Senator Omidvar: Senator Gold, there is a rather straightforward solution, which is that the federal government should allow international students to tap into settlement supports. In this case, they may not fall vulnerable to extortion in housing and through extortion of other kinds that has led them, as we know — these are anecdotes but they are serious — to suicide, sex trafficking, et cetera.

Will the government consider opening up settlement supports throughout the country to international foreign students in need?

Hon. Stan Kutcher: My question is for Senator Gold.

Senator Gold, it is well known that the federal funding for our health research enterprise in Canada is falling behind our global competitors, and we’ll see if that will be addressed today in the budget. As a result of this falling behind, it will become increasingly unlikely to be able to conduct the research needed to maintain and improve the health of Canadians.

For example, the project grant competition success rates at the Canadian Institutes of Health Research, or CIHR, range between 15% and 20% in the last five years, which means, at best, only one in five applicants are successful. However, in the pre‑screening process at CIHR, at least 50% of the applications are of high quality. Such mismatch between success rates and the efforts needed to do these grants create tremendous discouragement, particularly for our young researchers.

Will the Government of Canada ensure that substantial increases for health research funding through CIHR will be made, and that this amount will be sufficient to not only maintain but also grow our health research enterprise? If not today, when could we expect that to happen?

Hon. Marc Gold (Government Representative in the Senate): Thank you for your question. The government recognizes how important investment is in fundamental research and support for the Canadian research community. It is essential to all of the challenges facing Canada, especially health challenges, which became very evident during the pandemic. That is why, in fact, over the last five years, we’ve seen an unprecedented increase in such investments.

In Budget 2018 alone, the government committed nearly $4 billion over a five-year period to support the next generation of Canadian researchers. In Budget 2022 — I am glossing over a number of initiatives and details that took place in the years between those two budgets — the government announced $20 million to study the long-term effects of COVID and $20 million to increase our knowledge of dementia and brain health that will be funded over five years through the CIHR.

The government takes this very seriously. It is working with provinces, territories and institutions to make sure we have world-class researchers getting the support they deserve.

Hon. Donald Neil Plett (Leader of the Opposition): Leader, in 2016, around the same time the Prime Minister was holding cash-for-access fundraisers with wealthy donors connected to the Chinese Communist Party, or CCP, in Beijing, his autobiography was republished by a state-owned enterprise, which serves as a propaganda department for the CCP. When this was brought to light in the media in 2021, the Prime Minister’s former National Security Advisor Richard Fadden indicated he would have strongly recommended against it, as it’s a classic ploy to cozy up to the Prime Minister.

I’ve had a written question on the Order Paper since November of 2021, leader, asking whether the Office of the Prime Minister or the Privy Council Office were provided with any security warnings about the republication of the Prime Minister’s autobiography. I have also asked if Global Affairs Canada had provided any advice on this matter.

Leader, why doesn’t the Trudeau government want to answer my questions, or do they also want the Rules Committee to deal with it?

Senator Plett: Well, at least it was a brief answer.

The Globe and Mail reported in September 2021 that the promotional blurb for the book in China noted that early in Mr. Trudeau’s first mandate, he signed Canada up for the Beijing-led Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank, a development that happened over the objections of the United States. It’s interesting that Beijing chose this way to publicize the Prime Minister’s book when the Trudeau government is very secretive when it comes to this bank.

I have two questions on the Senate Order Paper on this matter. One question has been there for almost a year, asking if the Trudeau government will make any further payments to this bank. The other question has been there for two years, leader. What’s the purpose of us asking written questions for two years — since March of 2021? It asks how many middle-class jobs were created here in Canada by sending tax dollars to this bank. It is a simple question.

Why doesn’t the Trudeau government want to answer these questions, leader? And why don’t you want to answer these questions? Surely you have the resources to make the inquiries and get us these answers.

Hon. Marilou McPhedran: Senator Gold, yesterday, the Auditor General of Canada released a report and noted that Global Affairs Canada was unable to show how the approximately $3.5 billion in bilateral development assistance that is prioritized each year for low- and middle-income countries actually improved outcomes for women and girls. While not arguing against the government’s Feminist International Assistance Policy, the Auditor General did identify serious reporting and accountability failures in monitoring the policy objectives.

Research conclusively shows that local women leaders are crucial multipliers in social, economic and democratic development, because women typically invest higher in their incomes and energy for their children and families, and because women never give up.

Investing in women’s empowerment is essential to reducing poverty, ending hunger, promoting democracy and achieving the global commitments of the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals. Sadly, the Auditor General’s report finds that Global Affairs Canada missed an opportunity to collect evidence-based data to demonstrate the value of Canada’s Feminist International Assistance Policy and galvanize progress to reach these crucial global goals.

Senator Gold, what is the government doing to rectify these gaps in effectiveness at Global Affairs?

Hon. Marc Gold (Government Representative in the Senate): Thank you for your question.

The government values the work of the Auditor General, takes its recommendations seriously and is working to make its processes more effective and impactful.

The challenge with the ambitious agenda that the government has put in place — and it is an ambitious agenda — is not only to gather data on individual programs, but to aggregate it so that it can be analyzed. It is critical that we assess the impact that it’s actually having on the ground on the lives of women and children and, indeed, on all projects that we fund.

We have been funding significantly. Indeed, in 2021-22, 99% of Canada’s bilateral development assistance either targeted or integrated gender equality results, which exceeded the target of 95% by 2022 that the government gave itself.

