Some Hon. Senators: Agreed.

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

An Hon. Senator: On division.

(Motion agreed to, on division, and report adopted.)

Hon. Senators: Question.

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

(On motion of Senator Cotter, bill, as amended, placed on the Orders of the Day for third reading at the next sitting of the Senate.)

On the Order:

Resuming debate on the motion of the Honourable Senator Gold, P.C., seconded by the Honourable Senator LaBoucane-Benson:

That the following Address be presented to Her Excellency the Governor General of Canada:

To Her Excellency the Right Honourable Mary May Simon, Chancellor and Principal Companion of the Order of Canada, Chancellor and Commander of the Order of Military Merit, Chancellor and Commander of the Order of Merit of the Police Forces, Governor General and Commander-in-Chief of Canada.

MAY IT PLEASE YOUR EXCELLENCY:

We, Her Majesty’s most loyal and dutiful subjects, the Senate of Canada in Parliament assembled, beg leave to offer our humble thanks to Your Excellency for the gracious Speech which Your Excellency has addressed to both Houses of Parliament.

The Hon. the Speaker: Is leave granted?

So ordered.

Hon. David Richards: Your Honour, congratulations to you.

Honourable senators, this item is adjourned in the name of Senator Clement, and I ask for leave of the Senate that following my intervention, the balance of her time to speak to this item be reserved.

Hon. Marie-Françoise Mégie: Honourable senators, I rise today in support of Bill S-254, introduced by the Honourable Senator Brazeau.

The bill amends Canada’s Food and Drugs Act to ensure that the labelling of alcoholic beverages reflects the most current scientific information. Senators Brazeau, Cordy, Miville-Dechêne and Richards spoke at second reading of this bill. I add my voice to theirs in the hope that we will promptly send this bill to committee for study. Let’s not delay any longer in doing the right thing to improve the lives and the health of Canadians.

Three questions spring to mind upon reading the preamble. What is the link between alcohol and various cancers? Is labelling an effective way to inform the public? How could this bill be improved for the benefit of public health and consumers?

Before establishing the scientifically-proven link between alcohol and cancer, I’d like to share some data on the leading causes of mortality, in order to better understand the relevance of the bill and why urgent action is needed.

You’ll hear the names of many diseases and many types of cancer. I don’t mean to be alarmist, but I’ll be sharing the information that’s being reported in the current medical literature.

In Canada, roughly 300,000 people die each year of all causes. In 2020, malignant tumours were the cause of more than 80,000 of those 300,000 deaths. The numbers compiled by Statistics Canada indicate that cancer is still among the primary causes of death and that alcohol is indirectly responsible for more than one in four deaths — hence the urgency to take action in Canada.

What’s more, we saw notable increases in the rate of deaths associated with alcohol consumption in 2020. Specifically in people under 45, the number of deaths directly caused by alcohol increased by 50%. Many illnesses are caused by the chronic use of alcohol, including alcoholic gastritis, cirrhosis of the liver, pancreatitis, etc.

Note that the illnesses I just cited are responsible for death in the long term. There are other immediate deaths, such as highway accidents, in which alcohol is a determining factor.

What’s more, there’s a proven link between alcohol consumption and acts of aggression and violence.

What concrete action has been taken? The Canadian government tasked the Canadian Centre on Substance Use and Addiction, the CCSA, with conducting studies and submitting reports with science-based recommendations. The CCSA produced a report entitled What We Heard: Refreshing the National Framework for Action to Reduce the Harms Associated with Alcohol and Other Drugs and Substances in Canada. It’s a long title, but that’s what it’s called. It’s a synthesis of consultations involving over 170 stakeholders in the context of a process to refresh the national framework.

Our National Framework for Action to Reduce the Harms Associated with Alcohol and Other Drugs and Substances in Canada is almost 20 years old. Its vision is for all people in Canada to live in a society free of the harms associated with these substances.

One of the principles articulated in the framework is that action should be knowledge-based, evidence-informed and evaluated for results. The January 2023 final report on Canada’s guidance on alcohol and health came as a shock to many. It upends conventional thinking. Whereas the approach used to be prescriptive, now it is becoming restrictive.

Rather than suggest a number of drinks per day or per week, the experts are now telling us that the less alcohol one consumes, the better. Contrary to messaging from Éduc’alcool, moderation is no longer in good taste.

No amount of alcohol is considered good for a person’s health. This report is worth taking a closer look at. The guidance is based on the principle of autonomy in harm reduction and the fundamental idea behind it is that people living in Canada have a right to know. In addition to the chronic diseases that I mentioned earlier, alcohol itself is a carcinogen that can cause at least seven types of cancer. People often do not know that. The most recent data show that the use of alcohol causes nearly 7,000 cancer deaths each year in Canada, with most cases being breast cancer, colorectal cancer, liver cancer and oropharyngeal cancer.

