Senator Martin: The delayed answer I received indicates that $208 million will not be the final amount that Canadian taxpayers will provide Accenture to administer the CEBA program. The answer states:

Given Accenture’s role in CEBA to provide ongoing technology services, EDC expects a Maintenance and Support contract to be negotiated to support ongoing collection activities.

Leader, how much more money does the Trudeau government estimate Accenture will receive for the CEBA loans collection? Do you commit to being transparent with Parliament and taxpayers about these future costs? As well, could you tell us why Export Development Canada chose Accenture in the first place, and why the contracts were sole sourced?

Senator Housakos: Can you please tell the chamber what data you have? What evidence is there that members of any political party have found intrusions or misuse of their data? Where is the evidence that there has been abuse? Have there been formal complaints? Have there been numerous complaints? Have complaints been filed with the Privacy Commissioner?

As much as your speech was interesting, what are the remedies you’re proposing? From my understanding of the speech and given the fact it’s dealing with Bill C-47, there are no remedies. Am I wrong?

Senator C. Deacon: In terms of the evidence of intrusions or complaints, the Privacy Commissioner made it clear he has no jurisdiction here. He has no legal authority to engage. That’s a problem.

I look at it and say I don’t understand the reasons why political parties don’t see it appropriate to obtain consent from their members and others they gather data from and to be transparent about how those data are used. I turn it around and say: What is the problem? Why is that not happening? Why is that being rebuffed? What is anybody worried about here in a political party that they wouldn’t want to build trust with their constituents and potential constituents about how they use their data? That’s the way I look at it.

In terms of the remedies in this chamber, we all know that the budget implementation act — the BIA — has been amended in the past. That’s a fact. It was amended at the request of the Minister of Finance, I think in 2016, and at the will of the chamber there was an amendment put forward in 2017 that was rejected by the House. So it has happened. Whether that’s the way to go or if there’s another way to go, I look at it and say this is a real issue. This is an issue that, at this point, the House does not seem to be at all interested in addressing.

The political parties have rebuffed — I find it amazing — their own elected members on the Ethics Committee, two officers of Parliament who repeatedly say this is a priority for Canadians to maintain confidence in our electoral system. I don’t know what the remedies are, Senator Housakos; I’m sorry.

Senator Marshall: Thank you to all my colleagues.

I wanted to talk about the Canada Health Transfer, because there’s an extra $2 billion provided for under Division 8 of Part 4 of the bill. It’s being disbursed to all the provinces and territories on a per capita basis. We talked earlier about the economy, and I was talking about the food banks and about people finding it difficult to pay for their rent and mortgages. I know on one side we have a group saying the economy is doing fine, but there’s another group that is really struggling.

For the Canada Health Transfer, the introduction to Chapter 2 of the budget starts with this sentence:

Canadians are proud of our universal publicly funded health care system. No matter how much money you make, or where you were born, or what your parents do, you will receive the care you need.

But we now know that’s not true. Our universal health care system is not accessible to many Canadians. In fact, many Canadians are saying that our health care system has collapsed and is in crisis. Healthy Debate, which publishes journalism about health care in Canada, conducted a survey between September and October of last year, which included more than 9,000 responses across the country. Results from the survey estimated that more than one in five Canadians — this is a big number: 6.5 million people — do not have a family physician or nurse practitioner they can see regularly for care. That’s true, because I’m one of those people in Newfoundland and Labrador.

The survey found that the situation is particularly bleak in some parts of the country — in British Columbia, Quebec and the Atlantic provinces, where approximately 30% of adults, or one in three, report not having a family doctor or nurse practitioner. But the percentage is better in Ontario, because they say only about 13% don’t have a family doctor or nurse practitioner.

But 21% of those without a family doctor had to pay a fee, and the survey indicated that some people may be paying for primary care services. I assure you that some people are actually paying for primary care services that should be covered under the Canada Health Act, adding to the debate of a two-tiered health care system in Canada.

Emergency rooms are full as Canadians queue up to obtain medical care, waiting for long hours. In some communities, emergency rooms have closed and ambulance services are sporadic. A trip to the emergency department or health clinic requires you to bring a pillow, a blanket and a lunch.

Over the past 30 years, the Fraser Institute has regularly assessed the state of health care in Canada. I spoke about their report last year, but they’ve completed a more recent one.

In December of last year, specialist physicians surveyed reported a median wait time of 27.4 weeks from the time of referral from a general practitioner and receipt of treatment, which exceeded the wait time of 25.6 weeks reported in 2021 and the 20.9 weeks reported in 2019. So this year’s wait time is the longest wait time recorded in the survey’s 30-year history, and is 195% longer than in 1993 when it was just 9.3 weeks.

