Senator Gold: I will make inquiries and report back.

Hon. Marc Gold (Government Representative in the Senate): Thank you for your question. The government’s Fall Economic Statement and its management of the economy are proving to be sound and responsible. Federal spending dropped 21.6% between 2020-21 and 2021-22. I understand the most recent job numbers released by Statistics Canada show that our labour market gained over 100,000 jobs in October, with an unemployment rate of 5.2% below pre-pandemic levels. Our rate of real GDP growth remains at 2.3% — above its pre-pandemic level back in the fourth quarter of 2019. Our growth remains strong. S&P recently reaffirmed our AAA rating with a stable outlook, and this further highlights Canada’s responsible fiscal framework.

In addition, I note that in the recent update of the Parliamentary Budget Officer, or PBO, it states:

For the current fiscal year 2022-23, PBO projects the deficit to decline to $25.8 billion (0.9 per cent of GDP) under status quo policy.

It goes on, “. . . the budgetary deficit is projected to decline further, reaching $3.1 billion (0.1 per cent of GDP) in 2027-28 . . . .”

Canada came into the pandemic with the lowest net debt‑to‑GDP ratio in the G7, and we’ve increased our relative advantage throughout this period.

Hon. Leo Housakos: Government leader, the Leader of the Opposition attempted to get some straight answers, and clearly all he got was talking points about what a great job the government has done.

I can tell you that, in the last couple of weeks, I have been meeting with people on the front lines, with middle-class and poor communities, directors of school boards and teachers. There is a sad and historic fact that kids are going to school with hungry stomachs. There are currently soup kitchens with record demand in our city of Montreal.

Don’t tell us what the government has done so successfully, because what I got back from teachers and school board directors is that kids are showing up with no supplies, old shoes and boots, worn-out coats and hungry stomachs. Don’t tell us the successes, because these are facts; we can tour the school boards together in Montreal. Tell us how this is going to be resolved.

Hon. René Cormier: Honourable senators, I rise briefly today to speak about the report of the Standing Senate Committee on Official Languages tabled in this chamber on November 17 in relation to the subject matter of Bill C-13, An Act to amend the Official Languages Act, to enact the Use of French in Federally Regulated Private Businesses Act and to make related amendments to other Acts.

People have been waiting many years for the Official Languages Act to be modernized given that the last major reform of this quasi-constitutional act dates back to 1988.

The Standing Senate Committee on Official Languages produced five reports on this issue between 2017 and 2019 following a comprehensive study involving the participation of many people and industry stakeholders. Obviously, the idea of modernizing this act is nothing new.

Since May 31, 2022, as part of its pre-study on the subject matter of the bill, the committee held eight meetings, heard from 41 witnesses and received 22 briefs.

The committee placed a particular focus on the study of certain parts of Bill C-13, namely the provision regarding the bill’s purpose, Part VII, the new powers of the Commissioner of Official Languages, and the new legislation on the use of French in federally regulated private businesses.

I want to sincerely thank all the committee members for their hard work and commitment throughout this pre-study process. I would also like to thank the witnesses as well as the organizations and individuals who appeared or submitted a brief during this process.

Centred around seven main themes, this report sets out the committee’s general observations on selected issues that either achieved consensus or divided the experts and stakeholders.

The committee is asking the federal government to consider, without delay, the various issues raised in this report.

Colleagues, I believe that the numerous and varied reactions described in this report demonstrate that Bill C-13, once passed, will shape the future and the vitality of our two official languages and our country. I also believe that this report will help you to reflect on the merits of this legislation.

As chair of this committee, I am therefore pleased and honoured to have tabled this report in the Senate.

Thank you. Meegwetch.

(On motion of Senator Martin, debate adjourned.)

Hon. David Richards: Honourable senators, this is Senator Ravalia’s bill that I will speak to in support.