The challenge is also one of timing, because the programs get up and running, money is transferred, and schools, clean water facilities and the like are built, but then the collection of the data and the analysis take more time.

The government is committed, and now believes it begins to have the data to then properly aggregate and analyze and make sure that our money is being well spent with the impact that it needs to have to make a difference.

Hon. Marc Gold (Government Representative in the Senate): Thank you for your question. Since 2015, the government has committed over $120 billion and introduced over a hundred measures to support environmental action and climate mitigation such as banning single-use plastics, putting a price on pollution and making zero-emission vehicles more affordable. Under all of this, it’s just a scientific brute fact that climate action cannot be stalled.

Now, with regard to the report to which you referred, Minister Guilbeault responded quite clearly that he will be taking a hard, long look — I think were his words — as to whether we can hit our long-term greenhouse gas emissions targets 10 years earlier than planned. That’s under review by the minister, and he and his team will be studying the IPCC report very carefully.

Hon. Raymonde Gagné (Legislative Deputy to the Government Representative in the Senate): Honourable senators, pursuant to rule 4-13(3), I would like to inform the Senate that as we proceed with Government Business, the Senate will address the items in the following order: second reading of Bill C-18, followed by consideration of Motion No. 91, followed by second reading of Bill C-43, followed by second reading of Bill C-44, followed by all remaining items in the order that they appear on the Order Paper.

On the Order:

Resuming debate on the motion of the Honourable Senator Harder, P.C., seconded by the Honourable Senator Bellemare, for the second reading of Bill C-18, An Act respecting online communications platforms that make news content available to persons in Canada.

Hon. Marty Klyne: Honourable senators, I rise in support of Bill C-18, legislation to enhance fairness in the news marketplace, which was sponsored by Senator Harder.

This bill is a necessary tool to level the playing field for Canadian publishers. For years, the publishing industry has been overrun without government intervention. Governments have stood by as an industry once comprised of local papers, owned by local proprietors and committed to local stories was overtaken by conglomerates and tech giants. These giant companies shuttered community newspapers, consolidated larger papers and established online platforms to become the dominant source of information.

Big tech companies like Google and Facebook have overtaken our Canadian publishing industry and fail to pay our publishers anything close to fair value for the right to share their work. Journalism is a pillar of our democracy, and we must correct this situation. Bill C-18 is a promising start.

The discussion on Bill C-18 has focused on Google, the world’s most popular search engine, and Meta, the company that owns Facebook. Both platforms are used by millions of Canadians, and both offer tools that allow Canadians to connect with friends and family and access information.

They have become conduits between people and news, especially local news. Unfortunately, neither company has lived up to the responsibility inherent in this new role, which includes protecting and promoting freedom of expression and dealing fairly with Canadian publishers in sharing their work.

These tech giants have monetized the work that publishers produce for their own gain, collected data on its readership and have taken steps to dominate the online advertising space.

In reviewing this bill, I draw upon my experience as the former publisher and CEO of two major daily newspapers in Saskatchewan. In this role, I saw first-hand what operating a newspaper looked like in the digital age. The business is simple: publishers — whether they operate online or in a newsprint format — depend on advertising and subscription revenues to fund their operations.

Advertising pays for the newsroom, the equipment and for all the people that get the daily miracle out every day and have done so for over a century.

This system worked well for years, even when the internet came along and turned the industry on its head. Today, however, circumstances have changed, and it has become impossible for publishers to receive fair compensation for their work.

Allow me to dispel some myths about this bill and the publishing industry. First, I’d like to address the fiction that publishers made little effort to adapt their products when the internet began to take over the medium. This is false. Publishers made great efforts to move their products onto multiple platforms. They tailored their news content and advertising, depending on whether a person was reading it on their desktop, their cell phone, their tablet or in newsprint. Unfortunately, these efforts were impeded by Google’s unfair advertising practices, and I’ll talk more about that in a moment.

Second, I’d like to address claims that this bill is being used to subsidize legacy media. Again, this is not true. Bill C-18 is not about trying to preserve old systems. It’s about ensuring that Canadian publishers are properly compensated for their work. Bill C-18 has nothing to do with propping up a legacy media.

Finally, I want to be clear that sharing someone else’s news content without providing proper compensation is not good business. It’s unfair and damaging to the free press. Depriving content creators of proper payment deters creation. That means less content for platforms and less credible news for Canadians.

Of course, using someone else’s work without reciprocity is not new in the publishing industry. Radio stations refined the practice of “rip ‘n’ read” decades ago. With platforms like Google and Facebook, however, that practice is elevated to a whole new level.

Google is not just the world’s leading search engine. It morphed into a dominant online advertising company. That’s not a hyperbolic statement. Google effectively owns the business of online advertising placement, and their anti-competitive practices have made it difficult for publishers to get their fair value for ad placements and hence difficult to thrive and pay for their publishing operations.

Colleagues, allow me to share a short history lesson of Google’s advertising business and, in doing so, help define the problem before us. In the early 2000s, Google began to increase its online advertising presence. Their goal, seemingly, was not just to compete in this space, but to dominate it. As an article in the National Post recently noted, “Google’s strategy wasn’t to remain a search engine, but to expand and control all online advertising.”

