Senator Gold: I guess I cannot get tired of responding to these allegations of fraud and corruption, which are not founded on the facts. ArriveCAN cost far too much, and the real problems have been revealed and are being explored. It was used by 60 million Canadians during the pandemic to facilitate their travel across the borders.

Again, I will continue to answer questions so long as it continues to serve your purposes.

Senator Kutcher: Thank you very much for that. I do very much appreciate that your perspective is different than mine. That’s fine and that’s okay, but I think we do have to actually look at what the evidence tells us, and we have to look at what causes discrimination for one group against another group of people for the same argument. I would encourage all of us to think about that.

You mentioned Dr. Kim in your speech. Are you aware that the evidence he gave before the Superior Court Of Québec was discounted and that the judge had substantive concerns about the quality of the evidence that he gave? Maybe you weren’t aware. Otherwise, you probably wouldn’t have quoted him here. I think people need to know that some of the information you provided was actually already litigated in court and the courts found not to support it.

[Translation]

Senator Pate: Thank you very much, Senator Gold. I appreciate that.

Given the repeated calls of the Office of the Correctional Investigator, and the most recent inquest into the death of Terry Baker and that of Ashley Smith, as well as the countless other inquests and inquiries that people with disabling mental health issues be transferred out of prisons to mental health settings, could you please identify what other concrete steps the government is taking to ensure access to sufficient external mental health beds?

Senator Miville-Dechêne: That’s a difficult question. I don’t think politics is a perfect science. I think we’re all trying to find the right way forward in dealing with the very difficult issue that is MAID, broadly speaking.

I think there are specific criteria for psychiatric illnesses that make irremediable consequences generally more difficult to establish than for physical illnesses. I’m not saying, Senator Kutcher, that this is absolute. I’m saying that, based on what I’ve read and on the discussions I’ve had, this is part of the difficulty.

I also think that the safeguards need to be robust. I understand that it is difficult and, as you know, our opinions on this issue differ. I understand that there are people who are waiting for this help and who are suffering, but I believe that what happened in Belgium and the Netherlands shows us that once we open MAID up to those with psychiatric problems... When 1,150 people are requesting MAID in a country that is smaller than Canada, that’s a lot of people. You often talk about people you know who have indeed had illnesses for a very long time, who have tried every treatment, but once that door is open, how will it work? Unlike you, I don’t have absolute confidence in all doctors, all medications and all treatments. I think there are abuses. The fact that there have been 16 cases of MAID in Quebec where tough questions are being asked because it appears the law was not followed shows that these questions are far from easy.

I don’t have a definite answer. I wonder, I have doubts and I think you do, too. However, we have fairly opposite points of view on this issue.

[English]

Senator Gold: Again, that is an important question and a complicated one with regard to — as is too often the case — matters of jurisdiction and provincial responsibility. However, I can say that the government remains committed to supporting all Canadians with their mental health needs and challenges, including substance use challenges, and I will certainly raise this with the minister as well when I have the first opportunity.

Senator Gold: Thank you for the question, senator.

The Government of Canada has been supporting provincial governments and their health care systems for many years with large sums of money. Most recently, as we know, the federal government has entered into bilateral agreements with all the provinces and territories respecting, as it must, the constitutional jurisdiction of provinces to determine what their priorities are.

As the Minister of Health shared with us at the Committee of the Whole, each of these bilateral agreements will have funds dedicated for different purposes, and some — but I can’t give you a figure — are going as well to enhance mental health supports. And the government will continue to work with the provinces and territories to do its part to improve access to mental health supports and other ancillary supports in the provinces and territories and in Indigenous communities as well.

We will never have a system that is perfect, and the government is not pretending that everything will be perfect in three years. There will always be — regrettably, tragically, and one can even say shamefully — inequities in access to health care services. It’s not only urban versus rural. It’s even within classes of people within any given area.

The Government of Canada is continuing to do its part with the provinces and territories to provide as much support as it can. Provinces are doing their part as well. The expectation is that with all of the measures that are being done — within the profession, within the provinces and territories, within the institutions such as the hospitals of Ontario or the hospitals in my province and elsewhere — the system will be ready.