According to the Canadian Cancer Society, drinking less alcohol is one of the top behaviours to reduce cancer risk.

The message of Bill S-254 is reiterated in the CCSA report, which states, and I quote:

As a priority, people living in Canada need consistent, easy‑to-use information at the point of pour to track their alcohol use in terms of standard drinks. They also have a right to clear and accessible information about the health and safety of the products they buy.

One of the direct benefits of this bill and a particularly effective policy change could be the mandatory labelling of all alcoholic beverages. We would expect the label to indicate the number of standard drinks per bottle, Canada’s Guidance on Alcohol and Health and the health warnings.

Another study conducted by the CCSA, in collaboration with the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health, reported an association between alcohol use and aggression and violence.

I’m well aware that moving away from our collective addiction to alcohol requires a real paradigm shift. Drinking is deeply rooted in our culture. We call up a friend or colleague to go for a drink. Some even claim it’s their right or duty to drink, as was the case a few years ago with smoking. However, we no longer carry our former convictions about alcohol’s alleged benefits. We must strive to reduce our use of alcohol in all its forms, just as we did with tobacco.

The CCSA produced a separate report entitled Lifetime Risk of Alcohol Attributable Death and Disability. It notes that the lifetime risk of death and disability increases as alcohol consumption increases. This project, titled Canadian Substance Use Costs and Harms, analyzed Canadian data from 2007 to 2020 and lays out the dramatic changes in direct and indirect costs to our society. The CCSA report from March 29, 2023, states that the cost of substance use was estimated to be $49.1 billion in 2020. The cost associated with alcohol is allegedly close to $20 billion, or 40% of that total. The costs associated with the use of alcohol and tobacco have fluctuated over time. The per‑person cost for alcohol has increased by 21%, while the cost for tobacco has decreased by 20%.

These estimates highlight the consequences of substance use, not only on the health care and criminal justice systems, but also on Canadians’ ability to work and contribute to the economy.

To improve health and productivity in Canada, initiatives related to prevention, harm reduction and alcohol treatment must be put in place. Bill S-254 on alcohol labelling is just one of many measures the government should implement to ensure a healthier and safer life experience for all Canadians.

I couldn’t help but wonder whether labelling actually works. A study on the effect of alcohol labelling on consumption, published in 2020 in Journal of Studies of Alcohol and Drugs in an article entitled “The Effects of Alcohol Warning Labels on Population Alcohol Consumption,” compared alcohol consumption in Yukon with its neighbour, Northwest Territories. Approximately 300,000 labels were placed on 98% of alcoholic beverages in Whitehorse. Sales dropped significantly in the capital city for products that carried these warnings, so the labelling made a difference.

My last question is the following: How could we improve this bill to benefit public health and consumers? I believe the only way is to study it in committee. It would give us the opportunity to hear from experts, the industries and other stakeholders on the  future implementation of labelling and information to be disclosed. I think it is essential that consumers be able to obtain the information they need to freely make informed decisions.

Given that some consider alcohol a food item, should other information, such as the ingredients and nutritional information, be included?

Those are some of the ideas that I wanted to share with you, esteemed colleagues. Thank you for your attention.

Hon. Elizabeth Marshall: Congratulations on your appointment, Your Honour. It’s wonderful to see you in the chair.

Honourable senators, I rise today to speak as a critic of Senator Downe’s Bill S-258, An Act to amend the Canada Revenue Agency Act (reporting on unpaid income tax), but I must confess that there is not much to be critical of with this bill.

As most of you will know, Senator Downe has been working on this issue for several years. He tabled his first bill in April 2015; it was Bill S-226. That bill died on the Order Paper when the 2015 election was called, but Senator Downe reintroduced the legislation as Bill S-243 in 2018. That bill was passed by this chamber with some minor amendments at committee, and then made it all the way to second reading in the House of Commons. I am hoping this bill makes it all the way through both houses.

Like its earlier iterations, Bill S-258 amends the Canada Revenue Agency Act to do three things: First, it will require the Canada Revenue Agency to list all convictions for tax evasion in the annual report it submits to the Minister of National Revenue. This would include convictions with respect to international tax evasion.

Second, Bill S-258 requires the agency to provide statistics on the tax gap once every three years.

Third, the bill will require the minister to provide data on the tax gap to the Parliamentary Budget Officer.

The value of these amendments is quite evident, but allow me to briefly explain the importance of what this bill will do — starting with the tax gap.