But it wasn’t going to be simple. To control online advertising, Google first had to take over its competitors. In the early 2000s they acquired DoubleClick, a company that held a 60% market share in the software that publishers used to sell ads on websites. While Google’s purchase of DoubleClick may have seemed like a simple corporate transaction, it forever altered the way digital ads would be bought and sold. Buying DoubleClick allowed Google to own the market. They now had a huge list of advertisers and owned much of the existing ad space online.

At the same time, they owned AdX, an ad exchange network that connected buyers and sellers. This gave the company a near‑monopolistic level of control over online advertising — maybe a quasi-monopoly. That remains true today, and Canadian publishers have tried in vain to compete in a digital world where buyers, sellers and brokers of ads are all working through a limited number of companies under one umbrella.

The numbers don’t lie. The United States Department of Justice suggests that Google has a 90% share of the sell-side inventory on the digital advertising market. In other words, Google controls nearly all the market space that publishers use to sell ads on their websites. By their own estimates, Google collects “. . . on average more than 30% of the advertising dollars that flow through its digital advertising technology products . . . .” I don’t understand why the United States Federal Trade Commission did not block Google’s acquisition of DoubleClick in 2007, but this is the reality publishers must live with.

The situation has become so bad that the United States Attorney General recently launched an antitrust lawsuit against Google for monopolizing digital advertising technologies. The United Kingdom has launched a similar suit. The United States lawsuit argues that Google has engaged in “. . . a systematic campaign to seize control . . .” of the online advertising market, and they further argue:

. . . that Google itself believes “increased competition between (its ad exchange) AdX and publishers . . . would increase publisher revenues by 30 per cent to 40 per cent.”

These statistics underscore one simple fact: Canadian publishers are forced to do business with Google because Google is virtually the only game in town. This allows Google to set the terms, and they’ve been denying publishers their fair share for years.

Critics of Bill C-18 have argued that the bill is being used to prop up failed publishers who had their chance to adapt and didn’t. That doesn’t add up. I know because I was in the business during the years when Canadians were embracing the digital world. Traditional publishers made huge efforts to move online, and many new digital-first publishers were created. Both traditional outlets and the new companies did their best, but they simply could not and still cannot compete in a domain where their ability to receive fair compensation is blocked. Canadian publishers are not unable or unwilling to adapt, nor are they suggesting they have an inherent right to Google’s money. They are simply asking for fair value.

I also want to address Google’s public response to Bill C-18, and to share my concerns with their recent actions. In February, Google made the decision to restrict some Canadian users from accessing news content on their search engine, with the explanation that this was being done as part of test runs in response to the bill. As we learned from Google’s testimony at the Canadian Heritage Committee in the House of Commons on March 10, the tests were targeted at “. . . less than four per cent of Canadian users.” That may seem like a small figure, but when we consider that Google has over 30 million Canadian users, that works out to over 1 million Canadians being restricted from accessing news content.

Google has a right to make changes to its products, to run tests and to modify its services. None of that is up for debate. But when Google decides to block Canadians from seeing news stories from their local publishers, that amounts to intimidation in the public square. We have a responsibility to challenge this behaviour.

We’ve seen this type of aggression from both Google and Meta before. In December 2020, the Australian government introduced legislation that required Facebook and Google to pay local media outlets for the right to share their content. From the time when the legislation was introduced until it was passed, both companies mounted significant efforts in Australia to resist the law. Google threatened to pull its search function tools from the country, and Facebook temporarily restricted Australian news and publications from being shared on their platform. Leaked internal messages from the company show that, during this time, Facebook went so far as to block pages for local police services and government pages containing public health information.

Google’s recent actions seem to suggest that they are looking for a fight. And now, just like it did in Australia, Facebook is threatening to block news content in Canada should Bill C-18 pass. We already have an idea of how this will play out: Google ultimately backed down from their threat to pull their search engine from Australia, and Facebook restored the ability to share news articles in that country after a few days. I had hoped both companies might have learned from their past experiences and would emulate a more responsible approach here in Canada, but that doesn’t seem to be the case.

By threatening to block Canadians from local news even before the legislation has been voted on in the Senate, Google and Facebook have underscored the need for this bill. These companies have a tremendous amount of power over what Canadians see online. By choosing to restrict Canadians’ access, they reminded those same Canadians of the value that local news provides to communities. They reminded them that access to local news and information that is enlightening, engaging and entertaining is vital to them, and that private corporations appear to be messing with that which provides not only information on current events, but in many ways, respite. I think these companies may come to find that declining audiences lead to declining ad revenues.

In an update to their 2017 report The Shattered Mirror, the Public Policy Forum notes that:

Every community in Canada remains keenly interested in its own local affairs. Google and Facebook did not do away with that interest. But between them, Google and Facebook drained advertising from the news publications for which that interest was both the point and the business model. . . .

When we look at advertising revenues for community newspapers, that rings true. News Media Canada estimates that advertising revenue for community newspapers shrunk 66% from $1.21 billion in 2011 to $411 million in 2020.

We know that this legislation can work; we’ve seen it in Australia. Since their legislation was passed, Google and Facebook have signed deals with publishers worth AU $200 million annually. Canada needs Bill C-18 so our publishers can continue to do what they do best: hold powerful voices to account, which, for all intents and purposes, serves as a pillar of democracy.

