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

(On motion of Senator Gold, bill placed on the Orders of the Day for second reading two days hence.)

Hon. Patti LaBoucane-Benson (Legislative Deputy to the Government Representative in the Senate): Honourable senators, I give notice that, at the next sitting of the Senate, I will move:

That, in accordance with subsection 39(1) of the Public Servants Disclosure Protection Act (S.C. 2005, c. 46), the Senate approve the appointment of Ms. Harriet Solloway as Public Sector Integrity Commissioner.

Hon. Ratna Omidvar, Chair of the Standing Senate Committee on Social Affairs, Science and Technology, presented the following report:

Thursday, June 8, 2023

The Standing Senate Committee on Social Affairs, Science and Technology has the honour to present its

SIXTEENTH REPORT

Your committee, to which was referred Bill C-242, An Act to amend the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act (temporary resident visas for parents and grandparents), has, in obedience to the order of reference of Wednesday, December 14, 2022, examined the said bill and now reports the same without amendment but with certain observations, which are appended to this report.

Respectfully submitted,

RATNA OMIDVAR

Chair

(For text of observations, see today’s Journals of the Senate, p. 1795.)

Hon. Ratna Omidvar: Honourable senators, I have the honour to inform the Senate that pursuant to the orders adopted by the Senate on April 28, 2022, and May 18, 2023, the Standing Senate Committee on Social Affairs, Science and Technology deposited with the Clerk of the Senate on June 8, 2023, its fifteenth report entitled Doing What Works: Rethinking the Federal Framework for Suicide Prevention and I move that the report be placed on the Orders of the Day for consideration at the next sitting of the Senate.

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

Hon. Senators: Hear, hear.

Hon. Marc Gold (Government Representative in the Senate) introduced Bill S-13, An Act to amend the Interpretation Act and to make related amendments to other Acts.

(Bill read first time.)

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

(On motion of Senator Gold, bill placed on the Orders of the Day for second reading two days hence.)

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

Hon. Donald Neil Plett (Leader of the Opposition): My question is again for the Trudeau leader in the Senate.

Leader, yesterday, you indicated that my questions about the made-up rapporteur and his report were not based in fact or truth. You might not like what I’m saying, but I’m laying out facts. It is a fact that the rapporteur admitted he didn’t have the information that CSIS has provided to Erin O’Toole. It is a fact that the rapporteur’s report doesn’t mention the Trudeau Foundation at all. It is a fact that his report also doesn’t mention Beijing’s police stations in our country. Leader, it is also a fact that diaspora groups that have endured Beijing’s interference came here yesterday to plead for a public inquiry.

Which of those facts do you dispute, leader?

Hon. Leo Housakos: My question is for the government leader. My question has to do with Justin Trudeau and his government’s monetary policy, or, should I say, their lack thereof.

As the Trudeau government has been spending like drunken sailors, their achievements have been record-high deficits, record-high debt and we now see record-high interest rates that Canadians haven’t seen or felt in over two decades. Canadians are paying a heavy price for these bad policies. They’re hurting. We see it; we feel it.

My question is simple: Why is it that Prime Minister Trudeau and his government don’t hear them and see them? Why is it that you got up on this floor yesterday and took pride for these economic records rather than accept shame and defeat for them? My question is really this: How come?

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

That, notwithstanding any provision of the Rules, previous order or usual practice, if Bill S-241, An Act to amend the Criminal Code and the Wild Animal and Plant Protection and Regulation of International and Interprovincial Trade Act (great apes, elephants and certain other animals), is adopted at second reading:

1.it stand referred to the Standing Senate Committee on Legal and Constitutional Affairs;

2.both the Standing Senate Committee on Agriculture and Forestry and the Standing Senate Committee on Energy, the Environment and Natural Resources be authorized to examine and report on the subject matter of the bill; and

3.the Standing Senate Committee on Legal and Constitutional Affairs be authorized to take into account any public documents and public evidence received by either of the committees authorized to study the subject matter of the bill, as well as any report from either of those committees to the Senate on the subject matter of the bill, during its consideration of the bill.

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

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

Hon. Pierre J. Dalphond: Honourable senators, I give notice that, at the next sitting of the Senate, I will move:

That the Senate acknowledge that Russian political prisoner Vladimir Kara-Murza — recipient of the Václav Havel Human Rights Prize, a Senior Fellow of the Raoul Wallenberg Centre for Human Rights, and a friend of the Parliament of Canada — is an internationally recognized champion for human rights and democracy, whose wrongful imprisonment for dissenting against the unjust war in Ukraine is emblematic of thousands of political prisoners in Russia and around the world; and

That the Senate resolve to bestow the title “honorary Canadian citizen” on Vladimir Kara-Murza and call for his immediate release.