Quite simply, the tax gap is the difference between what the government should be collecting in taxes and what is actually collected. This is not an exact science because the tax gap exists, in part, due to income, assets and economic activities which are intentionally hidden, or as a result of errors which can be difficult to detect. But it is possible to establish an approximate tax gap range using one of two methodologies.

Since the tax gap is an estimate, it is presented as a range; for example, in 2022, the Canada Revenue Agency estimated a total gross tax gap of between $35 billion to $40 billion, or about 9% of federal revenues. The Canada Revenue Agency projected that, through collection efforts, they would be able to recoup $17 billion of that, leaving a net tax gap of $23 billion.

Colleagues, measuring this number is critical because it gives us a much-needed benchmark. Without it, we have no clear picture of how well our tax system is working, and we have no way to measure the effectiveness of our compliance and enforcement efforts. We are essentially flying blind.

While simply measuring the tax gap solves nothing on its own, it is very much like taking a reading of someone’s vital signs. It reveals if something is wrong, and whether it is getting better or worse. If your tax gap is high, you know you have a problem. If your tax gap is rising, your problem is becoming worse. But if your tax gap is dropping, then you’re doing something right.

This information is a vital tool. It assists the government in improving revenue collection, evaluating tax policies, ensuring fairness in the tax system, allocating resources effectively and developing strategies to promote compliance. Yet until recently, we were not measuring the tax gap.

This began to change in 2016, when the Canada Revenue Agency began publishing reports on various components of the federal tax gaps, including estimates and their underlying methodologies. In 2022, the Canada Revenue Agency published the Overall federal tax gap report: Estimates and key findings for non-compliance, tax years 2014-2018 — its first-ever overall tax gap report — which looked at all sources of federal government taxation. This work is valuable and appreciated, but it remains deficient for a number of reasons.

First, there is no statutory requirement for the Canada Revenue Agency to continue this work. Because of the importance of the information to parliamentarians, it needs to be required by law. It needs to be regular in its occurrence so we can see over time if we are making progress. Bill S-258 addresses these shortcomings by mandating that the tax gap report is provided to parliamentarians every three years.

Second, there is currently no obligation for the Canada Revenue Agency to provide tax gap data to the Parliamentary Budget Officer. Without this information, there is a serious gap in accountability because the Parliamentary Budget Officer is unable to do his own assessment and verification of the Canada Revenue Agency’s tax gap estimate. Bill S-258 addresses this deficiency as well.

Third, although the Canada Revenue Agency publicly releases a list of some convictions for tax evasion, this list is not exhaustive and includes little information on international tax evasion cases. Without this information, the Canada Revenue Agency faces diminished public accountability regarding their efforts to crack down on offshore tax evasion. Bill S-258 would address this by requiring the Government of Canada to disclose all convictions for overseas tax evasion.

At its heart, this bill is one step in the fight against tax evasion, but it is an important step because tax evasion can have a significant impact on the public’s confidence in the fairness of the tax system. When individuals or corporations evade taxes, they are avoiding their obligation to contribute their fair share to the funding of public services and programs that benefit our society as a whole. This creates a sense of unfairness and resentment among those who do pay their taxes and can create the perception that the system is rigged in favour of those who are wealthy and powerful. It erodes public confidence in the government’s ability to enforce the tax laws fairly and to ensure that everyone is treated equally under the law.

Furthermore, tax evasion has practical consequences such as the loss of revenue for the government, which can lead to cuts in public services and programs or an increase in the tax burden on those who do pay their taxes. This can further exacerbate feelings of unfairness and injustice and lead to a breakdown in the social contract between citizens and the government.

Bill S-258 does not solve all of these problems, but it is a necessary step in the right direction. It will close a gap in important information that parliamentarians need to do their jobs properly. It will help to increase public accountability for the Canada Revenue Agency. It will help incentivize better enforcement and better public policy. It will help bolster voluntary compliance through greater public awareness, and it will strengthen public confidence in the fairness of our tax system.

Honourable senators, there is no perfect tax system, but we can make ours better and stronger by passing Bill S-258. I encourage you to support this bill so it can go to committee for further study. Thank you.

(On motion of Senator Martin, debate adjourned.)

On the Order:

Resuming debate on the motion of the Honourable Senator McCallum, seconded by the Honourable Senator Boisvenu, for the second reading of Bill C-226, An Act respecting the development of a national strategy to assess, prevent and address environmental racism and to advance environmental justice.

Hon. Julie Miville-Dechêne: Would Senator Mégie take a question?

The Hon. the Speaker: I’d like to remind you that although I know it is awkward not to face the person to whom you’re putting the question, it’s very difficult to hear you when you turn your back on the microphone. It is just a little reminder. Thank you.