Senator Osler: Thank you, Senator Gold. I would suggest that now more than ever when it comes to health care, the federal government should take a leadership role in the spirit of cooperative federalism.

You mentioned the bilateral health care agreements. The health ministers met with Minister Holland in November, and I believe health care agreements have been signed with all but one province/territory.

Are you able to share if a plan for helping the health care system issues was discussed at any of those tables?

Senator Gold: Thank you for the question, Senator Kutcher, and also for all the work you have done in educating us and advancing this issue and putting it on the legislative agenda, as we in the Senate did.

In pointing out that only 2% of psychiatrists are trained, it was not to say anything other than the assessment of irremediability and the assessment of someone who is seeking MAID on the basis of mental illness will fall to a large degree — though not completely — on those with psychiatric training and who have received MAID assessment training.

Again, there is no qualitative difference in the suffering at issue, but it may be — and it is believed by many from whom we heard — that there is a more challenging assessment process and a need, perhaps, for greater safeguards with regard to people who present with a mental illness as a sole underlying condition than those who present in the advanced stages of an incurable physical disease and the like.

It’s not a question of why it’s okay for one and not for the other. What we are being told, Senator Kutcher and colleagues, is that the system as a whole is not ready and that even at Track 2 there is a challenge, in some jurisdictions especially, to respond, in their view, adequately to the demand. And the worry, as was expressed, I believe, by CAMH or other testimony, is that simply the system is not ready to provide all of the support needed, not only for the assessors but for the related personnel and the like.

That’s the position of the government with regard to the number of trained assessors at this juncture.

Senator Gold: Senator Woo, Canada is not committing war crimes. It is not complicit in war crimes. Therefore, I think we as lawmakers have nothing to fear for actions that Canada has taken on the world stage to try to bring an end to the conflict, to provide humanitarian assistance to those in need and also to defend Israel’s right to defend itself against terrorist attack.

Senator Gold: Thank you. The government is committed to working with producers and other businesses, grocers and stakeholders to avoid increasing the cost of food and increasing food waste. My understanding is that the government has been very clear that it wants to collaborate with such stakeholders, producers and grocers on implementing solutions that exist, while avoiding the negative consumer and environmental outcomes.

[Translation]

Senator Gold: I’m not sure that that’s the only consequence, if there still remain differences of opinion between clinicians, and I think it would be idle to assume that what is necessary is that every clinician, whatever discipline or specialty, is of one mind, leaving aside issues of conscience and the like.

I think what is necessary, though — and that is what we are told by the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health, or CAMH, the Ontario Hospital Association and others — is that there needs to be much more specific criteria developed within that community for deciding exactly what measures, for example, might need to be taken before one could conclude that all steps have been taken to no avail to alleviate suffering.

I have confidence in the medical community. I have confidence in the regulatory bodies that are working on this. People are working hard at this and in good faith. In jurisdictions like my own in Quebec or like in British Columbia, these are not jurisdictions that are ideologically opposed to MAID generally or to MAID Track 2 or to MAID for mental illness. It is simply not the case that they are looking for an extension because they wish the thing would go away. They say, “We are working really hard at this, but we need to do more, and we need to drill down deeper. We need more assessors trained. The take-up has been reasonable but not overwhelming.” It is a long process to get fully trained, as the Minister of Health said.

I have confidence in our systems to get ready, because I think the extension requires them to get ready, and they have been working really hard at it. We are just not there yet.

Senator Black: Thank you. The price of food will increase 34% above current levels, and Canadians will lose 50% of value-added fresh products. It was also found through studies that the proposed regulations could increase fresh produce food waste by more than 50% above the current levels for multiple produce categories. So not only will this policy impact the affordability and availability of fresh produce, it will also create more waste and increase greenhouse gas emissions. How does the government plan to mitigate these issues?

Senator Housakos: Senator Gold, the only thing your government is doing is trying to obstruct the parliamentary committee from getting to the bottom of things. You’re deleting emails and preventing us from obtaining answers to simple questions. Senator Gold, “ArriveScam” has been slammed by the procurement watchdog and the Auditor General, and it is currently under criminal investigation. Are they all partisan as well? We know that, at minimum, at least 10,000 Canadians were mistakenly sent to quarantine by glitches of this shameful app. Senator Gold, how can your government — in good conscience — continue to fight these Canadians in court and hold them to huge outstanding fines in relation to what we now know was a fraudulent app?