I grew up in an area where, years ago, 15-year-old boys carried wood on their backs to the yard in the fall and skipped school to work in the holds of ships for $1 an hour and, coming from very little, made decent lives for themselves, never took a penny that was not theirs or committed a crime, and so I believe in self‑determination and integrity as much as anyone in this chamber.

However, there are those so damaged in the womb, they come to the world with very little hope of integrity or knowledge of self.

My sister-in-law fostered children with fetal alcohol syndrome for many years. She did so because of an obligation, having had a foster brother with fetal alcohol syndrome and no longer knowing where he is or, in fact, what jail he might be in. He is in his late 40s and she is not really sure if he is still alive. He asked her the last time she saw him if she knew why he was in jail because he did not himself know or remember.

You might recognize fetal alcohol children; their features are ever so slightly altered. Many times they have a flat surface where the nose ridge should be. Oftentimes they cannot stand noise, and worse, as children, many cannot stand another’s physical touch, so a bond with someone like her foster brother to my sister-in-law was almost impossible.

Sometimes anything at all will unsettle a fetal alcohol child and she or he will begin to scream and be unable to stop. Therefore, from the time of birth, they are in their own world and no one else’s. But they are also susceptible to suggestion because so often they have a need and a desperate wish to belong to others. They turn up anywhere someone may care for them and do things in the hope that they too may be liked or loved.

They are also blamed by the parents who cannot handle who they are or what they, the mother and father, through their own addiction to alcohol, have created when the fetal alcohol child begins to create mayhem in the house. “If it were not for you, I would not be drinking. You are the one who caused all of this.” So many of them have heard this as children from the time that they were six years old. In the world that they were in, they begin — and parents often allow this and welcome it — to drink and do drugs themselves. I have seen six-year-old boys drugged and drunk, and by eight the parents have fled, and they too are in foster care.

They are sent to foster homes, and, as in the case of my sister‑in-law’s brother, finally no foster home can hold them and they end up on the street or in jail, sometimes for acts they cannot remember having done. My sister-in-law is afraid she will get a call to tell her that her brother is dead, and the love she has had for him and the sacrifices she made for other children, both White and First Nations — that in fact she has given much of her life to — will not have mattered.

In fact, it is a brutal scenario no social worker is really equipped to handle and certainly one that no judge or police officer can mitigate fully — not that they do not wish to, not that they have not tried.

“Why did you do such-and-such?” my sister, a judge in New Brunswick, has often asked young men and women with fetal alcohol syndrome, hardly older than boys and girls. There is no answer except one of the most prevalent ones: Someone put it into their head to do so, and it seemed like a good idea at the time. Like the burning of houses along our street. Four houses were set alight by a First Nations boy with fetal alcohol syndrome. It could easily have been a White boy. People escaped with their lives, but the pets were lost, and one man rushed back in, desperately trying to find his three cats. The young fellow had picked that side of the street. He could have picked ours. And later, when they asked him why, he said he didn’t really know.

Someone said to me that this proves that they shouldn’t be born. But to me, it proves something else. It proves that all life is sacred, and through our own folly and missteps, we have lost our responsibility toward them, or their parents have, and all of us must begin to recognize this.

There is no mandate that will ever stop reckless or even criminal behaviour. The lives of many women and their partners are in turmoil; many have had little or no chance. The idea of social drinking is almost obligatory where I come from and where many of us come from. Still, I support this bill brought forward by Senator Ravalia and hope that his suggestions are given full weight, and anything that can be done, even in small measures, should be.

Labelling on bottles, as Senator Brazeau has suggested, is long overdue. And every bar in Canada might have a sign saying, “Alcohol consumption can be extremely detrimental to your unborn child, and excess drinking will cause fetal alcohol syndrome.”

As well, a functioning national database and programs to educate are needed from one end of the country to the other to indicate the serious nature of this problem.

If even these small measures had been in place some years before, my sister-in-law might not be seeking in vain to find her brother, lost in a network of jails, and the houses on my street might not have been burned in the middle of the night.