[English]

On the Order:

Resuming debate on the motion of the Honourable Senator Downe, seconded by the Honourable Senator Tannas, for the second reading of Bill S-258, An Act to amend the Canada Revenue Agency Act (reporting on unpaid income tax).

The Hon. the Speaker: I’d like to remind you that although I know it is awkward not to face the person to whom you’re putting the question, it’s very difficult to hear you when you turn your back on the microphone. It is just a little reminder. Thank you.

[English]

On the Order:

Resuming debate on the motion of the Honourable Senator Downe, seconded by the Honourable Senator Tannas, for the second reading of Bill S-258, An Act to amend the Canada Revenue Agency Act (reporting on unpaid income tax).

Hon. Wanda Thomas Bernard: Thank you, Your Honour. I also want to congratulate and welcome you as our Speaker.

Honourable senators, I stand today in support of Bill C-226, the national strategy respecting environmental racism and environmental justice act. I want to acknowledge that we are on the unceded, unsurrendered territory of the Algonquin Nation, and I live in Mi’kma’ki, the ancestral and unceded territory of the Mi’kmaq people. These acknowledgements are particularly important to me today given this topic of environmental racism. Thank you to Elizabeth May and Lenore Zann for their work in the other place. Thank you to Senator McCallum for sponsoring this very important bill here in the Senate and for sharing your ways of knowing and being. It truly is a gift.

Honourable senators, when I talk about marginalized communities, I am talking about groups of people who are, at times, physically on the margins of communities. Think about the outskirts of major city centres. You’ll see landfills, industry and undesirable sites. You will also see racialized communities. When I say the name of a community to our south, Flint, Michigan, most Canadians understand the expanse of the devastating drinking water crisis impacting African Americans. Let me tell you that we have many communities like Flint, Michigan right here in Canada, many of which are still living under conditions that are killing them.

One of the most widely known examples of environmental racism of a marginalized community in Canada is the story of Africville. Senator Klyne talked about Africville in his speech on this bill. Let me add a bit more. Africville was a vibrant community of African Nova Scotians. An open-pit dump was placed 350 metres from this seaside community. They did not have clean drinking water. Throughout the 170 years that Africville existed, a railway extension was installed through the community and the Halifax Explosion damaged the community. An infectious disease hospital was built nearby, along with a human waste disposal pit, a prison and slaughterhouses. It was also the location chosen for a fertilizer production plant.

Imagine a location surrounded by hazardous sites, the last place on earth that you would allow your children and grandchildren to grow up nearby. Those were the conditions forced upon Africville. Located in the city of Halifax, they were denied basic services, such as city water and sewer. Instead of providing services, the city chose to relocate the residents of Africville. During the forceful relocation of Africville in 1967, some community members were transported to public housing in the North End by the City of Halifax using garbage trucks. If that doesn’t show you how African Nova Scotians were seen by the government, I don’t know what would. To this day, I hear of anecdotal stories about the staggering number of former Africville residents who have died of various forms of cancer. The community has connected the dots, and perhaps the government should too.

My gratitude goes to the fierce community activists and advocates who have been mobilizing for decades to protect the health and safety of their communities. African-Canadian Professor Dr. Ingrid Waldron published a book called There’s Something in the Water, which reveals one of Nova Scotia’s hardest and most shameful truths: the pervasive nature of environmental racism against Mi’kmaq and African Nova Scotians.

This book was used to create a documentary highlighting the devastation of racialized Nova Scotians. The film brings the viewer through the African-Nova Scotian community of Shelburne with local advocate Louise Delisle, who lists the people who have died or are ill with lung cancer and multiple myelomas. These families have no option to move, and even if they did, they would be leaving their homes and be separated from their communities.

Although the dump has been removed, the buried waste contaminates their water. Louise describes her childhood memories of the black smoke that regularly engulfed the skies of her neighbourhood as piles of hazardous waste from the hospitals, factories and residences were burned. She remembers arriving at school smelling like burnt garbage.

Nearby, in Pictou Landing, Nova Scotia, is a Mi’kmaw community absolutely devastated by the toxic waste from the Northern Pulp mill contaminating the water.

The Grassroots Grandmothers are a group of women water protectors who fight for the human right for their community’s access to clean drinking water. Colleagues, please take one hour to watch the documentary There’s Something in the Water and learn more about Canada’s own environmental racism crisis.

We could name many communities: Whitney Pier, the Sydney tar ponds, Membertou, Lincolnville, Indian Brook — colleagues, there are so many examples. In my own community of East Preston, residents have been advocating against plans to designate a dump nearby for decades. In a 2016 letter of protest, Spencer Colley documented three examples of locating dumps in or near the Preston communities, which are the largest Black communities in Nova Scotia: in 1992 near East Lake in North Preston, in 1997 in North Preston and then, in 2016, the proposal to relocate a facility from Porters Lake to East Preston opposite Highway 107, Exit 17, where I live.