Colleagues, credible journalism is the cornerstone of our democracy. I support Bill C-18 because it supports investigative journalism’s role in our democratic society. Journalism plays an important role in holding those in power accountable. It helps to foster a well-informed citizenry that can make informed decisions about the policies that affect their lives. In a complex and increasingly globalized society, it is more important than ever to be able to sort through the noise and find reliable sources of information. This means requiring tech giants like Google and Facebook to deal fairly with Canadian publishers and, hence, relevant investigative journalism reports. Parliament can make this happen. As a senator, I am duty bound to support Bill C-18. I believe in fortifying this cornerstone of democracy, and that’s why I established a scholarship fund for journalism at the University of Regina. Colleagues from all groups, I ask you to please help move this bill to committee quickly.

Thank you, hiy kitatamihin.

(On motion of Senator Martin, debate adjourned.)

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

Hon. Raymonde Gagné (Legislative Deputy to the Government Representative in the Senate) moved second reading of Bill C-44, An Act for granting to His Majesty certain sums of money for the federal public administration for the fiscal year ending March 31, 2024.

She said: Honourable senators, I am pleased to rise today to speak, if only briefly, to Bill C-44, appropriation bill No. 1, 2023-24. The funding in the 2023-24 Main Estimates is requested through this interim supply bill and the full supply bill, which will be voted on in June.

Bill C-44, on the interim supply, seeks to allocate funding to federal departments for the first three months of the fiscal year. It seeks to withdraw $89.7 billion from the Consolidated Revenue Fund.

I want to once again thank the members of the Standing Senate Committee on National Finance for their hard and careful work on a relatively tight deadline. The committee heard from witnesses from more than eight departments, including officials from Infrastructure Canada, Employment and Social Development Canada, Global Affairs Canada and the Treasury Board of Canada Secretariat.

I will provide more details on the bill at third reading.

[English]

An Hon. Senator: Fifteen minutes.

Hon. Senators: Agreed.

(Motion agreed to and report adopted.)

[Translation]

The Senate proceeded to consideration of the fourth report (interim) of the Standing Committee on Rules, Procedures and the Rights of Parliament, entitled Amendments to the Rules, presented in the Senate on February 7, 2023.

Hon. Julie Miville-Dechêne moved third reading of Bill S-210, An Act to restrict young persons’ online access to sexually explicit material, as amended.

She said: Honourable senators, I rise today at third reading stage of Bill S-210 on protecting young persons from exposure to pornography. I’ve been the sponsor of this initiative for the past two and a half years, and this is the second time that the Senate is debating the bill at third reading. The bill we’re studying was improved by this process.

I’d like to extend my heartfelt thanks to all members of the Standing Senate Committee on Legal and Constitutional Affairs, especially the then chair, Senator Mobina Jaffer. I also wish to thank the critic of Bill S-210, Senator Yonah Martin, our law clerk, Marc-André Roy and, in my office, legal experts To-Yen Tran and Jérôme Lussier, for their invaluable work. They believed in the bill.

I supported this bill with conviction because it appealed to my many identities.

I am a mother and my two children are part of the generation that had access to the first free pornography sites. Previously, explicit sexual content was for adults only; suddenly, there was nothing to prevent children from accessing pornography on the internet. At that time, just like today, parents were powerless to address this boundless access and total lack of controls.

I am also a feminist, and I’m concerned that young people’s exposure to pornography undermines gender equality in their intimate relationships. Porn too often encourages and normalizes sexist practices of domination that directly contradict the values we wish to instill in young men and women. According to a report released last week by the U.K. Children’s Commissioner, 47% of young people in England believe that girls expect sex to involve physical aggression, and 42% stated that most girls enjoy acts of sexual aggression.

Finally, for me, who has always believed in the importance of equal and comprehensive sex education in schools, it is clear that the avalanche of porn available online is having harmful effects on young people. Among other problems, teenagers who consume pornography develop unrealistic expectations about their bodies, what is expected of them and what they are supposed to look for in love.

At its core, Bill S-210 is based on the simple idea of protecting children from pornography in the virtual world as we protect them from pornography in the real world.

Twenty years ago, pornography was still largely restricted to adults, even on the internet. The huge influx of free porn sites has been a total game-changer. These companies want to maximize their viewership and they make no attempt to control the age of their users. For example, it is estimated that 14% of the people using Pornhub, a Montreal-based company, are minors who have unlimited access to millions and millions of porn videos that are often violent and degrading.

This is a pressing public health issue because an entire generation is getting their sex education by watching these videos. Studies have demonstrated the risk of trauma, addiction, distorted views of consent and one’s own desires, young girls’ misconceptions and even erectile dysfunction. There is an urgent need to act.

The major innovation contained in Bill S-210 would be to require porn sites to verify a user’s age, failing which they will be subject to a criminal offence. Most importantly, delinquent porn sites, even if they are based outside Canada, would be subject to a blocking order in Canada.

Again, for adults, Bill S-210 doesn’t change anything. All content legally available today will continue to be, once an age verification has occurred, which takes only a few minutes. At the recommendation of a witness, I proposed an amendment during the study in committee that enhances privacy protection for users and their personal information in the age verification mechanisms that will be clarified in the regulations. That amendment was adopted.

[English]

Of the 30 witnesses and briefs received by the Legal and Constitutional Affairs Committee, 25 supported the bill, including a majority of the legal experts who testified.

The bill has the support of pediatricians, psychiatrists and sexologists, but also of many parents who need help to protect their children. Research in the United Kingdom and Australia show about 80% of parents agree with age verification to stop children from watching porn.

The bill passed unopposed at the committee stage. However, we had interesting and, at times, difficult debates about the effectiveness of the proposed measures.

