The Hon. the Speaker: Honourable senators, I wish to draw your attention to the presence in the gallery of His Excellency Anselm Ransford Sowah, High Commissioner for Ghana. He is the guest of the Honourable Senator Bovey.

On behalf of all honourable senators, I welcome you to the Senate of Canada.

The Hon. the Speaker: Honourable senators, I wish to draw your attention to the presence in the gallery of students and professors from the University of Ottawa and the University of Haifa. They are the guests of the Honourable Senator Simons.

On behalf of all honourable senators, I welcome you to the Senate of Canada.

The Hon. the Speaker: Honourable senators, I wish to draw your attention to the presence in the gallery of a group of Foreign Service officers from Global Affairs Canada. They are the guests of the Honourable Senator Ringuette.

On behalf of all honourable senators, I welcome you to the Senate of Canada.

The Hon. the Speaker: Honourable senators, I wish to draw your attention to the presence in the gallery of our former colleague the Honourable Asha Seth, accompanied by Dr. Arun Seth. They are the guests of the Honourable Senator Ataullahjan.

On behalf of all honourable senators, I welcome you back to the Senate of Canada.

The Hon. the Speaker: Honourable senators, I wish to draw your attention to the presence in the gallery of Kim Mackenzie, Marianne Hasold-Schilter and Pat Krajewski. They are the guests of the Honourable Senator Marwah.

On behalf of all honourable senators, I welcome you to the Senate of Canada.

Hon. Salma Ataullahjan: Honourable senators, I rise today to speak on maternal and newborn health, an issue near and dear to my heart for many years.

In the past, I took the lead as the rapporteur for the IPU’s Committee on Democracy and Human Rights in drafting a report on the role of parliaments in assisting women and children’s health services. I also played a critical role in the landmark resolution on the matter, and I’m proud to say that it was the first time a resolution of its kind was adopted by the IPU.

For those of you who are not familiar with the IPU, it’s the Inter-Parliamentary Union, which consists of 179 countries. It predates the League of Nations, which means it’s older than the United Nations too.

I am particularly proud of my work on the accountability mechanism meant to monitor the progress of member parliaments in implementing the resolution. We cannot simply make commitments but forget about them as new issues arise. As a result, I was named IPU’s Goodwill Ambassador for Maternal and Newborn Child Health.

Although my work on maternal and newborn health has fallen to the sidelines in the last few years, I am honoured to be hosting an event tonight, along with our former colleague the Honourable Asha Seth, who has done incredible work on nutrition. The reception will highlight Canada’s leadership in global newborn and child health, and we will have the pleasure of hearing from Nutrition International’s Director of Global Advocacy.

It will be a good occasion to remind ourselves of the importance of advocating for this often-forgotten basic human right. In Canada, about 50 to 85 women die each year in childbirth or during postpartum, and over half of those mothers’ babies die as well. Our country still has a lot of work to do to ensure that Canadian mothers and their babies get a healthy start to life.

I am grateful to the former senator Seth for her continued advocacy for maternal, newborn and child health. Thank you.

The Hon. the Speaker: Honourable senators, I wish to draw your attention to the presence in the gallery of the Premier of Nunavut Pauloosie Akeeagok, Deputy Premier Pamela Gross, and Minister of Justice and Minister of Economic Development and Transportation David Akeeagok. They are the guests of the Honourable Senator Patterson (Nunavut).

On behalf of all honourable senators, I welcome you to the Senate of Canada.

Hon. Dennis Glen Patterson: Honourable senators, this week, the cabinet of the Government of Nunavut has come to Ottawa to meet with their federal counterparts to discuss issues of importance to Nunavut. The meetings touched on everything from infrastructure to transportation, housing, fisheries, climate change, elder repatriation and child care.

Premier Akeeagok also had meetings with the Minister of National Defence on issues relating to the important role that Inuit, Inuit-owned businesses and businesses in Northern Canada in general can contribute to NORAD modernization. The premier also met with the Prime Minister to discuss housing, health care, Arctic sovereignty, security and devolution.

I’m delighted that the premier and his cabinet were able to make this important trip here. It’s difficult to prioritize the many urgent and interconnected needs of our territory. Housing is clearly our first priority in Nunavut, reflected in the Nunavut government’s Nunavut 3000 initiative.

Improved housing and health care will lead to healthier children who will have a safe space to grow and learn. When they graduate, it will lead to more skilled workers and help ensure our economy grows, diversifies and thrives.