Canadians also had to wait for various diagnostic technologies. This year, Canadians can expect to wait 5.4 weeks for a CT scan, 10.6 weeks for an MRI and 4.9 weeks for an ultrasound.

Division 8 of Part 4 of Bill C-47 authorizes the Minister of Health to provide an additional $2 billion to the 10 provinces and 3 territories allocated, as I said earlier, on a per capita basis to address urgent pressures in emergency rooms, operating rooms and pediatric hospitals. New funding of $46.2 billion will also be provided over the next 10 years in addition to the $195.8 billion in health transfers.

I have to say that Chapter 3 of the budget book outlines the funding. There’s a graph there, and I’ve been trying for quite a while to get the numbers associated with that graph because the lines aren’t legible. So I can’t give you an idea as to what is increasing in what year, but I did add it up and there is new funding of $46.2 billion indicated. However, health care professionals are saying that the extra money isn’t enough to fix health care and is not enough to bring fundamental change to the health care system.

Last year, the Fraser Institute released a report that compared the performance of Canada’s health care system relative to its international peers. The report studied the cost of health care systems along with the provision of health care services. The provision of health care services focused on the availability, use and access to resources, along with clinical performance and quality.

All of the indicators used by the institute for the report are either publicly available or derived from publicly available data from the OECD, the Commonwealth Fund and the World Health Organization. To be considered a participant in the study, each country has to be a member of the OECD, must have universal or near-universal coverage for core medical services and must be classified as a high-income country by the World Bank. Of the 37 OECD countries —

Senator Plett: One thing that we agree on, leader, is the work that Mr. Johnston did, especially the last act: stepping down. We agree on that.

Minister LeBlanc is speaking out of both sides of his mouth, which Liberals do so well — denying a public inquiry until the Special Rapporteur steps down, but then saying a public inquiry was always on the table.

On Friday, the same day the Prime Minister’s made-up Special Rapporteur stepped down, The Globe and Mail said it asked two questions of the Special Rapporteur’s office that were not answered. They asked whether Navigator had prepublication access to the Special Rapporteur’s conclusions on a former Liberal MP who was exonerated by Mr. Johnston’s report and who had also hired Navigator. The Globe and Mail also asked if the report was shared with lawyers at the Torys law firm, who were not involved in the Special Rapporteur’s investigation, including their non-executive Chair Robert Prichard.

Leader, do you know the answers to these questions? If you don’t, leader, I expect you to pick up the phone today and find out the answers so that during Question Period tomorrow — when I ask you if you know the answers, leader — you will let us know.

Senator Gold: Again, the Government of Canada appreciates the work that the Honourable David Johnston did, regrets the degree to which his integrity was impugned and —

Senator Plett:  — to the Prime Minister.

Senator Downe: Thank you. I can’t take credit for a short speech because I had nothing prepared. I was motivated by the other two speeches. I will say this: The farmers from Prince Edward Island who have contacted me about this are concerned about the ever-increasing cost of production. The costs they’re getting for their products are not set. Consumers go into grocery stores — into Sobeys, Foodland, Loblaws — and we all recognize prices are going up substantially. But the farmers are getting very little of that return, and neither are the fishers in the region. The prices are out of whack. The consumers are paying, and the returns to farmers are not where they should be. This bill, of course, will add to the problem for those farmers. Those who are on supply management are in a different situation, and we’re very glad they’re on supply management.

I might add that the farmers in rural Prince Edward Island who are in supply management have a quality of life that we would all want to obtain and that we would want all farmers to have. They also, because of that income, can contribute to the community — fundraisers, benefit concerts. They stay in the community, they provide for the community and they advance the growth of the community. It’s very important for rural Prince Edward Island.

Senator Woo: You make the point that natural gas is not used in P.E.I. and therefore the province does not have the benefit of falling prices, which both Senator Dalphond and have I described. You mentioned that propane is a preferred source of energy. Can you confirm to the chamber that propane prices have also fallen dramatically? In fact, they have fallen by half in the last year.

Senator Plett: Let me, first of all, start by saying my son tried it a second time and it didn’t work the second time around.

Senator Forest, you are using comparisons like I did at the start of my speech. We’re comparing apples to oranges. I do not agree that a parent should be hitting their children out of anger. I am sorry if somewhere in my speech — I get accused of a lot of things, but it is not very often not being clear when I speak. I think that I was fairly clear in that a slap on the bum, in love — not out of anger — is what I’m talking about.

Let’s compare that to whether that hurts a child, not whether somebody beats their child, senators, as I stated in my speech and said this is an assault on children. I don’t believe in that.

