working with an ad agency to develop a way for women who might be in distress at home to send messages about their situation to outsiders, especially via online video. Together they researched movements, gestures and international sign languages to find something unique that would not cause confusion across languages and cultures. They came up with a simple hand gesture that involves using one’s thumb under one’s fingers as a metaphor for being trapped.

Launched in April 2020, the Signal for Help has been taken up in over 45 countries, won numerous international awards and gone viral on social media. It has proven its worth well beyond the pandemic, and it is helping to save lives.

Here is an example. On November 4, 2021, a motorist in Kentucky contacted police with a licence plate number after observing a girl in a car who was using the hand gesture, which the motorist had seen on TikTok and recognized as a distress situation. Police caught up with the vehicle and arrested the driver, who was charged with unlawful imprisonment and possession of sexual matter concerning a minor. The 16-year-old girl in the car had been reported missing from North Carolina. That girl’s life might have been saved by the motorist who knew what the signal meant and took appropriate action.

Colleagues, I could provide other examples, but let me conclude by saying that an important goal is to increase awareness of the signal: palm up, thumb in, fingers over. Now we can all be part of the solution. Thank you.

The Hon. the Speaker: Honourable senators, I wish to draw your attention to the presence in the gallery of Lucy and Larry Duke. They are the guests of the Honourable Senator Black.

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

The Hon. the Speaker: Honourable senators, I wish to draw your attention to the presence in the gallery of Odette Lord and Jean-Pierre Carlos. They are the guests of the Honourable Senator Boisvenu.

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

Hon. Robert Black: Honourable senators, today I rise to speak about an increasingly concerning issue: the mental health of Canada’s farmers.

This has been a challenging few years for Canadians, but especially farmers and producers. Food insecurity is rising and inflation is pressuring families, flooding and drought have afflicted vital agricultural regions across the country and our economy has been battered in the post-COVID reality. But Canada’s farmers remain resilient. New funding programs and promising bills like Bill C-234 offer some relief to the sector.

Farmers have sustained Canadians both in the economy and by maintaining supply chains even in volatile times. I applaud the many farmers and producers who have remained adaptable and determined in the past years while managing and overcoming regulatory burdens, labour shortages and increasing financial and emotional costs. Farmers have been there for Canadians and the world, putting food on our tables three times a day.

There are, however, concerns that are presenting themselves. Despite continuing to overcome these challenges, farmers are facing greater strains that inevitably affect their mental health. A recent study in 2020 of over 1,100 Canadian producers found that 57% of farmers faced anxiety, 45% faced unhealthy levels of stress and 35% lived with depression.

There is hope, however, colleagues. Among other support organizations, new investments into the Canadian Centre for Agricultural Wellbeing will help that organization spread awareness of resources and multiply their availability within the agricultural community.

As we work to reduce the stigma, I applaud groups like this that work to support Canada’s producers, processors and farmers through some of the most turbulent and challenging times in their lives.

Farmers remain resilient and determined. They continue to feed Canada and the world and face ever-changing norms, and it’s important that we continue to support them as they do so. Whether that be by promoting and encouraging new programs, buying locally grown foods when and where possible, celebrating the twentieth annual Food Day Canada in August or advocating for their mental health, I hope that we as senators can continue to speak of their dedication to this country and the world here in the Red Chamber. Thank you, meegwetch.

[Translation]

Hon. Donald Neil Plett (Leader of the Opposition): My question today is, once again, for the Liberal Leader of the Government in the Senate.

Leader, at this time last week, Prime Minister Trudeau was pointing to and bragging about the $5 billion Stellantis battery plant project as an example of his government’s economic management.

What the Prime Minister knew but did not tell Canadians was that Stellantis and LG were threatening to scrap the project — as he was speaking — if they didn’t receive the subsidies similar to what his government gave Volkswagen, which would cost taxpayers up to $14 billion.

In the last few days, Stellantis and LG said they would begin implementing their contingency plan. Work on the site in Windsor has been shut down — a factory that is supposed to be operating in a year.

Leader, this whole affair is, indeed, a prime example of the Trudeau government’s incompetence. Why should Canadians trust anything that this government or this Prime Minister says when it comes to our economy and jobs?

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

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

[English]

Hon. Patti LaBoucane-Benson (Legislative Deputy to the Government Representative in the Senate): Honourable senators, I have the honour to table, in both official languages, a Charter Statement prepared by the Minister of Justice in relation to Bill S-12, An Act to amend the Criminal Code, the Sex Offender Information Registration Act and the International Transfer of Offenders Act, pursuant to the Department of Justice Act, R.S.C. 1985,c. J-2,sbs. 4.2(1).

[Translation]

The Hon. the Speaker informed the Senate that a message had been received from the House of Commons with Bill C-13, An Act to amend the Official Languages Act, to enact the Use of French in Federally Regulated Private Businesses Act and to make related amendments to other Acts.

(Bill read first time.)

The Hon. the Speaker informed the Senate that a message had been received from the House of Commons with Bill C-45, An Act to amend the First Nations Fiscal Management Act, to make consequential amendments to other Acts, and to make a clarification relating to another Act.

(Bill read first time.)