Hon. Frances Lankin: Senator Pate, thank you very much for bringing forward this bill.

As you and I know, many of us have been working on this for many years. I think of the work of Evelyn Forget in trying to finally bring together the research from the Dauphin, Manitoba project. I think about the changes that have been made, and the calls and some sort of patchwork from the Eggleton-Segal report. I think about the report on social assistance reform in the province of Ontario, which called for enhancement of the disability benefit and a basic income. Those were over the years. I think of P.E.I. more recently being interested in exploring this.

It doesn’t matter the political stripe of the government in power over all of these decades that we have been fighting for this; there is a stop — a hard wall. It seems to come from the Finance Department. I’m not blaming bureaucrats; they have their interests, reasons, philosophy, ideology and whatever. I want to understand it better, because I have never gotten a straight answer from them. They talk about the problems of design, but those are problems to be solved.

Have you, in your discussions with the minister or the department, gotten any clear information about why they continue to say “no” and won’t pursue what so many Canadians think is a much more inclusive and much more deliberately compassionate social policy?

Senator Pate: I wish I had a clear answer for you. My answer is “No, I have not received clear understanding,” hence the reason I spoke about many of the myths and stereotypes about poor people and the assertions that, in fact, CERB has significantly impacted the labour situation in this country when all of the available evidence to the government and beyond reveals just the opposite.

The only thing I have heard is that some have said, “Well, that’s not the legacy project this particular government or any government was looking for.” I think that’s beyond regrettable.

As we’re seeing outside the doors of this chamber right now, people’s frustration with their inability to navigate throughout this pandemic is rooted in the evisceration of social, economic and health policies over decades, and then is being used — I would argue is being appropriated — by some with very extreme horrific views, and they are exploiting people who are very much struggling to get by.

It’s imperative that not just the government, but all of us, look at how we move forward on this. I thank you very much for all of the work you have done historically, both in this chamber and before being in this chamber in the work you did provincially, municipally and throughout the country.