Senator Woo: Let me put it even more directly, then. Would you consider that any Canadian, whether a recent immigrant from China or anyone else, representing any Chinese organization, institution or entity in China — a school, a municipality, a badminton club, a mah-jong association, all legally sanctioned in China, presumably under the direct or indirect control of the state — who wants to speak to a parliamentarian or senior official — would that person be covered under your bill? Under Mr. Chiu’s bill, he would. Would that person be covered under your bill and would he or she be required to register?

The Hon. the Speaker pro tempore: Is leave granted, honourable senators?

The Hon. the Speaker pro tempore: Leave is not granted, Senator Lankin.

Hon. Marc Gold (Government Representative in the Senate): Would the honourable senator take a question?

Hon. Frances Lankin: Honourable senators, the saying is that timing is everything. I’m not sure how to come down from the important and vital discussion that we had with interventions by Senator Simons and Senator Housakos and others to talk about the Rules of the Senate, as important as these are, but I will try and just put forward some brief thoughts on this.

This motion was put forward by Senator Tannas and the Canadian Senators Group. I want to thank them for the work they did in determining how to approach this issue. The issue is one that many of us talk about, complain about, whine about, and it is something that the general public would have no direct knowledge of or see as insider baseball. It’s difficult to command time to find solutions to that and that issue is the challenge that the Senate has when bills arrive in such a time frame from the House of Commons with an urgent request from the government to deal with this in a quick and expedited fashion.

Now, when I began my remarks when this item was last called, I was present in the chamber and not virtual, and I could see the reaction of a number of people when I said I basically agree with the intent, direction and the attempt put forward by this motion. My apologies to my dear colleagues in the GRO. They all looked at me with some shock and I understand why. They have a job to do and I appreciate how hard they and their team all work in impressing upon the government the need to respond and plan in a different way and to give sufficient time — not wasteful time but sufficient time — for the Senate to deal with items in a thorough fashion that allows us to do our job and do our job appropriately on behalf of Canadians and at the expense of taxpayer dollars. I understand and I do thank them for that work.

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I also want to say that in terms of our complaints about governments, the Senate’s complaints about how government handled these things stretch over many governments; it’s not just this government. In fact, at this point in time and this Parliament, I acknowledge that we’re dealing with a minority government and that other parties have as much influence over the timing of things coming through to the Senate as the government does. Having said that, I still want to put forward that I support the intent of this.

There are many different opinions around the Senate about whether this particular motion and the particular rule changes being proposed are the appropriate or necessary steps to achieve our goal. I know we will hear speakers coming from different perspectives.

What I have not heard from a majority of senators is a lack of agreement with the concern that Senator Tannas raised. That’s important for us to bring into our consideration as we look forward. If not this, what are the options?

Some will say that the options are using the existing rules. While rules do exist, there are ways to deny requests for leave to expedite. There are other ways in which people can get across the message and achieve a different response, perhaps in timing, and we’ll hear some of those from other speakers to come on this.

However, none of those truly deal with the concern that Senator Tannas and the Conservative Senators Group have raised about the inevitable pressure put on groups or caucuses within the Senate to respond in a way that meets the sense of emergency that is conveyed to us from the government.

I believe that this is an important discussion for us to have. The discussion comes out of frustration with lived experience with this problem as an institution for many years, as the group of us sitting here now for the last few sessions of Parliament has experienced.

The frustration is exacerbated by all the conditions and stresses that we lived through with the pandemic, with all of the world activities that are going on, by the way — and I will say it directly — with an opposition in the Senate that rings bells unnecessarily many times, uses the rules that are there in a dilatory fashion. Again, I understand the reasons for it.

All of those things contribute to a less-than-effective and efficient operation of this chamber and of a consideration with full force of the Senate’s capabilities being put to government legislation that is coming through in every circumstance.

The thing that concerns me about the response that says “just use the existing rules” is that all of those discussions generally take place before they come to the floor and we would use those rules. All of those discussions take place in a meeting among leaders. I fully respect our leadership within the Senate, leaders and facilitators; I respect the work they do and what they bring forward. However, the need for understanding emergency, the need for understanding what it affects in terms of the rest of the scheduled agenda, the need for understanding what it means for perhaps a truncated study or, in cases other than money bills, pre‑studies in which we are not actually dealing with the bill in its final form coming from the House of Commons, I find it concerning that it is not a discussion that is fully transparent to the whole Senate or open for the whole Senate to take a decision on — whether we agree with that kind of approach for dealing with the issue of emergency or urgent handling of bills, treatment of bills in the Senate and voting on bills. As I said earlier, echoing Senator Tannas, it also brings the pressure to bear on either individuals or individual groups.

