Hon. Paula Simons: Thank you very much, minister. With regard to beef slaughter in Canada, 84% is done by just two companies — JBS Foods Canada and Cargill, two large multinationals. Cattle producers and consumers, thus, are captive to a market without competition. According to Alberta government data, prices for slaughtered cattle and calves in Alberta stayed almost unchanged between January 2021 and January 2022, but over the same period retail beef inflation in Canada rose by 15.4%, while beef consumption went into sharp decline.

Minister, while I understand there are no easy answers to increasing slaughterhouse capacity, what steps are your government taking to protect Canadian consumers and beef producers from this degree of corporate concentration?

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, for Senator Plett, debate adjourned.)

Hon. Salma Ataullahjan: Thank you. Welcome to the Senate, minister.

Minister, over a month ago, the grain growers of your province of Quebec joined the grain farmers of my province of Ontario to ask you to take immediate action to eliminate the burden on farmers caused by tariffs your government imposed on fertilizer from Russia. In many cases, this fertilizer was purchased last fall, well before the illegal invasion of Ukraine. Vladimir Putin is not hurt by this tariff — Canadian farmers are, at a time of growing food insecurity worldwide.

Minister, you have known about this issue for two months and yet your government has done absolutely nothing to fix it. Why is that, minister? You told the media you’re “following the situation” and “exploring options.” Are you going to take action to actually help the farmers?

Hon. Peter Harder: Welcome, minister. I’ll follow up on a question asked by my colleague Senator Loffreda with respect to global food shortages as a result of events in Ukraine.

It’s not just wheat, but also canola, barley, sunflower oil and a vast array of grains that are in turbulence in the global market. As you well know, food prices have shot up. The UN’s Food and Agricultural Organization suggests that we’re at the highest levels of food costs since the index was created, and it is rising by over 10% a month. That’s very disturbing not only for Canadian consumers, obviously, but I am particularly worried about the impact in the less developed world. You will know the dependency on foodstuffs and grains from Ukraine is very significant, particularly in some portions of Africa.

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Could you report to us what work you are doing with other departments, and in particular your former department of International Development, to balance increased exports and to fill the gaps that are necessary for the well-being of the least fortunate?

Hon. Salma Ataullahjan, pursuant to notice of May 19, 2022, moved:

That the Standing Senate Committee on Human Rights be permitted, notwithstanding usual practices, to deposit with the Clerk of the Senate, no later than September 16, 2022, a report on issues relating to human rights generally, if the Senate is not then sitting, and that the report be deemed to have been tabled in the Senate.

Hon. Pat Duncan: Thank you, Minister Bibeau, for your attendance today.

Several colleagues have spoken about food security. Not all Canadians and North Americans are aware of how the North has become increasingly food secure. The Yukon has several initiatives that are important to note: egg production, locally produced and packaged flour, many locally grown vegetables and, this year, dairy milk that did not come up the Alaska Highway by truck. The increased costs to farmers have been mentioned; these increased costs are much higher in the North. Many Yukoners are prepared to pay higher prices for a local product. However, the significantly higher cost of production is challenging for the farmers when it comes to expanding their markets to the west in Alaska, to the east in the Northwest Territories and even into southern Canada.

Is there any specific assistance that you or your department can elaborate on for me, today, that offers farmers not in the traditional farming areas an opportunity to enhance North America’s food security in the North?

(Pursuant to the order adopted by the Senate on December 7, 2021, to receive a Minister of the Crown, the Honourable Marie-Claude Bibeau, P.C., M.P., Minister of Agriculture and Agri‑Food, appeared before honourable senators during Question Period.)

Hon. Marie-Claude Bibeau, P.C., M.P., Minister of Agriculture and Agri-Food: As you know, the Canada Water Agency is under the leadership of my colleague the Minister of Environment and Climate Change. I am working closely on that issue as well, particularly because the agricultural sector has a significant interest in it. A large part of the mandate of the agency would be related to irrigation and water management for agriculture. As you said so well, it has an impact on our food security and on sustainable agriculture, particularly considering last year’s drought in one part of the country and floods in another.

Canada is blessed in having 20% of the world’s fresh water, so we recognize that we have to put that strategy in place. We also have to bring all the experts from different departments together — all those who are working one way or another around the water resource — under this agency. In the last budget, you’ve seen $43.5 million over five years that we will be investing in this. The work is in progress. We are still in consultations, so it is a bit too soon for me to give clearer direction on this.