It won’t be easy, of course. This is a new legislative field, technology changes regularly and some people seem to think that the internet should be exempt from any laws and regulations that apply in the real world.

But that’s no reason to give up. Other countries have acted or are in the process of doing so. Germany and France have already passed laws similar to Bill S-210. The British government is also considering legislation that would require age verification for porn sites. This is a global issue, and Canada must do its part. The more countries that hold porn sites accountable, the more effective the measures will be.

Here is how the Canadian Centre for Child Protection sums up its support for the bill:

The digital nature of online pornography does not and should not mean that society abrogates its responsibilities to children and youth. It makes no sense that a 14-year-old cannot watch an R-rated movie with simulated sex scenes in a movie theatre but can easily access pornography on her phone. We cannot let adult websites dictate the sexual education of Canada’s children.

Like the other members of the Legal and Constitutional Affairs Committee, I am aware that Bill S-210 is part of a larger and more complex puzzle. The same applies to alcohol, drugs, gambling and other harmful content or activities from which we want to protect children. There is a role for parents, for education and for legislation. Age verification is part of the solution; it is not the whole solution.

In 2020, the Australian Standing Committee on Social Policy and Legal Affairs published a report entitled, Protecting the age of innocence, which focused on age verification for online porn. Here is one of its main conclusions:

The Committee acknowledges that age verification is not a silver bullet — some websites containing pornographic material may not be captured, and some determined young people may find ways to circumvent the system. However, when it comes to protecting children from the very real harms associated with exposure to online pornography, the Committee’s strong view is that we should not let the perfect be the enemy of the good.

You will not be surprised to know that I fully concur with our Australian colleagues.

And for this reason, I believe that Bill S-210 should be sent to the House of Commons where the debate can continue and be enriched. I urge you all to vote for this bill.

Thank you.

Hon. Paula Simons: When I had the privilege of sitting in on the Legal and Constitutional Affairs Committee during the evolution of this bill, I raised concerns about the use of facial recognition software as a method of age verification. Could you tell me what the bill lays out as possible ways to verify age that might be less intrusive?

[Translation]

Senator Miville-Dechêne: Thank you for your question, Senator Simons.

To be extremely clear, the bill does not include any solutions or age verification options. All of that will be in the regulations. Why did we decide to do it that way? The reason is that the technology is changing very quickly, and we could not include specific solutions, such as using a certain card or form of identification, in the bill because it would become outdated very quickly. Instead, what we did was to establish safeguards to protect the privacy of individuals and customers. Everything else will be set out in the regulations.

However, please know that the strictest regulations in this area require third-party companies to conduct that verification. We are talking about companies that will be approved by the government. We will have companies that will follow the privacy rules, companies that are not the pornography platforms themselves because there is no way that those platforms should be entrusted with the age verification. They already have so much information about what customers are doing, even more than banks have. We do not want to give them even more power.

The issue that you raise about the use of facial recognition is indeed very controversial. It would be quite possible to list in the regulations the approved methods and those methods that are not approved. That is already being done in Germany and will soon be implemented in France and Great Britain. Thank you.

Hon. Chantal Petitclerc: Honourable senators, I also rise today in support of Bill S-210.

First, allow me to warmly thank Senator Miville-Dechêne for her perseverance, rigour and work on this important issue.

[English]

Colleagues, if I were to ask you the question: Between protecting young people from the harms of pornography exposure or increasing traffic to one’s online platform, which of these two goals might be a priority for the owner of a commercial pornographic website? That is, choosing between the health and safety of children or the profits from increased traffic? Yes, we can all easily guess the answer. And it is this obvious answer that, in my humble opinion, justifies the relevance of this bill and the urgency to send it to the other place as soon as possible to increase its chance of becoming law.

It is important to note that we have before us an issue on which there is near unanimity on the need to act. Whether in this chamber, in committee, among experts or in families, everyone is clear: Children should never have access to sexually explicit content.

This bill fills a void, and that is crucial given the increasing prominence of technology in our homes and schools. Screens are omnipresent in our living and working spaces. More than ever before, we have a life online, and it will only grow. We sell, we buy, we trade online. Children are learning, playing, interacting, communicating and gaming online. They increasingly have their own smartphones, tablets, laptops and a Wi-Fi or mobile internet connection, and this at a relatively young age. On the other hand, experts are developing advanced techniques to keep them engaged and connected as long as possible.

We hear this concern from parents everywhere, and it is growing from year to year in all socio-economic backgrounds. The management of screens, to which access has multiplied, is the parental challenge of the 21st century, especially after the pandemic of COVID-19.

[Translation]

In this world that is changing before our eyes at a speed unlike anything we’ve ever experienced, parents will have to be given additional tools, which they really need in order to properly fulfill their roles and experience greater peace of mind. Some might argue that it is the responsibility of parents, not the government. On the one hand, I think it’s a shared responsibility. On the other hand, it’s important to realize that when it comes to accessing illegal content, educating and supervising a child in 2023 is a much bigger challenge than it was in my day, with only one TV in the house and my Walkman as a source of entertainment when I went out.

Our children are bombarded from all sides, and they are curious. They are under pressure from others and they want to push the limits, which is quite normal. They are passionate about digital technology. Are we equipping them properly? We also need to help them protect themselves from online content that is harmful to their psychological and emotional well-being.

Once this bill passes, companies that distribute commercial pornography will be required to implement an age verification mechanism before providing access to their content.