For these reasons, I ask for your support of Senator Ravalia’s bill. Thank you.

(On motion of Senator Martin, for Senator Ataullahjan, debate adjourned.)

Hon. Donald Neil Plett (Leader of the Opposition) rose pursuant to notice of May 18, 2022:

That he will call the attention of the Senate to the impact on Canada’s public finances of the NDP-Liberal agreement entitled Delivering for Canadians Now, A Supply and Confidence Agreement.

He said: Thank you, Your Honour. I see that this is at day 15, so I would like to move the adjournment for the balance of my time.

(On motion of Senator Plett, debate adjourned.)

Hon. Senators: Agreed.

(Motion agreed to and report adopted.)

On the Order:

Resuming debate on the motion of the Honourable Senator Pate, seconded by the Honourable Senator Duncan:

That the Standing Senate Committee on National Finance be authorized to examine and report on a road map for post‑pandemic economic and social policy to address the human, social and financial costs of economic marginalization and inequality, when and if the committee is formed;

That, given recent calls for action from Indigenous, provincial, territorial and municipal jurisdictions, the committee examine in particular potential national approaches to interjurisdictional collaboration to implement a guaranteed livable basic income; and

That the committee submit its final report no later than December 31, 2022.

(On motion of Senator Martin, debate adjourned.)

Hon. Patrick Brazeau moved second reading of Bill S-254, An Act to amend the Food and Drugs Act (warning label on alcoholic beverages).

He said: Honourable senators, first, by introducing this bill, I would like to thank individuals from the Canadian Institute for Substance Use Research at the University of Victoria, in particular Dr. Tim Stockwell, Dr. Tim Naimi, Dr. Adam Sherk, Kate Vallance and Ashley Wettlaufer.

I rise today to propose a modest but essential amendment to the Food and Drugs Act to require honest labelling — a cancer warning — on alcohol products.

Most Canadians know that excessive alcohol consumption is harmful to their health. Everyone knows that over time alcohol can damage the liver. We are all aware that binge drinking can lead to loss of judgment and bodily control. More and more people are aware of fetal alcohol spectrum disorders. And many know about the devastating consequences on the roads caused by intoxicated drivers.

[Translation]

For those who don’t know, honourable senators, a recent report states that impaired drivers on our roads kill four Canadians per day. Some of us may be aware of the cost of alcohol abuse in terms of lost productivity, health care and the criminal justice system. In 2017, those costs were estimated at $16.6 billion according to the Canadian Substance Use Costs and Harms report.

However, what most Canadians do not know, honourable senators, is that alcohol causes fatal cancers. Alcohol consumption causes at least seven fatal cancers that we know of. Even in small amounts, it causes cancer of the mouth and throat, vocal cords, esophagus, breast, liver and colon.

[English]

As Dr. Tim Stockwell, a senior scientist with the Canadian Institute for Substance Use Research at the University of Victoria, says, “Even drinking one drink a day increases your risk of some cancers . . . .”

This data is not in dispute. This is not hypothetical. The greater the amount consumed, the higher the risk that one will get one of these cancers.

Most anti-cancer efforts focus on the cure or disease management. Considerable strides have been made in allowing people to live longer while managing their cancer. These are admirable aims.

[Translation]

Honourable senators, I think that just as much if not more effort should be made in terms of prevention. Research shows that only one in four Canadians knows that alcohol can cause cancer. I was part of that 25%. That’s not enough. Today, people, especially young people, want to know what is in their food and beverages. They also want to know who is making their clothes and how the materials in their electronics are being mined. That is their right. Most consumers don’t know that alcohol can cause deadly cancers and they have the right to know that. They have the right to know what they are putting in their bodies.

[English]

As Dr. Tim Naimi of the Canadian Institute for Substance Use Research at the University of Victoria says, Canadians can quickly determine the amount of calcium in their can of peas from the label. Yet, when buying a “calorie-dense, potentially addictive, intoxicating carcinogen,” none of this information is conveyed on the label.