Colleagues, policy-making on environmental issues must not exclude race as the two are intrinsically tied. We can map out Nova Scotia by sites of dumps and hazardous industry alongside Indigenous and African-Nova Scotian communities. The environment, race and land have always been tied and always will be.

Eddie Carvery’s protest against the forceful relocation of the residents of Africville will always remind us of that.

In her book, Ingrid Waldron states that:

State-sanctioned racial and gendered violence is subtle, invisible, and often has no specific person who can (or will) be . . . responsible, in contrast to interpersonal violence where a main perpetrator can be identified.

Since there is no one specific person, it is necessary to obligate all policy-makers to make decisions based on what is good for the communities nearby.

This bill proposes a national strategy to examine the link between race and environmental hazards and the locations of hazardous sites. It seeks to address federal laws, policies and programs pertaining to environmental justice; examine compensation for communities impacted and collect information on health outcomes to give us the data to prove what community residents have known for decades: that environmental racism is detrimental to our health.

Honourable colleagues, these communities are no strangers to advocating for themselves, and it’s time the Senate advocated for them. Environmental racism is a great example of colonization doing its job: wiping out Indigenous and Black people in Canada.

Reconciliation cannot happen without putting a stop to environmental racism. Let’s send this bill to committee quickly. This is not a topic to debate; it’s a topic to act upon quickly. We are ready to make policy solutions that will save the lives of some of the most marginalized people in Canada.

Thank you. Asante.

Hon. Kim Pate: Your Honour, allow me to join our colleagues in congratulating you on your role as Speaker and taking on such a vital and important position, not just for yourself but for all of us. It reflects so well on this place. Thank you so much.

Honourable senators, I rise today to speak in support of Bill C-226. Many examples of environmental racism have already been spoken about at length, most recently by Senators Bernard, McCallum, Klyne and Audette. Their excellent interventions underscore the depth and breadth of this issue across Canada. And as Senator McCallum so clearly articulated last week and as Senator Bernard just did, environmental racism is one facet of the much broader intersectional issue of systemic racism.

Systemic racism both exacerbates and facilitates intersecting forms of racism to flourish and effectively normalizes and too often desensitizes the general population to its very existence and effects. In other words, environmental racism is not experienced in isolation, nor is it unintended. It can go unnoticed, however, as its consequences are rarely felt by those in the most privileged positions or locations.

Too often, we witness deliberate decisions, sometimes characterized as necessary or political compromises, whereby environmental devastation is permitted in what are often referred to as “sacrifice zones,” communities that are largely out of sight and out of mind from the general public. Such decisions are rooted in and fuel geographic racism. On a global scale, environmental racism is the logic by which particular communities, nations and places — often racialized — experience the harshest consequences of the climate crisis.

We see it in terms of the historical and ongoing seizure of land and resources that privileges the convenience and access of the most privileged, from the razing of poor and racialized communities such as Africville and green spaces for the construction of highways, airports and industry. Polluting infrastructure has been purposefully built in, over or adjacent to the backyards of poor, Indigenous and Black communities, with seemingly little regard for the impact of toxic pollutants on the respiratory or heart health of inhabitants, not to mention the racist and class-biased disregard for the corresponding proliferation of cancers and other diseases.

Last week, as I flew over Saskatchewan and into Alberta, the devastating forest fires raging in the West were top of mind. The consequences of those forest fires are immediate and devastating for Indigenous peoples and those in rural communities. The havoc wreaked will affect many people for decades to come. Many have lost their homes with nowhere to go. Many will never financially recover from these losses and will require financial supports. For many, the trauma they have experienced will require a lifetime of mental aid and support.

These forest fires are part of our climate crisis and are predictable, direct byproducts of our colonial privileging of individualistic profiteering and the pursuit of wealth through industries and the use of technology. The climate crisis is directly increasing both the severity and frequency of forest fires, and the resulting environmental, financial and personal devastation is disproportionately negatively impacting the most marginalized, racialized and disadvantaged.

Neither the trauma and hardship experienced nor the remedial resources or relief are equitably distributed. Indigenous communities are clearly signalling this.

The day I arrived in Edmonton, Carol Johnston, a resident of East Prairie Metis Settlement, was in the media describing her concerns that the communities closer to Edmonton and central Alberta were getting more attention than the northern Indigenous communities destroyed by fire. She described how the burning of 4 houses near Drayton Valley was “all over the media,” whereas the loss of 14 homes in the East Prairie settlement did not even initially warrant a mention despite the reality that the community was in dire straits.