Hon. Yonah Martin (Deputy Leader of the Opposition): Minister Bibeau, business risk management programs are critical for farmers, and given the rising costs of production, farmers are bearing more risk this year than ever before. It seems as though your government has no intention to make these programs more timely, predictable or bankable. Instead you’re threatening to reduce access to farmers if they don’t comply with certain practices that your government thinks they should, without even consulting the industry. As we know, your government announced plans to cut GHG emissions from fertilizer use on farms by 30% without consulting the provinces, the agricultural sector or stakeholders.

Minister, why are you more focused on limiting access to the business risk management programs than actually improving them?

The Hon. the Speaker pro tempore: Madam Minister, we have to move to another senator.

Hon. Patricia Bovey: Thank you for being here, minister. You mentioned Mother Nature. The flooding in Manitoba is devastating. Fields are sodden and wet, and many are under water.

According to the latest crop report in Manitoba for the period ending May 31, seeding progress sits at 40% completion behind a five-year average of 91% for week 21. We are all worried about food prices and shortages due to the weather here at home combined with the situation in Ukraine.

How is your department working to mitigate these concerns and those farmer concerns for crop insurance, as some insurance end dates for planting are nearing us, like corn, which ended May 30? If farmers risk planting after the end date, what help will your government give if weather continues to be detrimental?

Hon. Mobina S. B. Jaffer moved second reading of Bill S-235, An Act to amend the Citizenship Act and the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act.

She said: Honourable senators, first I want to thank Senator Pate for helping me draft this bill and for her support throughout its stages. Her assistance has been invaluable to me, and I thank her for it.

I want to read the summary of the bill, honourable senators:

This enactment amends the Citizenship Act to provide citizenship for certain persons when they transition out of the care of a child welfare agency or foster parent. It also amends the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act to provide that, in certain circumstances, a removal order cannot be enforced against a person who was not a citizen when they transitioned out of such care.

At its core, this bill aims to address the issue of minors coming to Canada, being taken into government care and never becoming citizens because the government, their parent, failed to secure citizenship for them. As these children are taken away from their parents by our government, the government becomes their parent. However, the government consistently fails to carry out the responsibility of a parent when it comes to applying for citizenship. In fact, as things are, the government never applies for its children to obtain Canadian citizenship when they are under its care.

Consequently, on attaining the age 18, as these children are released from the Canadian foster care system, they face the risk of getting deported if they get in trouble. Many are sent back to the country of their parents, a country with which they have no connection and of which they, often, don’t speak the language.

Honourable senators, this is a complete failure on the part of the government in its role as a parent to these minors. The bill will ensure that after living in Canada for a minimum of one year, a minor under foster care will be granted citizenship. In addition, it would prevent and/or blunt the unwarranted and unnecessary use of removal orders on adults who came to Canada as minors but never became Canadian citizens because of the fault of our government, which acts as their parent.

This bill will enshrine in law that all young people who come to Canada would obtain their Canadian citizenship, and that their rights are respected if they are taken into care. Currently, the Canadian government is failing some of the most vulnerable people. The Canadian government is failing the children who have come to Canada with hope for the future.

In 2007, the Canadian Child Welfare Research Portal’s own review of provincial annual reports concluded that on any given day, over 65,000 Canadian children were in care. As these numbers date from 15 years ago, we can only imagine how they have increased since. And with that increase, so do we see more non-Canadian citizens raised by the government being deported back to the country of their parents — one that is unknown to them.

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Of the countless stories of the anonymous victims of our foster care system, many of which have ended in deportation, let me share with you three cases that highlight the darkness and pain endured by those whose lives illustrate this reality.

Back in 2017, during the Senate’s debates on Bill C-6, An Act to amend the Citizenship Act and to make consequential amendments to another Act, Fliss Cramman’s case was cited as an example of why there is an urgent need to protect children without citizenship who are in Canadian care. That was in 2017, honourable senators, and the need has only grown since.

As a side note, we owe a lot of gratitude to Senator Oh’s work on Bill C-6. Thanks to the work of Senator Oh, the Senate successfully amended the bill to add the clarification that non-parental guardians can apply for a child’s citizenship, and that older children can apply for their own citizenship.

These improvements were an important step forward, but unfortunately, they were not enough. Even with these improvements, as it stands, Bill C-6 is not enough to ensure the protection of these children. Fliss Cramman’s is one of the cases that exemplifies why.