That way, as is the case in the real world, only adults would be able to legally access this content, which must be kept away from our children for various reasons. I will come back to this later in my speech.

I’d like to highlight the amendment passed by the Standing Senate Committee on Legal and Constitutional Affairs. The amendment ensures greater respect for users’ privacy and protects their personal information. Senator Jaffer and Senator Miville-Dechêne described it in detail during their speeches at report stage.

[English]

Colleagues, restrictions on youth access to pornography already exist, and these restrictions are widely accepted in our society, such as access to adult magazines and films and to sex shops, which are restricted to those over 18, and proof of age is required. If something is forbidden in a physical context, don’t we all agree that obviously it should also be forbidden in the virtual world?

To quote Senator Martin:

The same rules should be in place online as well in the real world. For example, accessing explicit material from a store, for a minor, is illegal and heavily enforced by store owners, requiring proof of identification.

[Translation]

Adults are allowed to purchase alcoholic beverages. At the Société des alcools du Québec, the same logic applies to online sales as applies to in-store sales. In store, the buyer’s age will be verified if necessary and, for online sales, mandatory proof of age is required upon delivery of a product purchased via their website. For the purpose of this speech, I verified and found that the Société québécoise du cannabis website applies the same principle to the delivery of its products. No delivery can be made to anyone under the age of 21, even if the products have already been paid for.

How do we deal with the online world now that it has merged with the real world, for which most of our laws were designed? Now, these two worlds coexist and our laws and regulations must take that into account. They must reflect this new reality and evolve.

Colleagues, by ratifying the Convention on the Rights of the Child, Canada has committed, as set out in Article 19, to:

 . . . take all appropriate legislative, administrative, social and educational measures to protect the child from all forms of physical or mental violence, injury or abuse, neglect or negligent treatment, maltreatment or exploitation, including sexual abuse . . . .

The experts are clear on that and I agree. Giving children access to pornography is essentially child abuse. The negative psychological impacts have been documented for years and the findings are all the same. In this chamber and in committee, we have heard solid arguments on the negative short- and long-term effects of exposure to pornography, which we know often includes violent images.

Béatrice Copper-Royer, a psychologist who specializes in child and adolescent psychology, is very clear. She said, and I quote:

It is disastrous for a child to happen upon these images or videos by accident. It is a violation. It destabilizes them and they choose not to talk about it because they can sense it is terribly wrong.

She goes on to say the following, again about youth, and I quote:

The older ones choose to look at this content for a laugh or to try to get away with something in a world where there is not much you can’t get away with. It is also disastrous in that these images give them a violent and degrading view of sexuality and trivialize violent sexual behaviour.

During the Standing Senate Committee on Legal and Constitutional Affairs’ study of a previous version of this bill, Laila Mickelwait, founder of the #Traffickinghub movement and the Justice Defense Fund, said the following:

 . . . we have over 40 years of peer-reviewed research that demonstrates the harm pornography does to children who are viewing this content. We talk about viewing and doing. A study was done which showed that over 88% of mainstream pornography films contain sexual violence. When children view this content, research has shown that it does something in their brain that creates permission-giving beliefs, which then enable them to more easily act out in sexually violent ways.

It is troubling, to say the least. More troubling still is the fact that every study says the same thing, in other words, that there are definitely serious risks for children.

[English]

Being exposed to this type of content at an early age is undoubtedly a form of violence, of abuse. It deeply distorts the representations of a child in his or her relationship with the other, in the creation of his or her sexual identity, in the nature of his or her relationships with others. And then, of course, it has contributed to a banalization of sexuality, violence and a hypersexualization of society.

Honourable senators, my speech is certainly not about taking a moral position on pornography. What an adult does legally in his or her spare time is clearly none of my business, but what is our business, our responsibility, is to ensure that our children are protected and that we maximize their chances of growing up in healthy environments. This is a responsibility that we all share — as parents, as a society, as a country and here in this room. We must act. We must legislate.

To conclude, I think that not acting on this is equal to saying that we’re fine with our youth having access to porn, even though we know it has serious consequences. So, I guess the question is this: If it makes so much sense, why hasn’t it been done yet? We can’t hide behind the argument that it’s too complicated. We are now able to make it happen. We are able to do it, so let’s do it.

(On motion of Senator Martin, debate adjourned.)

[Translation]

On the Order:

Resuming debate on the motion of the Honourable Senator Martin, for the Honourable Senator Wells, seconded by the Honourable Senator Housakos, for the third reading of Bill C-228, An Act to amend the Bankruptcy and Insolvency Act, the Companies’ Creditors Arrangement Act and the Pension Benefits Standards Act, 1985.

Hon. Diane Bellemare moved the adoption of the report.

She said: Honourable senators, I am not sure if you read the report. Some of you read it carefully, I’m sure. The fact remains that it is rather opaque, since it proposes changes. I will briefly go over what it contains.

[English]

Last April, the Rules Committee wrote to the Clerk of the Senate, inviting the Senate Administration to identify changes to the Rules of the Senate that the committee may wish to consider. Over the course of two meetings on June 14, 2022, and September 27, 2022, the Clerk, accompanied by other senior officials, outlined a number of potential issues. After further consideration by the committee, the report before you today reflects the changes that the committee agreed to.