Canadians learn a lot about food and drinks through labels. Except for alcohol.

Consuming peas does not raise the risk of developing seven fatal cancers, Your Honour. But consuming alcohol does.

Alcohol is a drug which seems to enjoy a unique place in our culture. It seems to escape the warnings placed on other harmful drugs.

[Translation]

Why, honourable senators? Illusions and myths are part of the reason. The assumption that young adults can drink wine at the family table and thereby learn to be responsible drinkers is part of our charming cultural folklore. The fact is, people who drink at a young age are more likely to become heavy drinkers later in life.

Another popular belief is that drinking small amounts of red wine is beneficial to health. Although some very minor health effects have been noted, these have been greatly exaggerated. An overwhelming amount of data shows the opposite. In fact, the World Heart Federation has emphasized that alcohol doesn’t protect heart health. Not only does it not protect it, it is harmful to heart health. Let me be perfectly clear. The myth that alcohol is beneficial for heart health might help boost sales, but it is completely false. It’s unfair to allow consumers to continue to believe that alcohol has health benefits.

Here’s what this bill isn’t about. This bill isn’t paving the way for a new era of prohibition. Honourable senators have likely heard the criticisms about excessive moralization and the reintroduction of prohibition. This bill doesn’t impose prohibition. No one will be forced to drink contraband alcohol in speakeasies and we won’t go back to a time of bootleggers trafficking moonshine; not at all, but nice try. The purpose of this bill is simply to protect consumers. Canadians have the right to know what they are consuming and the adverse effects on health.

[English]

Next, this bill is not the nanny state run amok. There is also some agitation about the nanny state and government overreach when it comes to making labels honest. Images of a heavy‑handed, joyless parliament are trotted out. But, Your Honour, informative labels are not about stealing joy. The labels I’m asking for are to provide necessary health information.

Providing basic health risk information is not overreach. It is a basic responsibility of industry. And if industry won’t do it — for any one of the many sincere sounding reasons lobbyists will argue — it becomes the basic responsibility of Parliament to step in.

Canadians deserve nothing less than honest, straightforward cancer warning labels on their alcoholic beverages. Those who push the overreach narrative may, in fact, be called the “lobby state,” where sophisticated, well-financed campaigns conspire to tell consumers that it is in their best interests not to have products honestly labelled.

Your Honour, this bill is not anti-business. Some have accused this effort of being anti-business by asking for cancer warning labels. This is nonsense. Businesses should label their products honestly.

During the regulatory process, industry, along with public health and cancer researchers, will have plenty of opportunities to work with regulators to determine the specifics of the cancer warning label. Telling the truth about their products should be the cornerstone of every business.

Certainly, they would rather not have customers know that their product is directly linked to at least seven fatal cancers. That’s hardly a good selling point, but it is the case, and consumers have the right to know.

If dramatic warnings about the anti-business nanny state reintroducing prohibition doesn’t stop this bill, lobbyists will be ready with yet another weapon. I call this the “We will do anything for love, but we won’t do that” argument. I thank the late, great Meat Loaf for the inspiration.

Here, lobbyists will impress parliamentarians with how much they are doing for the community in many other ways. They will provide glossy educational pamphlets and will point to their messaging about drinking responsibly. They will argue that this is already working well, that industry and government are working well together, so why rock the boat with this cancer label fearmongering?

If these arguments seem familiar, Your Honour, that is because they were deployed extensively by the tobacco lobby. It’s exactly the same song: Our product doesn’t cause cancer, and if it does, we shouldn’t have to label it. Look at all the good we do in the community by providing jobs, sponsoring sports and culture and so on. Why punish the hard-working men and women who work in our industry? This is what we will hear.

It is commendable, Your Honour, that industries fund worthwhile community projects. We can all applaud these initiatives. But such good works should never be used as a moral shield, as a way to squirm out of their responsibility to tell the stark truth about cancer risks to consumers.