Similarly, dozens of homes destroyed in Sturgeon Lake Cree Nation and Fox Lake in Little Red River Cree Nation received virtually no attention. The province has called on the federal government to act, but neither jurisdiction seems to have taken seriously the notice that a dozen Indigenous communities are currently affected or under threat from these wildfires. Neither the province nor the federal government seemingly wants to take responsibility for the crisis they have both played a part in creating.

To her credit, the federal Minister of Indigenous Services recognized that there were at least 150 homes lost, along with community infrastructure, and over 4,000 evacuees. Yet, we are hearing virtually nothing about support efforts. For the few we do know of, we are hearing that Indigenous peoples are having issues accessing the limited funding because they do not have sufficient identification, including identification that states they are Alberta residents.

For those who are displaced, it is often far from their communities, to places they have never been. Mayor of High Level Crystal McAteer recently explained:

Many of our evacuees come from the reserves, that like Fox Lake, for example, are remote . . . so a lot of the people have never left Fox Lake. A lot of the Elders, they speak Cree. Same with the Dene [communities] — they speak Dene. They don’t speak any other language.

With no central evacuation centres or adequate culturally safe and specific resources, families and communities are also often separated. These communities, already devastated by immeasurable loss, effectively lose their support systems, further exacerbating their traumatic experiences.

If this were anomalous, we might be less concerned. But do you remember the wildfires in British Columbia in 2021? Lytton First Nation was all but destroyed, and there was no help provided and no plan to help those most in need. As Chief Matt Pasco so chillingly reminded us then, “They had processes in places for our cattle but none for Nlaka’pamux people.”

Two years later, their community is still grappling with rebuilding while having to take on the burden of again preparing for wildfire season. They are still in severe drought conditions and at risk of another wildfire. It took 19 months for the Lytton First Nation community store to open, a temporary grocery store for the residents of the community. Before that, community members were driving upwards of three hours, travelling as far as Kamloops to buy essential food items. They are still waiting for permanent reconstruction to begin. The Mayor of Lytton, Denise O’Connor, has said:

It’s been extremely frustrating. We’ve been asking specifically for timelines and dates but it’s just not there, we’re just not getting it.

These communities are already struggling with overcrowding, lack of funding, inadequate health care and an overall deficit in social, housing, economic and health supports. Environmental crises create additional hardships and responsibilities for already struggling communities, further disadvantaging them and perpetuating the cycle of systemic inadequacies, distrust and the racism they face.

Last year, the Auditor General of Canada reported on this issue. These are the stark findings.

First:

. . . Indigenous Services Canada did not provide the support First Nations communities needed to manage emergencies such as floods and wildfires, which are happening more often and with greater intensity.

Second, they found that “. . . the department’s actions were more reactive than preventative . . .,” despite the proactive identification by First Nations communities of many infrastructure projects to mitigate the impact of emergencies. In fact, there was a backlog of 112 eligible infrastructure projects waiting to be funded.

Third — and worse yet — the Auditor General found that many issues had not been addressed or improved since they had first identified them in their 2013 audit of emergency management on reserves.

Finally:

The department also did not know whether First Nations received services that were culturally appropriate and comparable to emergency services provided in municipalities of similar size and circumstance because it did not identify or consistently monitor the services or level of services to be provided to First Nations.

Minister Hajdu said it’s clear that First Nations sit on the front lines of this environmental crisis, which has astronomical cost tied to evacuation, emergency accommodation and rebuilding of communities and livelihoods. Yet, we continue to do little or nothing to meaningfully support these communities and fail to take proactive steps to deal with the issue.

In short, the lack of a national strategy and the focus on reactive rather than preventative measures continue the privileging of the communities of the most privileged, which is just one of the many examples and forms of environmental racism that persists in Canada and that we must address. Let’s please get this to committee and continue the work.

Meegwetch. Thank you.

Hon. Marc Gold (Government Representative in the Senate): Honourable senators, I rise today to speak in support of Bill C-226, a national strategy respecting environmental racism and environmental justice act. I want to thank Senator McCallum for sponsoring this important bill. I’m happy to indicate that the government fully supports Bill C-226.

When presenting this bill in the other place, member of Parliament Elizabeth May recounted the parliamentary history of the bill as “ . . . a non-partisan effort from its very inception . . . .” Here she was referring to Bill C-226’s predecessor, Bill C-230, first introduced by the former Liberal MP Lenore Zann.

The government views Bill C-226 and its objectives to prevent and address environmental racism and to advance environmental justice as important work for all Canadians. It also aligns with the government’s commitment to introduce legislation to develop an environmental justice strategy and examine the link between race, socio-economic status and exposure to environmental risk.