Many of the changes reflect minor corrections, errors in translation or elements that are no longer required due to legislative changes. I will not go into detail on these items, but they include such things as the removal of the prohibition on smoking in Senate and committee proceedings. Since 1988, the Non-smokers’ Health Act has prohibited smoking in federal workplaces, making those provisions of the Rules obsolete.

However, there are some elements that require some explanation, and I will address each of these in turn.

[Translation]

Rule 10-10, as it now stands, deals with the preparation and printing of Senate bills. It hasn’t undergone a major review since the rule that existed prior to that, which was adopted in 1923. As a result, it hasn’t kept up with modern practices, particularly the new bill format implemented in 2016 by the three federal entities that draft legislation, the Senate, the House of Commons and the Department of Justice.

The Office of the Law Clerk and Parliamentary Counsel recommended that the rule be repealed in its entirety because its component parts — form of amending bill, typographical indications of amendments, explanatory notes on amending bill and reprints of Senate bills — have not been strictly followed for many years and hearken back to a time when legislative information could be difficult to obtain.

In its place, the law clerk proposed a new rule 10-10, which would enable the Law Clerk and Parliamentary Counsel to make administrative and typographical corrections to bills. That would simplify that clause-by-clause consideration, reduce the risk of errors in legislative texts and minimize the risk of having to adopt additional amendments to correct errors introduced into bills throughout the legislative process before the two chambers of Parliament. The proposed wording is similar to that of House of Commons Standing Order 154.

[English]

Rule 12-23(6) currently requires a committee report recommending amendments to a bill to:

. . . have attached to it a printed copy of the bill on which the amendments are clearly written. The chair or deputy chair shall sign or initial this copy of the bill as well as all the amendments.

In practice, this has resulted in a time-consuming process where amendments were physically cut and pasted into a copy of the bill. The committee learned that in recent years this process was replaced by attaching a copy of the committee’s report to the bill. However, as this copy is not required at any subsequent stage of the legislative process, it serves no purpose, and its continuation is not necessary.

Rule 12-26 requires committees to table reports on financial expenditures in the previous session. Progressive changes to the Senate’s proactive disclosure requirements, in accordance with provisions contained in the Access to Information Act, have rendered these reporting requirements redundant, as this information is already required by legislation to be reported publicly on at least a quarterly basis.

As the reports under rule 12-26 cover the period of a session rather than a quarter or fiscal year, these reports can cause confusion, since the same information is reported in different ways. As such, the committee is recommending that rules 12-26(2) through 12-26(4) be deleted. As noted, this reporting practice has been overtaken by other reporting requirements, thus rendering this requirement redundant. It will in no way reduce the transparency surrounding committee spending.

[Translation]

Rule 14-1(6) provides that when a rule, statute or order requires a report or other document to be filed with the Senate, it may be deposited with the Clerk. As a result, officials from government departments and agencies must go to the Clerk’s office to hand in physical copies of the hundreds of annual reports and other documents that are required to be tabled in the Senate.

As part of its response to the COVID-19 pandemic, the Senate adopted sessional orders that allow for these documents to be deposited with the Clerk’s office electronically. While this was initially done as a result of COVID-19 — to limit the number of people needing to enter the Senate of Canada building — it was quickly found to have benefits outside the context of the pandemic. When these documents are deposited electronically, it is easier to compile them, disseminate them to senators and the public as needed, and archive them. It also helps reduce paper consumption, which is consistent with the Senate’s environmental goals.

There is currently a sessional order authorizing this practice to continue, but the committee recommends that it be written into the Rules through an amendment.

[English]

Finally, the committee is proposing a new rule 1-1(3), which would allow the Speaker of the Senate or the chair of a committee to authorize reasonable adjustments to the application of a rule or practice in order to allow a senator’s full and equal participation in the Senate. This rule entrenches a long-standing but informal practice where the Speaker and senators have exercised discretion, compassion and common sense to allow senators to continue to participate, even though they may not be able to strictly conform to certain provisions of the Rules.

It should be noted that this is intended to allow minor variances in order to allow senators to continue to participate in proceedings within the current context. Substantive changes to that context itself should only be addressed through a substantive motion adopted by the Senate.

Now, before I conclude, I would like to highlight one element of the clerk’s proposal that is not included in this report, and that has to do with consideration of reports from the Standing Senate Committee on Ethics and Conflict of Interest for Senators.

The clerk had identified potential challenges with the timelines within which a report concerning a senator must be considered and the possibility that a vote on the report may need to be put forward before the senator in question has been given the opportunity to speak to it. Before addressing this point of timing, the committee wanted to consult with the Ethics Committee, which is why it was not included in this report. However, those consultations have taken place, and potential amendments to the Rules in that regard will be put to our committee for consideration. If adopted, a further report will follow.

On that, I thank you very much, and I hope you will adopt this report in due time.

Senator Downe: Thank you. I trust the intention, but I’m sure colleagues would agree that it should not be left to discretion whether senators can have full participation because they suffer a disability. In the past in this chamber we have had people with a vision problem and adjustments were made. It should be automatic that all senators have full participation. I agree with the intent, but I don’t think it is here.

My second question is on rule 2-8(a):

When the Senate is sitting, it is not permitted:

(a) for Senators to engage in private conversations inside the bar, and if they do, the Speaker shall order them to go outside the bar; . . .

There has been a long tradition that when there is a disruption, if somebody is too loud — and I have been guilty of that myself — people frown, and the Speaker will intervene if necessary. But according to this rule, if I’m speaking to my seatmate I’m in violation of the rule; is that correct?