Hon. Marc Gold (Government Representative in the Senate): Thank you for your question.

It’s the position of the government that the investments it makes, including the debt that is accrued to our national debt, were necessary, prudent and responsible in order to assist Canadians during this difficult and challenging time.

It is also the position of the government — and the facts are the facts — that its stewardship of the economy through the last many years is the envy of the Western world. Our position and our economic growth is the strongest in the G7. Our employment rates are higher than in pre-pandemic years. Inflation has been brought under control, and indeed, if the Bank of Canada raised interest rates — which have an impact on the day-to-day lives of Canadians, to be sure — it is in the service of bringing inflation down, which hurts and cripples all of us in the long term.

The unemployment rate is near its record low. The labour participation of women aged 25 to 54 reached a record high earlier this year.

The economy is in good shape thanks to businesses, workers, the provinces and territories and the contribution of the federal government, which can take some measure of credit for the responsible way in which it has managed our economy, along with all other sectors of the country.

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

Hon. Renée Dupuis: My question is for the Leader of the Government in the Senate. In recent years, women’s health research has shown that there are gaps in our knowledge about how diseases affect women. Some of these gaps in our understanding are a direct result of the fact that medical research has been conducted only on male animals and men.

The fact is, women have long been systematically excluded from studies for a variety of reasons, including convenience and prejudice. This shortcoming manifests itself in different ways, including gaps in the ability to recognize women’s symptoms, gaps in the treatments women receive, gaps in clinical management, and the risk of re-hospitalization for women aged 55 and under, which is almost double that of men the same age.

Medical circles now recognize the importance of parity in research. In their view, there is no reason to adopt a male-centric standard for heart attack symptoms, for example. Such a standard is unjustified and biased. We now know that both women and men are at risk of cardiovascular disease. Until very recently, it was thought that only men were at risk, because research focused exclusively on men, and some research found that women with cardiovascular disorders had atypical symptoms compared with men.

It is becoming increasingly clear that women and men are equally at risk of such diseases, but we’re only just beginning to recognize how symptoms present in women, because research is finally being done by and with women.

We know that health research and health care are heavily subsidized by public funds. Can you confirm that all federal health research agencies and programs now require that research on diseases not specific to men or women include both women and men in their studies?

Hon. Mary Coyle: My question is for the Government Representative in the Senate.

Senator Gold, today, June 8, is World Ocean Day, a day when people around the world rally to protect and restore our shared oceans and to ensure a stable climate. Canada has 162,000 kilometres of Arctic Ocean coastline, with sea ice across three territories and four provinces, much of it in Indigenous territory.

Yesterday, the CBC reported that according to new scientific research, the Arctic Ocean is predicted to be free of summer ice potentially as early as 2030, depending on global emissions — a full decade earlier than previous estimates. This big melt would significantly impact Arctic communities by damaging infrastructure built on increasingly unstable permafrost, and it would threaten the way of life of Arctic residents.

Ice-free summers would be devastating for the fragile ecosystems that depend on sea ice, from algae to polar bears. Canada is an Arctic nation, and the Arctic is the earth’s air conditioner, with Arctic ice and snow reflecting back 80% of the sun’s radiation. Ice-free summers in the Arctic Ocean will lead to more extreme weather events in the rest of Canada and certainly well beyond.

Senator Gold, what plans does the Canadian government have in place to respond to the multiple and serious implications of the loss of sea ice in the Arctic Ocean?

Hon. Marc Gold (Government Representative in the Senate): Thank you for raising this important question. The melting of Arctic ice at an accelerated pace is a preoccupation for all the reasons you mentioned, and they go beyond that, including the challenges for those who rely on the hunting and gathering their food — during my visit to the North a few years ago, that was evident even then — the search and rescue that follows all of that and, indeed, to our sovereignty. The government has taken action with regard to the health of our oceans, and I could — there’s much to say there.

With respect to the particular question, as there is less and less ice in the Arctic, the Department of Fisheries and Oceans along with the Canadian Coast Guard have expanded our presence and capabilities in the short-term to defend our sovereignty, defend the communities that are affected, respond to the increasing risks of climate-based disasters and are working in the scientific community to address and to continue to further address how to mitigate the effects of this seemingly, for the moment, irreversible and dangerous trend.