Senator Gignac: Thank you for your answer, Senator Gold. I’d like to point out that Canada is part of the G7. I’m therefore not surprised that its budget puts it in seventh or eighth place.

Despite its seven-party coalition government, Belgium agreed last June to meet the target of 2% of GDP by 2035 through binding legislation.

Do you think that the government could follow the example of our Belgian friends and introduce a legislative framework that compels compliance with our international obligations?

Senator Gold: No amount of allegation and innuendo about corruption and the like — upon which there is no evidence — can replace the fact that police investigations are under way. The facts will be revealed when those investigations are completed.

Senator Gold: Thank you for the question. The government has agreed to balance its national and international commitments while actively increasing its defence spending. As the Prime Minister said during his visit to Ukraine, a lot remains to be done regarding defence spending, and the government is determined to meet the 2% target in due course.

Hon. Peter M. Boehm: Honourable senators, I rise today to mark the second anniversary of Russia’s illegal and egregious invasion of Ukraine on February 24, 2022. I also wish to acknowledge the killing of Alexei Navalny, the brave and dedicated opposition leader and voice against the injustice and corruption of Vladimir Putin’s revanchist regime. Because of his ceaseless activism to better his country for his family and fellow Russians, Navalny was killed by Putin and the Russian state. That Navalny was killed is a testament to his impact.

I attended the recent Munich Security Conference where, on February 16, Navalny’s widow, Yulia Navalnaya, stood before us shortly after the world learned of her husband’s murder. Ms. Navalnaya’s brave message was clear: Putin and his cronies “will be brought to justice, and this day will come soon.”

In recent years, February has become a significant month in the bloody history between Ukraine and Russia. In 2022, Russia invaded Ukraine again after its previous February invasion in 2014 that resulted in Russia’s illegal annexation of Crimea on March 18 of that year. On February 16 of this year, we learned of Navalny’s killing in a Russian prison, and on February 27, 2015, another noted opposition leader and fierce Kremlin critic, Boris Nemtsov, was assassinated in Moscow.

The deaths of these activists — and the killings and attempted murders of others — further exacerbate the human toll of Russia’s longstanding aggression toward Ukraine. I know we all share concern for the health and safety of our friend Vladimir Kara-Murza imprisoned in Russia since 2022.

Colleagues, after attending the Munich Security Conference, I participated, along with our colleague Senator Wells, in the Winter Meeting of the OSCE Parliamentary Assembly in Vienna. While the tone was dark, reflecting the sombre state of world affairs, I can attest to the palpable sense of solidarity among global leaders to bring an end to the war in Ukraine and to Putin’s reign.

A sustainable Ukrainian victory relies on two principles: first, ensuring that Ukraine has all it needs to defeat Russia on the battlefield; and second, a viable plan to rebuild Ukraine to ensure its prosperity and security after the fighting stops. As the war grinds into its third year, Russia is counting on Western support for Ukraine to decline. I know that Canada, for one, will continue to stand with Ukraine on all fronts.

Colleagues, as I said in my statements in the hours after the invasion in 2022 and on its first anniversary last year, Canada, and all democracies around the world, must remain united in both condemning and opposing Russia’s actions and in our steadfast support for Ukraine and its strong, resilient people. On that, we must not falter. Thank you.

Senator Martin: It’s actually quite unfathomable that four years’ worth of emails are missing. That’s a lot. Four years, leader. It is ironic, to say the least, that the former CBSA official at the centre of the deleted “ArriveScam” emails is currently the Chief Technology Officer for the entire Government of Canada.

Since it learned of the allegations that four years’ worth of his emails were deleted, what has the Trudeau government done to recover them? Has it done anything?

Senator Gold: I’m not in a position to answer the question of what steps have been taken. I will certainly raise that with the minister at my earliest possible opportunity.

Senator Miville-Dechêne: The United Kingdom, France, Germany and the European Union have adopted age verification laws to access online porn. They have safeguards to ensure privacy of data, like Bill S-210. Why not look at these examples instead of deciding to allow children to freely access the porn sites?