[Translation]

Senator Bellemare: You are probably quite right and that is the current rule. Nothing has changed. As for rule 2-8(a), it was not changed, but the reference to smoking being prohibited was deleted. Rules 2-8(a) and 2-8(b) are part of the current rule. No changes have been proposed in this case. We cannot have a conversation in the Senate and disturb others, but no changes were made to this point, which remained the same.

(On motion of Senator Martin, debate adjourned.)

[English]

On the Order:

Resuming debate on the motion of the Honourable Senator Galvez, seconded by the Honourable Senator Forest:

That the Senate of Canada recognize that:

(a)climate change is an urgent crisis that requires an immediate and ambitious response;

(b)human activity is unequivocally warming the atmosphere, ocean and land at an unprecedented pace, and is provoking weather and climate extremes in every region across the globe, including in the Arctic, which is warming at more than twice the global rate;

(c)failure to address climate change is resulting in catastrophic consequences especially for Canadian youth, Indigenous Peoples and future generations; and

(d)climate change is negatively impacting the health and safety of Canadians, and the financial stability of Canada;

That the Senate declare that Canada is in a national climate emergency which requires that Canada uphold its international commitments with respect to climate change and increase its climate action in line with the Paris Agreement’s objective of holding global warming well below two degrees Celsius and pursuing efforts to keep global warming below 1.5 degrees Celsius; and

That the Senate commit to action on mitigation and adaptation in response to the climate emergency and that it consider this urgency for action while undertaking its parliamentary business.

(On motion of Senator Housakos, debate adjourned.)

On the Order:

Resuming debate on the motion of the Honourable Senator Patterson (Nunavut), seconded by the Honourable Senator Greene:

Whereas the Senate provides representation for groups that are often underrepresented in Parliament, such as Aboriginal peoples, visible minorities and women;

Whereas paragraph (3) of section 23 of the Constitution Act, 1867 requires that, in order to be qualified for appointment to and to maintain a place in the Senate, a person must own land with a net worth of at least four thousand dollars in the province for which he or she is appointed;

Whereas a person’s personal circumstances or the availability of real property in a particular location may prevent him or her from owning the required property;

Whereas appointment to the Senate should not be restricted to those who own real property of a minimum net worth;

Whereas the existing real property qualification is inconsistent with the democratic values of modern Canadian society and is no longer an appropriate or relevant measure of the fitness of a person to serve in the Senate;

Whereas, in the case of Quebec, each of the twenty-four Senators representing the province must be appointed for and must have either their real property qualification in or be resident of a specified Electoral Division;

Whereas an amendment to the Constitution of Canada in relation to any provision that applies to one or more, but not all, provinces may be made by proclamation issued by the Governor General under the Great Seal of Canada only where so authorized by resolutions of the Senate and House of Commons and of the legislative assembly of each province to which the amendment applies;

Whereas the Supreme Court of Canada has determined that a full repeal of paragraph (3) of section 23 of the Constitution Act, 1867, respecting the real property qualification of Senators, would require a resolution of the Quebec National Assembly pursuant to section 43 of the Constitution Act, 1982;

Now, therefore, the Senate resolves that an amendment to the Constitution of Canada be authorized to be made by proclamation issued by Her Excellency the Governor General under the Great Seal of Canada in accordance with the Schedule hereto.

SCHEDULE

AMENDMENT TO THE CONSTITUTION OF CANADA

I, A.B., do declare and testify that I am by law duly qualified to be appointed a member of the Senate of Canada.

(On motion of Senator Housakos, debate adjourned.)

On the Order:

Resuming debate on the motion of the Honourable Senator Tannas, seconded by the Honourable Senator Black:

That, notwithstanding any provision of the Rules, previous order or usual practice:

1.except as provided in this order, the question not be put on the motion for third reading of a government bill unless the orders for resuming debate at second and third reading have, together, been called at least three times, in addition to the sittings at which the motions for second and third readings were moved;

2.when a government bill has been read a first time, and before a motion is moved to set the date for second reading, the Leader of the Government in the Senate or the Deputy Leader of the Government in the Senate may, without notice, move that the bill be deemed an urgent matter, and that the provisions of paragraph 1 of this order not apply to proceedings on the bill; and

3.when a motion has been moved pursuant to paragraph 2 of this order, the following provisions apply:

(a)the debate shall only deal with whether the bill should be deemed an urgent matter or not;

(b)the debate shall not be adjourned;

(c)the debate shall last a maximum of 20 minutes;

(d)no senator shall speak for more than 5 minutes;

(e)no senators shall speak more than once;

(f)the debate shall not be interrupted for any purpose, except for the reading of a message from the Crown or an event announced in such a message;

(g)the debate may continue beyond the ordinary time of adjournment, if necessary, until the conclusion of the debate and consequential business;

(h)the time taken in debate and for any vote shall not count as part of Routine Proceedings;

(i)no amendment or other motion shall be received, except a motion that a certain senator be now heard or do now speak;

(j)when debate concludes or the time for debate expires, the Speaker shall put the question; and

(k)any standing vote requested shall not be deferred, and the bells shall ring for only 15 minutes.

(On motion of Senator Housakos, debate adjourned.)

On the Order:

Resuming debate on the inquiry of the Honourable Senator Simons, calling the attention of the Senate to the challenges and opportunities that Canadian municipalities face, and to the importance of understanding and redefining the relationships between Canada’s municipalities and the federal government.