Senator Plett: You really prepare your answers before the questions are even asked. This didn’t touch upon the question I asked, leader.

Trudeau is not a serious leader, and the world knows it. It’s one thing for Prime Minister Trudeau to destroy his own personal reputation all over the world, but he is also destroying Canada’s reputation.

Answer this question, Senator Gold: This is just like Canada’s exclusion from the AUKUS security pact. Your government wasn’t invited. They found out about it after the fact, and then downplayed its significance. It’s the same thing all over again, Senator Gold — isn’t it?

Senator Tannas: To your first point, every province has a different scheme, and we did not spend a lot of time analyzing those schemes because we want to get the province out of the way. To the extent that the province takes, in some cases, 70% of the profit and returns a small amount of that, which they decide, to whoever they decide should get it and leaves 15% of the profit with the host community, there are all of these schemes that involve so many percentage points going in all directions. That’s not for us to decide.

In this case, we’re handing over jurisdiction, just like we did with the provinces. There were no conditions. The agreement that transferred this authority to the provinces is about three pages long, and two pages of it is signatures. It was not complicated and it wasn’t fraught with a whole bunch of conditions that the federal government said they wanted to have in the future.

I know it’s risky. I know our reflex is to say that we can’t trust them with this. Well, I’m sorry; we have to. We have to believe that Indigenous governments will get it right. That is the whole point.

On the second issue, which is sort of the same issue, we need to understand. I think the operators understand who their customers are and they have actioned the idea of an Indigenous gaming commission that they would all belong to. It was passed as a motion to begin to build a framework at AFN — Assembly of First Nations — just a few months ago. They are doing the work to put that in place.

They also have the example of the United States. When the rights and jurisdiction were given over, there was some disruption and dislocation, and there needed to be a collective that brought good standards and the right policies together. But again, that is for those nations to decide. This is business that is being conducted on their lands.

We could spend months or years dreaming up all the rules, regulations, conditions and so on that we’d like to place on the First Nations in order for them to take up a right that they assert is already theirs. That’s not what we should do. It’s not what was done with the provinces. We trusted the provinces to come up with the right rules, regulations, schemes, wealth transfers and so on. We need to do the same with Indigenous governments if we believe this.

Senator Housakos: Senator Gold, as if it isn’t bad enough that the Auditor General wasn’t informed of the RCMP investigation into the “ArriveScam,” last week when she appeared at a House committee, your Liberal-NDP government shut down her testimony after only a few minutes — claiming that she had nothing more to add.

How would your government know what she did — or didn’t — have to add, Senator Gold? What do you know that the rest of us don’t know? What is your government hiding when it comes to this?

Hon. Donald Neil Plett (Leader of the Opposition): Colleagues, while most of us were peacefully sleeping in our beds on Friday, October 6, the sirens in central and southern Israel began to blare out a warning of incoming rockets. This sound is not unusual for those who live in Israel, but as the sun began to rise that Saturday morning, what was about to transpire was far from ordinary and would shake the world.

As thousands of rockets screamed through the sky, bulldozers and bombs breached the fence separating Israel from Gaza, and armed Hamas terrorists streamed through the openings. The jihadists poured into the country by air, land and sea, with the clear and premeditated intent of carrying out unthinkable atrocities on men, women and children.

As the video evidence and eyewitness accounts would later show, Hamas entered 22 communities, opening fire on unprotected homes and indiscriminately killing women, children and the elderly in an unmitigated display of evil. In one community, over 40 babies were massacred, some of them beheaded. Video footage showed their bloody cribs standing as a silent testimony to the barbarism of the attackers. At a music festival, young people were sprayed with bullets and rocket propelled grenades, killing over 200 of them. When they fled and hid, their attackers hunted them for hours, summarily executing them in cold blood when and where they were discovered. Entire families were kidnapped, along with mothers, children, the elderly and even the disabled, to be held as hostages or simply executed later in cold blood. Women were assaulted, raped and then paraded around as trophies. In total, more than 1,300 civilians were slaughtered.

This, colleagues, is the true face of Hamas, an anti-Semitic, Islamic jihadist group dedicated to the annihilation of the Jewish people and destruction of the Jewish state. This is the work of evil and sadistic men without a conscience, who take pleasure in the most barbaric acts imaginable and then celebrate them.

But while I was horrified to see the bloody carnage left by the terrorists, I was stunned to later see a surge of pro-Palestinian demonstrations celebrating the massacre and cheering on the terrorists. In cities across Canada, they danced, marched and waved their flags as if this was some kind of victory for their cause. It was sickening.