I don’t see anything unreasonable if the government brings forward on first reading a request that, under these rule changes, automatically could bring forward a 20-minute discussion of what the nature of the emergency is and hear a back and forth. The Senate could vote on that with only a 15-minute bell. That is barely over a half-hour. Most of the unnecessary dilatory bell‑ringing that goes on in this chamber is an hour or multiple back‑to‑backs, several hours sometimes, when it occurs like that. I don’t see what is unreasonable about that.

Yes, we could use other rules that are there, but not necessarily in the same efficient way. The reasons are put out. It’s transparent. The Senate takes a vote and those reasons are understood and accepted. And I think, in the majority of cases, the Senate is reasonable in how they respond and they would, in fact, respond appropriately if it’s truly an emergency. But it brings the transparency to it. It brings it to a decision of the Senate as a whole. Because of the structure of the rules and the timelines, and the automatic right of the Government Representative or the Government Representative Office to bring forward immediately the declaration of this being an urgent matter and have that debated upon, that brings us efficiency.

If people have other ideas, I would urge them to find a way of bringing a small group of people together to talk this through, to see if people could reach a consensus and bring that forward and let us thoroughly, as a chamber, talk about that. Otherwise, I think what has been brought forward is a constructive proposal. It is one that tries to get at the heart of the problem, without creating more delays, and it is to be commended.

I also know that those colleagues who will disagree with the specific approach, but who share the reasoning behind the intent that this is a concern for our chamber, will bring forward their ideas of what is an effective alternative. At the end of the day, that’s what we will have to vote on.

With that, I will keep my remarks uncharacteristically short and stop at this point in time. Thank you very much.

The Hon. the Speaker pro tempore: Is it your pleasure, honourable senators, to adopt the motion?

The Hon. the Speaker pro tempore: Senator Lankin, your time has expired. We have two more senators who wish to put questions forward. Are you requesting five minutes?

Senator Saint-Germain: Gladly.

Hon. Julie Miville-Dechêne: Senator Saint-Germain, would you take another question?

Senator Saint-Germain: Yes.

Hon. Leo Housakos (Acting Leader of the Opposition): Will Senator Saint-Germain take a question?

Hon. Larry W. Campbell: Senator, I have a question. It would appear that there’s some thought that we should sit longer, maybe Mondays and Fridays. Obviously, if I lived in the bubble — Quebec City to, let’s say, Hamilton — I could drive here every day. But, unfortunately, some of us live across Canada, and it takes us two days or a day and a half to get here. Do you think a possible solution here is changing our sitting times so that we can sit five days a week?

Senator Gold: My apologies, honourable colleague, but if I may ask you a question. I think you made a really good point about our calendar, as others have made as well. If we go back in history — and those with more experience will confirm this — our Senate calendar was organized differently to better accommodate the work of the House and the corresponding work of the Senate.

Do you think a potential solution to the problem that is being voiced is for the Rules Committee to take a look at our calendar and perhaps we could sit for a couple of weeks in July, or at least after the House rises? We could take away a couple of weeks or do some switching in terms of the calendar, such that if and when, as I think history reveals, bills do come to us in June, to put them in the window. Sometimes, because they are a matter of importance, we do take the time, as you’ve suggested, to study them and have the ability to do our work with an expectation that that’s, in fact, how we carry out our work, not simply — regardless of what the House says or the government says — “well, we’re off for our two and a half months of summer break.”

Hon. Frances Lankin: Senator Simons, thank you. That was another eloquent speech by you. It’s much appreciated.

I particularly like the phrase that you brought forward from the Conservative strategist about a “thought scam.” I’ll elevate my language because I have been calling it a “bot scam.”

Quite frankly, it’s not just Bill S-233; this began immediately following the occupation that took place in Ottawa. It involved communications legislation, which you were just referring to, and others.

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It is absolutely clear to me that a large majority of these have been electronically generated. When they come in 1,000 at a time and they have very similar themes, you know those are not individuals.

I have also reached out — when it appeared to be a genuine, individual person — to discuss it, to tell them my views, to tell them what I think the reality is, but the other ones, any that I have tried to reach, there is no reaching because there is no person. This is fundamentally an issue of an undermining of democracy.

Do you, Senator Simons, think there is, beyond our individual actions, a collective response from the Senate that should be taken? The leaders of the various groups in the Senate, some of whom —

Hon. Raymonde Gagné (Legislative Deputy to the Government Representative in the Senate): Honourable Senators, pursuant to the order adopted December 7, 2021, I would like to inform the Senate that Question Period with the Honourable Marco E. L. Mendicino, P.C., M.P., Minister of Public Safety, will take place on Wednesday, March 30, 2022, at the later of the end of Routine Proceedings or 2:30 p.m.

[Translation]

Hon. Claude Carignan: My question is for the Leader of the Government in the Senate.