Our party, the Conservative Party, is the toughest party in Parliament on crime. I believe every child molester, every abuser of children should be locked up. But I’m not a child molester, Senator Forest, if I, in love, give my son two slaps on the bum. That is not child molestation. That’s loving discipline.

[Translation]

Senator Marshall: Our health care system is expensive, and our results are modest to poor.

Senator McPhedran: As a point of clarification, Senator Plett, how do we regulate this when you give a specific example about an acceptable limit of physical contact or physical punishment that happens in the privacy of a home or other location where the recipient of those two slaps, for example, has no power, no voice and no way of getting beyond that private situation?

Senator Simons: Senator Plett, I agree with you that parents should have the right to raise children according to their own principles. I wonder about the principles that support the idea of hatemongers travelling from British Columbia to come and stand outside Ottawa schools to harass queer and trans children and to punch an MPP from Ottawa in the face outside that rally.

Perhaps if you are not opposed to smacking children, you are not opposed to transphobes punching MPPs.

Senator Downe: No, I cannot. But I can tell you that our costs in P.E.I. are substantially higher across the board for most energy than in other regions and provinces. The last time I checked, for example, we have the highest electricity rates in Canada.

Hon. Wanda Thomas Bernard: Honourable senators, I rise today, grateful to be on Algonquin Anishinaabe territory, to bring attention to the remarkable contributions of Eddie Carvery III, a community advocate, activist and the grandson of activist Eddie Carvery, whom I introduced last week.

Following in the footsteps of his grandfather — Eddie Carvery, Sr. — Eddie III has an unwavering dedication to social justice. He is relentless in his pursuit of equality and inclusion for the people of Africville. Eddie is the co-creator and co-host of the award-winning podcast “Africville Forever,” produced during the peak of the 2020 Black Lives Matter movement and the surge of awareness regarding anti-Black racism globally.

Witnessing his grandfather’s activism and having his own personal and profound experiences of anti-Black racism pushed Eddie to embark upon a new approach to carry on the legacy of his ancestors. “Africville Forever” engages listeners through the stories, struggles and resilience of Africville, with the hope that Africville continues to be acknowledged worldwide. It highlights the persistent desire of community members to one day return to Africville, ensuring that the land is returned and developed for the benefit of the entire community.

Eddie also gives back to his community through his professional life, ensuring African Nova Scotians have a place in an industry that occupies the land that was previously Africville. Eddie serves as the implementation lead for the African Nova Scotian Pathways to Port Careers Project. His focus is on engaging youth by creating career opportunities for African Nova Scotians in port and port-adjacent fields.

I admire Eddie Carvery III. I admire his commitment to preserving Africville’s history through podcasting and his essential work in creating employability opportunities for his community. He is leading real change.

Eddie Carvery III is living evidence of the multi-generational resilience within the Carvery family, African Nova Scotians, African people and the descendants of Africville. For this reason, I stand with Eddie on his quest for justice, equality and the restoration of Africville’s rightful place within our society.

Thank you, asante.

[Translation]

Senator Plett: Well, clearly provincial laws are very specific when it comes to certain issues, such as I raised where the Prime Minister is now delving into fighting with a provincial premier on something that is involved with the schools. Other than that, Senator Omidvar, I’m not sure. This is dealing with the Criminal Code, so that is what I have been focusing on. Again, I apologize. That is something that we, again, should probably raise at committee to see what roles the provinces play in that.

[Translation]

Senator Plett: No, no, that’s fine.

Senator Forest: Senator Plett, we will agree that laws are made to protect the weakest individuals from those who might go too far.

The example you gave about your son demonstrates your thoughtful consideration because you explained to him why you wanted to give him a spanking. However, not every father is like you, and your son — who seems quite brilliant — put his arms around your neck knowing that would influence the outcome.

Don’t you believe, when we look at the population in general, that the bill we are studying wouldn’t protect children because action would only be taken if the punishment leaves a mark? There are times when a spanking leaves no mark, for example, when a child is wearing a diaper.

Don’t you think that this bill will end up protecting those who are not as level-headed as you are and don’t have a child as smart as yours?

There may be situations where the father loses his temper and things get out of hand to the point where the child suffers the consequences.

[English]

Senator McPhedran: Thank you very much. It is a short question, and something that troubled me for many years and I want to share it with you.

How is it that we, as lawmakers, can justify that physical assault from any one of us as an adult against another adult is illegal, but a similar level of assault by a parent against a child is legal in Canada and would continue to be so if we don’t follow through on this bill?

Senator Simons: Are you not going to answer the question I already asked?

Senator Plett: Certainly.