There is nothing to be celebrated here, colleagues. This cruelty does not advance anything but an agenda of evil.

Today, I stand with Israel and its right to defend itself, and I encourage every senator and every Canadian to do the same.

Thank you, colleagues.

Senator Cotter: If I may, I have a jurisdiction question, Senator Tannas. The language in the preamble speaks to the inherent right of First Nations and the like, along the lines that Senator McCallum had raised earlier, but the bill is actually structured to be a delegation under the Criminal Code, so I’m curious about that.

Another dimension of this is that the structure of the bill says that when a First Nation gives notice to Canada that it intends to establish a gaming regime on its reserve, that First Nation, for the purposes of gaming, is deemed to no longer be part of the province in which it’s situated. It struck me as a unique provision that First Nations, for certain purposes, are deemed not to actually be part of the province anymore. I wonder if you could speak to those jurisdictional questions.

Senator Tannas: Yes. They are part of the challenge of reconciliation. It certainly will come across that way in things like child and family social services. It will come that way in education. It will come that way in health. It will come that way in a whole bunch of different areas over the course of time, and it will have to be dealt with.

All we wanted to do, and the simplest thing to do today, was to put Indigenous governments on their reserves where they have jurisdiction in the same position as the provinces. That was the simplest way to do it. There may be, in the fullness of time, other ways in which it could be done. There may be a point when the provinces can’t agree on things and we have to come up with a national gaming scheme. Who knows? But I would not want a new set of soothing words about a “someday, maybe” national gaming program that would include First Nations to get in the way of doing something that’s simple and elegant today.

Senator Gold: As I said, I’m not aware that there are plans to update them, but I will certainly raise that with the appropriate ministers.

Senator Tannas: Yes. Certainly for the host reserves, this would be a large revenue generator. Chief Roy Whitney of the Tsuut’ina estimates that over the history of the Grey Eagle casino, that community has given the province of Alberta a half of a billion dollars that would otherwise have gone into their community for that kind of infrastructure. It would help with all the programs we are busy giving them and downloading to them.

There’s no question — we’re talking hundreds of millions of dollars a year that would go into those communities for economic activities that are on their reserve where they have invested the capital to make it happen.

Senator Duncan: Senator Tannas, in light of the fact that Diamond Tooth Gerties has been licensed since long before I was legal to be drinking or gambling there — I was, honest — do you not think that because these special provisions were licensed by Canada and they have worked all these years as tourism and as an economic generator, and because the Yukon also has government-to-government-to-government relationships with First Nations, perhaps it would be worthy of study by your committee or by the group studying this legislation? To that effect, I would not consider proposing an amendment without substantial consultation — to Senator Batters’ point — with the territory and the First Nation governments. It needs to be all three at least.

Senator Tannas: It is technologically neutral. It doesn’t speak to whether or not a First Nation has the right to make book in Ontario. It doesn’t say it can’t. It doesn’t say it can.

It’s the same problem that the provinces have with each other. It’s the same problem that we have with the Bahamas. It is sovereign governments that don’t know how to protect their own gaming in a world that is the way it is.

Court is probably the best way to go, but this bill will not impact it, positively or negatively — in my opinion and in the opinion of the counsel for drafting — one way or another.

(On motion of Senator Martin, debate adjourned.)

Senator Woo: Your speech is very timely given that we’ve just received the response from the foreign minister on the sanctions from the Magnitsky study, one of the findings of which you may recall is that the efficacy of our sanctions regime, particularly autonomous sanctions, including Magnitsky and some of the others you have described, have not been proven. We’re not clear that sanctions actually make a difference, based on the objectives that were set for sanctions — changing behaviour and so on.

I’m very supportive of the idea of war reparations along the lines of what happened after the Second World War. I’m not so sure about your proposal.

I’ll give you a preamble before I ask my question, but it sounds to me that while we talk about the importance of upholding international law, what you’re proposing essentially is executive power to override accepted international law, which strikes me as undermining a principled stand on the importance of upholding international law.

The reality of central bank assets is that most of them — about 70% — are held in U.S. dollars, maybe 20% to 30% in euros, the balance in Japanese yen and perhaps a few other small currencies, and a small amount in gold, which means that most of the foreign assets of any central bank will be held in the United States.

That gives me pause when you talk about how we should set the example. Not for us, because there really are very few central bank assets held in Canada. It gives me pause as to what kind of message and lesson, to use your term, we are passing to the United States, which has used its power to seize central bank assets in ways that are perhaps less edifying than you would present.