If adopted, Bill C-226 would create a new act, requiring the Minister of Environment and Climate Change to develop a national strategy to promote efforts across Canada to advance environmental justice and to assess, prevent and address environmental racism. The development of a national strategy would add two important elements to the ongoing efforts to combat systemic racism and inequalities relating to the inclusion of Indigenous peoples, Black and racialized communities in environmental decision making and initiatives.

First, the process to develop the strategy would be an opportunity to pursue environmental justice by giving voice to marginalized communities to help define the problem and contribute to potential solutions. The benefits of the process are recognized in the bill, which provides that:

. . . it is important to meaningfully involve all Canadians — and, in particular, marginalized communities — in the development of environmental policy . . . .

Second, a national strategy would help frame what will need to be a diverse set of actions by a wide range of government and non-government actors, given the complex interrelationships and priorities across stakeholders, partners and policy areas. To that end, the resulting strategy will also complement other efforts and opportunities that contribute to advancing environmental justice in Canada, even where the cause of environmental injustice or the acknowledgement of environmental racism may not have been directly identified.

While many of these other initiatives may not be as explicit in their consideration of environmental justice, one example where the concept is directly incorporated is in Bill S-5, the strengthening environmental protection for a healthier Canada act. As honourable senators will recall, after our extensive consideration and study, Bill S-5 was adopted at third reading in the chamber on June 22, 2022.

This bill is now before the other place, after a thorough study by the House of Commons Standing Committee on Environment and Sustainable Development. If passed, in addition to strengthening Canada’s chemicals management regime, it would recognize a right to a healthy environment as provided under the Canadian Environmental Protection Act, 1999, more commonly known as CEPA. These amendments to CEPA would require the Minister of Environment and Climate Change and the Minister of Health to develop an implementation framework that describes how a right to a healthy environment will be considered in the administration of that act.

The framework will also elaborate on how principles, such as the principle of environmental justice, will be considered in the administration of CEPA. Through consultations, Canadians will have an opportunity to participate in the development of the implementation framework. Strengthened awareness of, and reflection on, the potential for environmental injustices in environmental protection approaches can help to avoid environmental injustices before they begin or allow better understanding of those that may already exist.

Another example of concurrent efforts that contribute to the pursuit of environmental justice in Canada is the government’s work to identify and prioritize the cleanup of contaminated sites in areas where Indigenous peoples, racialized and low-income Canadians live. Here, the emphasis on addressing contaminated sites in proximity to potentially marginalized populations aligns directly with the concern outlined in Bill C-226 that a “. . . disproportionate number of people who live in environmentally hazardous areas are members . . .” of those same communities.

Certainly, we expect that other programs that address environmental hazards such as landfills or polluting industries would similarly provide opportunities to make positive contributions to addressing environmental injustices.

We can also look to the recently released Federal Sustainable Development Strategy and how it seeks to reflect the issues of environmental equity and justice, which generally refer to equitable treatment and meaningful inclusion of all people in laws, regulations and programs to protect them from environmental hazards; avoiding the disproportionate burden of pollution and other environmental harms across identity groups and facilitating access to environmental benefits and opportunities regardless of identity factors including gender identity and expression, race, ethnicity, indigeneity, language, income or sexual orientation.

Taking into account the range of efforts outlined above, and others that may equally impact environmental justice outcomes, an important role of the national strategy will be to explain how these efforts and others work together to contribute to the strategy’s objectives. Together, there is an opportunity to move the country forward towards more fair and equitable enjoyment of a healthy environment.

A critical interest in the context of Bill C-226 is the collection and use of data to improve understanding of linkages between race, socioeconomic status and environmental risk. The passing of Bill C-226 is expected to result in further collection and compilation of data as part of the required study, which may also provide insights, including from Indigenous peoples, on data collection, disaggregation and analysis to support environmental justice.

However, it also bears mentioning that there are a wide number of datasets already available across the federal government that include information related to environmental hazards, community composition and health outcomes. Given the two-year timeline set out in the bill for developing and publishing a national strategy once the act comes into force, it is expected that the work to support the strategy would also leverage existing data from broader and ongoing government initiatives. Many of these initiatives already, directly or indirectly, assist with providing information necessary to apply an environmental justice lens to decision making.

For example, since the launch of the Canadian Health Measures Survey in 2007, Health Canada, in collaboration with the Public Health Agency of Canada and Statistics Canada, has collected information on the general health and health-related behaviours of Canadians that will help improve the prevention, diagnosis and treatment of illnesses and promote the health and wellness of Canadians. Other noteworthy examples include Statistics Canada’s Census of Environment and their work to merge existing environmental data to create comprehensive information on Canada’s ecosystem assets, which is integrated with socioeconomic data to help monitor environmental trends and better inform decision making.