Fliss Cramman came to Canada at 8 years old and became a Crown ward at age 11. She had mental health issues, as well as a history of suffering from violence and sexual abuse throughout her childhood in Canada.

When she committed an offence at age 33, Ms. Cramman — a mother of four and a professional chef — found out that she had never become a Canadian citizen.

Following her release from the Nova Institution for Women in Truro, Nova Scotia, Ms. Cramman was taken into custody by the Canada Border Services Agency. While in their custody, Ms. Cramman became very ill and had to be hospitalized due to a perforated bowel. While at the hospital, Ms. Cramman was shackled to her bed. In full shackles, Ms. Cramman underwent a hearing where she was told she was subject to removal from Canada.

Imagine, senators: This young girl came to Canada from the United Kingdom, spent her childhood in care and then, as an adult with children and a steady job, got into some trouble and found herself shackled to a hospital bed, being told she would have to leave the country that, for her, was home. She did not know the home of her parents.

In this instance, due to the national attention to her case and the work of the Elizabeth Fry Society, then-federal immigration minister John McCallum stepped in to prevent Ms. Cramman’s deportation on compassionate grounds. Had Minister McCallum not stepped in, Ms. Cramman would have had to go to the United Kingdom right away, leaving behind her four children and a good career.

Ms. Cramman’s case illustrates why the amendments to Bill C-6 are not sufficient, because simply allowing a child in care to apply for citizenship on their own becomes moot if the child does not know they lack citizenship in the first place. For too many, like Fliss Cramman, they do not know they are not a Canadian citizen until it is too late.

Another case that mirrors Ms. Cramman’s is that of Kiwayne Jones. Mr. Jones was born in Jamaica. At 10 years old, he arrived in Canada with his parents. Less than a year after his arrival, then age 11, Mr. Jones was taken into care by the Children’s Aid Society of Toronto. Not long after, he was made a permanent ward of the Crown — that is, the government became his family.

This means that Mr. Jones was a non-citizen who was removed from his family and placed into the care of the Ontario government. The Ontario government, in effect, became his family.

During the entire time of being under the care of the Ontario government, Mr. Jones did not have access to any of his personal documentation. Only when he was 21 did the Ontario Ministry of Children and Youth Services return some of his documentation. When he received these documents, he discovered that his Jamaican birth certificate was no longer considered valid in his birth country, and that his Canadian permanent resident card was near expiration. Until then, Mr. Jones believed he was a Canadian citizen. Mr. Jones was beyond shocked when he heard this.

In Mr. Jones’s own words:

“I kind of felt disowned. I felt confused. I couldn’t understand what happened,” Jones said in an interview with the Star, talking about the confusion over his status in Canada after he was no longer a Crown ward.

Mr. Jones rightfully questioned this and stated:

. . . the Crown has decided they’re going to be my parents, and all the circumstances around that would mean I’m adopted as a Canadian, but that’s not the reality of it.

For far too many, this is their reality. They come to Canada as children with their families, are taken into foster care and feel they are abandoned upon reaching majority.

Non-Canadian citizens raised as Crown wards face the risk of deportation to a country they do not even know. They are denied any benefits that come with being a Canadian citizen. They are denied their democratic and Charter rights. They lose critical educational and employment opportunities. They suffer unimaginable losses of their identities, communities and sense of belonging.

Honourable senators, numerous more cases have exposed the blatant injustices in the immigration system that led to individuals being unfairly at risk of deportation. Consequently, in Ontario, a multi-million dollar class-action lawsuit is being launched against the province for failing to obtain citizenship for non-citizen Crown wards. The representative plaintiff in the case is Kiwayne Jones.

According to the statement of claim filed in the Superior Court, the lawsuit will argue that the government has failed in its duties:

. . . to take all reasonable steps to maintain permanent residency status and pursue and obtain Canadian citizenship for the non-citizen Crown wards in its care.

Additionally, it mentions that Canada’s failure to secure their citizenship status violates their constitutional rights.

Honourable senators, no matter where they came from, when these children came to Canada, they were expecting to have a new home and to be protected by their new country, especially when taken into the care of the government. They thought of themselves as Canadian citizens. Instead, following their arrival, they were taken into the care of the government; they were not Canadian citizens, but they were Canada’s responsibility. Canada became these children’s parent when they took them into care.

As you all know, being a parent comes with many responsibilities. The government cannot pick and choose which right to uphold according to its liking. On the contrary; these obligations are fundamental — fundamental to our obligations under international and domestic law and, arguably, under Canadian values.