Leader, the Harper government decided to proceed with the procurement of the F-35 fighter jets nearly 12 years ago now, but the current Prime Minister — and who knows whether to call him Liberal or NDP — said he would not buy those fighter jets. He told Canadians that the aircraft did not work and were a long way from ever working.

Yesterday the Liberal or NDP Prime Minister finally announced his intention to commit not to a purchase, but to a negotiation with Lockheed Martin to procure the F-35s. When Russia invaded Ukraine, the German government took immediate action to boost its defence budget and purchase F-35 fighters for its air force.

Other countries did the same. The British, the Americans, the Belgians, the Norwegians, the Italians, the Japanese, the Poles and the Danes all did just that. Once again, our Prime Minister did not make a decision to purchase them, but rather to negotiate to purchase them.

Leader, with war raging in Europe for over a month now, why can’t your government admit that it made a mistake by halting the purchase, by waiting 12 years before starting to negotiate the purchase of the F-35s? Canada is increasingly becoming the butt of jokes that I hate, saying that we don’t have armed forces, we have unarmed forces.

The Hon. the Speaker: Is it your pleasure, honourable senators, to adopt the motion?

Hon. Claude Carignan moved second reading of Bill S-231, An Act to amend the Criminal Code, the Criminal Records Act, the National Defence Act and the DNA Identification Act.

He said: Honourable senators, I rise today at second reading of Bill S-231, whose short title is Increasing the Identification of Criminals Through the Use of DNA Act.

This is the new version of Bill S-236, which died on the Order Paper when the election was called. I would like to mention that the speech I delivered on June 23, 2021, at second reading of Bill S-236, is helpful to understanding Bill S-231. These two bills are similar and have the same underlying goal.

[English]

Bill S-231 will enhance public safety and facilitate the goal of criminal trials to seek the truth. It will allow for faster and more reliable resolution of police investigations and criminal court proceedings through DNA identification.

[Translation]

Scientific developments with respect to DNA make it possible to distinguish one person from another with great accuracy. The use of this technology, which is well established in Canada, has increased the accuracy of evidence proving the identity of individuals who have committed crimes. It also has the advantage of preventing judicial errors by exonerating innocent suspects.

To give you an idea of the accuracy of DNA evidence, I will give you an example from the 2015 Quebec Court of Appeal ruling in R. v. Cartier. This was a double murder case. The evidence showed that the genetic profile of the accused had been found on the inside of a mask left in a vehicle used by the killers. This evidence established that the likelihood of this profile matching someone other than the accused was about 1 in 300 billion.

Before I outline the provisions of Bill S-231, I will explain the process used by police to establish the identity of an individual from their DNA, in order to demonstrate the effectiveness of the bill and the solid privacy protections it incorporates.

The DNA identification process is clearly explained in the Royal Canadian Mounted Police’s 2020-21 National DNA Data Bank annual report.

This state-run bank has collected and managed hundreds of thousands of DNA profiles since 2000, most of them from crime scenes and convicted offenders. As of December 31, 2021, the bank had 422,067 profiles in its convicted offenders index and 193,053 in its crime scene index.

The DNA Identification Act regulates the operation and maintenance of the data bank, while the Criminal Code sets out under which circumstances an individual can be ordered to provide a DNA sample. These are two of the acts that Bill S-231 seeks to amend.

This bank is extremely important, as the Ontario Court of Appeal said in paragraph 82 of its ruling in R. v. K.M., and I quote:

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[English]

The importance of the state objective in enacting the DNA data bank legislative scheme, both as it relates to adults and young offenders, can scarcely be doubted. Indeed, I would describe its worth as inestimable in cases such as where the [National DNA Data Bank] facilitates the apprehension of a serial sexual predator, or the exoneration of a person who has been wrongfully convicted.

[Translation]

The data bank contains profiles of both adult and young offenders. This is how it works. Each new DNA profile entered into the data bank is compared against existing profiles. This makes it possible to identify matches between profiles and to identify the perpetrator of a crime. A match is made when DNA profiles from two different crime scenes match or when a DNA profile from a crime scene matches the profile of a convicted offender in the data bank.

When a comparison of profiles in the data bank shows a match, police gain an invaluable lead to help them continue their investigation. In many serious criminal cases, a DNA match can lead to the reopening of an investigation that had been stalled for years.

You should know that there are hundreds of unsolved murders in Canada. The Sûreté du Québec alone has 750 such cases, according to an article by journalist Daniel Renaud published on November 13, 2021. In a 2015 report, the RCMP mentions 204 known and unsolved cases of missing and murdered Indigenous women and girls, with 106 homicide cases and 98 missing cases.

However, the actual number could be much higher, according to the final report of the National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls.