Furthermore, Environment and Climate Change Canada maintains the air quality monitoring networks and is also collaborating with provinces and territories to implement the Air Quality Management System, which includes the development and establishment of industrial emissions requirements and ambient air quality standards to drive local air quality improvements.

Good information is crucial for enabling informed public decisions and holding the government accountable. The National Pollutant Release Inventory, or NPRI, plays an important role in supporting that goal. The NPRI is Canada’s legislated, publicly accessible inventory of pollutant releases, disposal and transfers. It tracks over 320 pollutants from over 7,000 facilities across Canada. Reporting facilities include factories that manufacture a variety of goods, as well as mines, oil and gas operations, power plants and sewage treatment plants. It comprises information reported by facilities to Environment and Climate Change Canada under CEPA.

The NPRI is at the centre of the government’s efforts to track toxic substances and other substances of concern. It is a key tool for identifying and monitoring sources of pollution in Canada, including information on pollution from facilities such as releases from facilities to air, water or land; disposals at facilities or other locations; transfers to other locations for treatment and recycling; facilities’ activities; location and contacts and pollution prevention plans and activities.

It is also a tool for developing indicators for the quality of our air, water and land. Information collected through the NPRI is used for chemicals management initiatives and is made publicly available to help Canadians understand pollutant releases in their communities, encourage actions to reduce pollution and help track progress to Canadians each year. Public access to the NPRI also motivates industry to prevent and reduce pollutant releases. NPRI data helps the government track progress in pollution prevention, evaluate releases and transfers of substances of concern, identify and act on environmental priorities, conduct air-quality modelling and implement policy initiatives and risk management measures.

The NPRI is increasingly adopting the knowledge-on-demand paradigm by providing tools to translate released data into more understandable interpretations of risk, impact and priorities. With this added context, priorities and challenging areas are more clearly visible along with environmental impacts on the general population, including members of Indigenous and racialized communities. Information collected through the National Pollutant Release Inventory could support the work that would be required under Bill C-226.

In addition to all the work that is already occurring, allow me to return to the amendments to CEPA in Bill S-5. These will require research, studies or monitoring activities to be conducted to support the government in protecting the right to a healthy environment. These should provide valuable information as the government moves forward on environmental justice issues. For example, they could include the collection and analysis of data to identify and monitor populations in communities that are particularly vulnerable to environmental and health risks because of greater susceptibility or greater exposure.

Finally, I want to highlight the Canadian Environmental Sustainability Indicators program, also known as CESI, which is administered by Environment and Climate Change Canada. The CESI program currently provides indicators to measure progress on key environmental issues, including targets in the Federal Sustainable Development Strategy, and provides contextual information for the Federal Sustainable Development Strategy goals. The CESI program’s experience with developing indicators that integrate data and information from several federal departments, as well as from provincial and territorial governments, would likely serve as a base to build upon to develop indicators, track progress and report on the effectiveness of a national strategy every five years, as required by Bill C-226.

All this is to say the government is committed to making a national environmental justice strategy a reality. With that in mind, I understand that they are already considering how our existing datasets, legislation and policies can work together to continue advancing environmental justice and implement Bill C-226 if passed into law.

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In conclusion, honourable senators, together with the Member of Parliament for Saanich—Gulf Islands and many of our colleagues here and in the other place, I encourage all senators to vote in favour of this bill. If it passes, a national strategy may give us the opportunity to discuss the best way to address the environmental risks affecting historically marginalized groups.

For anyone with lingering concerns, some of which were raised during the Standing Committee on Environment and Sustainable Development’s study of the bill, I would point out that the bill will ensure the strategy remains relevant by providing for a report on its effectiveness every five years. Knowing that this bill and its proposed strategy are the beginning of the journey, not the end, it’s important for us to do our part to help move things forward.

This bill won’t solve all the problems related to systemic racism or environmental inequality, but that certainly shouldn’t interfere with our social progress. Together, we can ensure this bill is examined and passed as soon as possible. From that point on, governments and communities can work together to build both confidence and knowledge and achieve more equitable outcomes with respect to the environment and justice.

Honourable senators, I’d like to thank Senator McCallum once again for her work and her advocacy, and I hope we can send this bill to committee as soon as possible.

Thank you for your attention.

Some Hon. Senators: Hear, hear!

The Hon. the Speaker: Will you take a question, Senator Gold?

The Hon. the Speaker: Senator Batters, do you have a question?

Hon. Denise Batters: Yes, I do.