Some of you may have heard about the case of Abdoul and Fatouma Abdi. Along with their two aunts, Abdoul, then age 6, and Fatouma, then age 8, came to Nova Scotia as refugees in 2000, fleeing Somalia.

In 2001, the siblings were taken into care by children’s services when their aunt removed them from school in response to racist bullying they were experiencing. During the course of their time with children’s services, Abdoul was moved around to different foster homes 31 times.

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Worse yet, both Abdoul and Fatouma recounted detailed accounts of horrific histories of sexual, physical and emotional abuse while they were under the care of foster parents, including being forbidden from engaging in their traditional language or customs while in care.

Eventually, as a youth, Abdoul began accumulating criminal charges. When Mr. Abdi’s aunt attempted to obtain citizenship for him, the service intervened on the basis that Mr. Abdi was a ward of the government and only the government could apply to grant him citizenship. Although children’s services should have attempted to obtain Canadian citizenship for Mr. Abdi, they never did.

As a young adult, Mr. Abdi accumulated more serious criminal charges and ended up in custody. This led to his facing deportation through a removal order to Somalia, a place he did not know and did not have any connections to. In both 2017 and 2018, Abdoul faced deportation to Somalia after completing a prison term, but both orders were overturned by the federal court. In the ruling, it was noted that the government had a responsibility to secure Mr. Abdi’s citizenship, which it had failed to do.

I repeat, the court held that the government had a responsibility to secure his citizenship.

Ultimately, the federal government dropped the deportation proceedings.

On the one hand, this case led policy change in Nova Scotia. It granted powers to social workers to apply for Canadian citizenship on a child’s behalf. However, honourable senators, this is not enough. In order to truly rectify this injustice, federal action is needed. Bill S-235 is needed now.

Indeed, in 2018, Fatouma Abdi asked Prime Minister Trudeau a question about her brother’s case at a town hall meeting. The Prime Minister acknowledged that Canada’s care system failed Abdoul and that his situation:

 . . . opened our eyes to something that many of us knew was ongoing in many communities, but we continue to need to address.

Honourable senators, these are the words of our Prime Minister. Even the Prime Minister acknowledged this injustice to our children and said that it needed to be addressed. However, nothing has been done.

Clearly, Canadian immigration laws are unfair and unable to address this crisis facing our children. Current Canadian law allows for individual government departments to decide if and when to apply for a young person in their care to be granted citizenship. Far too often, these children never become citizens if the government does not apply for their citizenship, and many do not even know they are not citizens until they get into trouble.

The government fails them, and then they are left to pick up the pieces. We are failing our children.

Honourable senators, Bill S-235 will address this issue of minors coming to Canada, being taken into government care and never becoming a citizen because the government failed to secure their citizenship. Bill S-235 is the only way to meaningfully and comprehensively address this injustice. It is the only way to ensure that young people who come to Canada as immigrants and refugees are fairly protected and represented in our country while simultaneously ensuring that their most basic rights are upheld.

In closing, let me remind you that the courts have spoken on this issue. The Prime Minister has spoken on this issue, calling on the minister to act. The federal government stated twice in Mr. Abdi’s case that the government had a responsibility to secure Mr. Abdi’s citizenship, which it failed to do.

On top of that, the judges determined that if public authorities failed to take reasonable steps to secure his citizenship over a period of years, a valid concern about the appropriateness of deportation does arise.

Bill S-235 answers those concerns. I encourage you to think of all the children who are falling through the cracks. Honourable senators, we have an opportunity to right this wrong to our children, so I respectfully ask that you support this bill. Thank you, senators.

Hon. Marty Klyne: Honourable senators, I have the honour to table, in both official languages, the third report of the Standing Committee on Audit and Oversight, which deals with its obligation to report annually.

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]

Hon. Pamela Wallin introduced Bill S-248, An Act to amend the Criminal Code (medical assistance in dying).

(Bill read first time.)

Hon. Senators: Hear, hear!

The Hon. the Speaker: Pursuant to the order adopted by the Senate on December 7, 2021, Question Period will begin at 4 p.m.

The Hon. the Speaker informed the Senate that a message had been received from the House of Commons with Bill C-233, An Act to amend the Criminal Code and the Judges Act (violence against an intimate partner).

(Bill read first time.)

Hon. Senators: Hear, hear!

[English]