I am asking my colleagues to resist the lobbyists’ siren song long enough to hear me out. Let me take you through the four things the bill requires labels to have.

At paragraph 5.1(a), we are asking that the label indicate what constitutes a standard drink because research shows that Canadians do not know what a standard drink is. How can they follow health guidelines or intelligently make decisions about their drinking if they do not have this basic information?

Paragraph 5.1(b) further asks for the number of standard drinks per container. Currently, some people believe a bottle of wine contains two or more standard drinks. Some think it contains one. How are consumers supposed to make informed, intelligent decisions about their risks of fatal cancers if they do not know this basic information?

Paragraph 5.1(c) is asking for input from Health Canada regarding the dosage of this carcinogen. The risks should be clearly and plainly stated.

Finally, and most importantly, in my view, paragraph 5.1(d) requires a plain language, easily accessible and understood message about the direct link between consumption of the product and several types of fatal cancers.

This is the cancer warning. It is the crux of the bill. If we are to reduce the number of loved ones being taken before their time, it is absolutely essential to provide this information directly and plainly to consumers.

Cancer is pernicious and insidious. A person can do everything right, and still get it. It can claim the young and old, the health conscious and the person that abuses substances.

We know that it can seemingly strike out of nowhere, and that to a great extent, all of us are vulnerable. But, Your Honour, I hope I am making myself clear here. This chamber can help reduce the number of fatal cancers of the mouth, throat, vocal cords, breast, liver and colon.

[Translation]

By supporting this bill, Canadians will be better equipped to fight cancer. As a result of direct and simple labelling, Canadians will receive the information they need to make informed choices about their own health.

Will deaths due to mouth, throat, vocal cord, esophageal, liver, breast and colon cancer decrease overnight? No, not necessarily, but they will decrease because Canadians will have the medical facts before consuming alcohol.

Some ignore cancer warnings, and we understand that. As I said earlier, we are not a nanny state and adults have a choice. However, many more Canadians will heed the warning. We hope that many will read the warning and moderate their consumption.

They will start keeping a personal record of their weekly consumption. Some will do so deliberately, others will do so subconsciously. They will know what a standard drink is, the number of standard drinks in the package and when they increase their risk of developing a fatal form of cancer.

[English]

Will lobbyists be upset? Yes. Yes, they will be. But tobacco lobbyists were upset about cancer warnings, too, back in the day. Tobacco lobbyists had many expensive temper tantrums, providing a great deal of work for the legal profession. Court cases about tobacco and cancer drag on to this day. But through honest health labelling, everyone who smokes cigarettes is fully aware of their increased cancer risk.

To summarize, Your Honour, I am not standing before you today, as a person who struggled with alcohol abuse, on my high moral horse preaching abstinence to my colleagues. While I am happy to be almost three years sober, my own issues are entirely beside the point. I am here as a person concerned with reducing the number of cancers in Canada.

I fought a boxing match against a certain Prime Minister to raise money for cancer research. I did that to honour my late mother, who died of cancer in 2004.

Your Honour, obviously, we cannot prevent all cases of fatal cancer, but we can make a significant dent in cancer deaths by honestly labelling alcohol products. The choice is always with the consumer, as it should be.

The role of government is to intervene as lightly and as infrequently as possible. We are not telling people how to live their lives, Your Honour. There is, in my view, a role for Parliament in insisting that consumer products are labelled honestly.

Alcohol is a Class 1 — or Group 1, as some prefer — carcinogen, the same as tobacco smoking and asbestos, and that information needs to be on the label. With Bill S-254, it will be.

Thank you, Your Honour.

Hon. Pierre J. Dalphond introduced Bill S-256, An Act to amend the Canada Post Corporation Act (seizure) 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 Dalphond, bill placed on the Orders of the Day for second reading two days hence.)

[English]