The Iraq example is not particularly encouraging when you think about how subsequent events in Iraq have unfolded and how the money could have been used for reconstruction. The example of Afghanistan is particularly discouraging, because the assets of the bank have been seized essentially to pay Americans off for the World Trade Center.

What leads you to think that this example, which really will be mostly for the Americans, will be used in a way that, in fact, respects international law and which promotes peace and comity in our world rather than more conflict?

Senator Omidvar: Thank you, Senator Woo. I’m trying to locate the question. Forgive me for trying to locate it.

Your first question is whether this is against international norms. I’m simply going to repeat what people far wiser than me have said. Again, Laurence Tribe, a well-known U.S. constitutional lawyer, said that Russia cannot hide behind international norms when it is breaking every one of them itself.

On the question that we are doing this so that the U.S. will follow, we all know that the U.S. system is “executive-order-happy,” if I may use that term. They tend to use it at many times.

Our proposal is different because even if it is executive action that generates the seizure of assets, it has to be grounded in the conditions of SEMA — the Special Economic Measures Act; those two conditions have to be met. There has to be a breach of international peace and security, and there have to be gross human rights violations.

The proposal that is being considered in the U.S. actually mirrors this proposal and anchors executive action — seizure of state assets — in domestic law. We’re a step ahead of them, if I may say, because that is precisely what we are doing. It is not cowboy, willy-nilly executive action. It is executive action based on certain conditions and criteria.

I hope I located your question.

Senator Woo: If I could then ask the question more specifically, which I think I did at the very end, what gives you the confidence that our American friends, who will be the principal users of this example you’ve set, will, in fact, use this tool with Canada as the cover, as setting the example? Because we’re not going to use this; this is not principally for Canada.

What gives you the confidence that they will not use it in a way that, in fact, violates international law and harms the prospects of countries simply because they have a political disagreement with those countries?

I hope that question is very clear this time.

Senator Omidvar: It is very clear. If the U.S. follows our example and anchors their legislation on state asset seizure in domestic law, as we are doing, then we will have set the right path.

Hon. Senators: Hear, hear.

Hon. Senators: Agreed.

Senator Klyne: Yes.

Senator Plett: Thank you, Senator Klyne.

At the start of your speech, I think I heard you talk about the worst forest fire season in history and the warmest temperatures in history. I don’t want to get into a debate. I might take some time to speak about this at some later time —

Senator Batters: In your speech tonight you referenced that Russian assets in Canada were thought to be “negligible.” I’m just wondering what basis you have to say that, because I thought that that wasn’t the case. It seems like every so often, when we hear about potential oligarch assets in Canada, we hear that there have been, thus far, relatively limited real results produced by actions taken by Canada’s government.

I actually thought that very little had been seized thus far in Canada. Why do you think that there is just a negligible amount left?

Senator Omidvar: Thank you, Senator Batters. In December of 2021, just before Russia invaded Ukraine, according to the public accounts of Russia, state bank assets totalling $16 billion were located in Canada. Russia subsequently removed $16 billion to Belgium in, as I said, likely a pre-emptive move. This is all public information that I had gleaned.

What I don’t know is if they’ve got anything left outside of, maybe, their embassy here.

Senator Cotter: Thank you.

This is a fascinating initiative, Senator Tannas. It raises a variety of fascinating potentials and also some challenges.

I want to begin by channelling Senator Batters, if I might. In Saskatchewan, there are casinos on reserve — on roughly five reserves. Every dollar that is earned in those casinos goes back to First Nations communities now as is.

Second, that money is distributed, pro rata, to all the bands in the province, even the ones in the Far North that could never sustain a casino even if they wanted one; there would be no customers.

So empowering individual First Nations that are in attractive geographical locations to have the jurisdiction to operate their own casinos seems to be, quite frankly, a disruption of that fairly equitable arrangement in Saskatchewan. The band outside of Saskatoon — my good friend and yours, Darcy Bear, oversees a casino on the White Cap Dakota reserve, but the money that casino makes gets pooled in a province-wide arrangement. It seems to me that your proposal makes it possible that Chief Bear could carry on with his casino and keep all the profits, which would be great for White Cap Dakota — as it is for some First Nations around Phoenix, for example — but it is not so good for the rest of the province.

Could you comment on that?

Senator Tannas: Yes, and you’re right —

Senator Miville-Dechêne: Thank you. I’d still like to add one thing to the question you’re going to ask: Can the law be changed?

It seems rather absurd to spend millions of dollars on hotel rooms for up to a year, I’m told, rather than to ask and fund non‑profits capable of rehousing them for less in society, and helping them. This seems like an inconsistency that needs to be corrected.