Imagine how many families could achieve a sense of justice and work through the grieving process if the murderer were finally identified and tried. That is exactly what this bill will make possible by giving police forces more ways to find matches in the bank.

The bank has actually helped solve thousands of investigations. According to its annual report, the bank found 66,539 matches between a convicted offender and a crime scene, as well as 7,211 matches between two crime scenes. Thousands of associations were made for homicides — over 4,000 in fact — and sexual offences — almost 7,000. These are serious crimes that threaten public and personal safety.

[English]

The bank will be even more effective if the Criminal Code were amended to make sure more offences trigger the requirement for convicted persons to provide DNA profiles to the bank, which is what Bill S-231 proposes.

The logic is that when someone is required to provide a DNA sample for a criminal offence, even a lesser offence, that sample may help resolve investigations for more serious offences, whether past or future, that this person has committed.

[Translation]

I want to share two statistics from the data bank’s annual report to support this. First, simple assault offences resulted in nearly 600 associations to murder cases and nearly 1,400 to sexual assault cases. Second, the offences of failure to appear in court or failure to comply with interim release conditions and other offences set out in section 145 of the Criminal Code resulted in 247 associations to murder or sexual assault cases.

That said, since DNA contains a lot of personal information, the National DNA Data Bank has strict rules about identifying an individual based on their DNA. For example, an individual’s profile in the bank is created based on just a fraction of their DNA, which means that the profile does not reveal any medical or physical information about the individual, aside from their biological sex.

To give you some idea of what that means, a DNA fraction in the data bank would be like copying down the first letter from every paragraph in a book. This very long series of letters would be anonymous data that would not reveal the author of the book or its plot. However, this series of letters would represent that book’s unique identifier, since a different book would have a completely different series of letters.

Moreover, the way the bank works, its employees do not know the name of the offender whose DNA sample is in the bank, nor do police officers have access to the DNA samples in the bank. In other words, the person’s name and their DNA sample are separate from the creation of their genetic profile in the bank.

As the Ontario Court of Appeal indicated in paragraph 46 of R. v. K.M.:

The DNA collection kit contains two parts, one with the DNA sample and the other with the offender’s identification information. Both parts of the kit have the same unique barcode number . . . . When the kit arrives at the data bank, the two forms are separated with the sample being retained by the databank and the identification form being sent to the RCMP records unit. From this point on, the processing of the sample at the data bank is anonymous. The donor’s identity remains unknown and no personal information is retained or entered into any DNA data base.

In its rulings, the Supreme Court of Canada has provided other examples of privacy protections for individuals who have a DNA sample in the data bank. The court has explained that when there is a match in the data bank between a convicted person and a crime scene, the police cannot access the DNA sample from the data bank and put it into evidence at trial. Instead, they must obtain a new sample from the person, for example by recovering a discarded item containing his or her DNA or by applying to a judge for a warrant to take a bodily sample from that person. The conditions for obtaining such a warrant are quite strict and are set out in section 487.05 of the Criminal Code.

In this context, the court ruled in R. v. S.A.B. that taking bodily samples under such a warrant represents a relatively modest violation of bodily integrity.

Similarly, the court ruled in R. v. Rodgers that the legal protections associated with the data bank make the loss of privacy for a convicted offender required to provide a DNA sample comparable to the loss of privacy for someone required to provide fingerprints to police upon arrest.

As the data bank’s annual report explains, the methods for collecting bodily samples for DNA are not very invasive. There are three types of collection kits designed specifically for the data bank. The first kit, which is used in 98% of cases, collects small droplets of blood using a finger prick. The other two kits collect samples by rubbing the inside of the mouth or taking six to eight hairs.

We can also find another protection for the information stored in the bank in section 487.08 of the Criminal Code and section 11 of the DNA Identification Act. These sections make it a punishable offence for police officers or officials to engage in unauthorized use of information and DNA samples from the bank.

As you can see, the data bank’s DNA samples and personal information are well protected. Bill S-231 does not change these important privacy protections. Instead, and most importantly, it seeks to increase the chances of making a match.

To that end, the bill proposes increasing the number of offences that require the court to order the convicted person to provide a DNA sample to the data bank. This provision of the bill received a lot of support from the National DNA Data Bank Advisory Committee.

Accordingly, Bill S-231 seeks to increase the number of criminal offences for which a DNA sample many be taken and to limit it in order to avoid purely summary cases. I therefore ask that you support Bill S-231.

Senator Housakos: Any entity that is connected to this tyrannical regime in Beijing would be covered, yes. The answer is yes. I’m not hiding from that reality. If you have a Chinese, state-owned and operated institution in Canada, yes, it would fall under this bill, as it should.

Hon. Marc Gold (Government Representative in the Senate): Thank you for the question. I don’t know the answer to that, but I suppose we’ll know next week. If I have an answer before then, I will certainly report back.