Supporting multi-user, multipurpose infrastructure will not only help support Arctic sovereignty and security initiatives — which are made more urgent as the world turns its attention to security in the circumpolar Arctic as the Ukraine war rages on — but it will also help us to follow through on domestic priorities like Canada’s Critical Minerals Strategy and community resupply. I’m thinking of projects such as the Grays Bay Port and Road Project, a nation-building initiative that I know Premier Akeeagok and Minister David Akeeagok will be discussing tomorrow alongside me and other stakeholders at the U.S. embassy.

Again, I thank the premier, his cabinet and their hard-working staff for their hard work on behalf of all Nunavummiut. Tunngasuqassi. Qujannamiik. Matna. Koana. Taima.

The Hon. the Speaker: Honourable senators, I wish to draw your attention to the presence in the gallery of His Excellency Anselm Ransford Sowah, High Commissioner for Ghana. He is the guest of the Honourable Senator Bovey.

On behalf of all honourable senators, I welcome you to the Senate of Canada.

The Hon. the Speaker: Honourable senators, I wish to draw your attention to the presence in the gallery of students and professors from the University of Ottawa and the University of Haifa. They are the guests of the Honourable Senator Simons.

On behalf of all honourable senators, I welcome you to the Senate of Canada.

The Hon. the Speaker: Honourable senators, I wish to draw your attention to the presence in the gallery of a group of Foreign Service officers from Global Affairs Canada. They are the guests of the Honourable Senator Ringuette.

On behalf of all honourable senators, I welcome you to the Senate of Canada.

The Hon. the Speaker: Honourable senators, I wish to draw your attention to the presence in the gallery of our former colleague the Honourable Asha Seth, accompanied by Dr. Arun Seth. They are the guests of the Honourable Senator Ataullahjan.

On behalf of all honourable senators, I welcome you back to the Senate of Canada.

Hon. Patricia Bovey: Honourable senators, today I want to update you on the Pan African Heritage Museum. As I have said before, it is being built now in Accra, Ghana, and will open in the fall of 2024.

It is particularly fitting that the High Commissioner for Ghana is here with us today. I thank him, his country and the Ghanaian visionaries whose initiative is honouring and presenting the African global diaspora, including ours in Canada.

As a member of the international curatorial council on this project, I developed a Canada-wide discussion team of Black artists and historians from all artistic disciplines to develop the themes and approaches for Canada’s virtual and in-person material exhibition in this museum. From that group, the content steering committee was formed. It is now a stand-alone independent charitable organization with a charitable tax number.

Thanks to a Foreign Affairs and International Trade Committee report titled Cultural Diplomacy at the Front Stage of Canada’s Foreign Policy, the Canada Council for the Arts and Global Affairs Canada have been funders of this project.

Six Black Canadian professional curators have been hired, one for each region and two for central Canada, given the size of their diaspora. The virtual aspect is progressing really well, and the Canadian Museum for Human Rights has become their partner.

Next, they will engage with the creative challenge of the real exhibition, a challenge I know they will rise to. Canada’s participation will be reflective of the honesty of Canada’s Black history — multi-generational, refugee and immigrant — today’s rich artistic expression by Canadian Black artists and will simultaneously set an exciting platform for our young people and generations to come.

I applaud the Canadian team and their initiatives that will bear positive, interesting fruit.

Your excellency, I want to thank you and Ghana for your foresight with this project, and I want to thank all those involved in the Canadian expression in it. I particularly want to thank Chantal Gibson, poet, visual artist, professor and chair of the content steering group, for her commitment, energy, vision and support.

Colleagues, this is an important expression of our cultural diplomacy in which music, dance, theatre, writing, film and visual art will excite visitors around the world. Canada’s Black artists are major contributors in every aspect of Canada’s arts and cultural life, and are core to the global creative sector.

Thank you.

Hon. Pat Duncan: Honourable senators, I give notice that, two days hence:

I will call the attention of the Senate to the one hundred and twenty-fifth anniversary of the Yukon Act, an Act of Parliament adopted on June 13, 1898.

Hon. Peter M. Boehm: Honourable senators, I give notice that, at the next sitting of the Senate, I will move:

That, notwithstanding the order of the Senate adopted on Tuesday, February 7, 2023, the date for the final report of the Standing Senate Committee on Foreign Affairs and International Trade in relation to its study on the Canadian foreign service and elements of the foreign policy machinery within Global Affairs Canada be extended from September 29, 2023 to December 29, 2023.

Hon. Nancy J. Hartling: Honourable senators, May 4 is International Firefighters’ Day, the day to remember the outstanding service of firefighters. Today, I rise to pay tribute to the late Captain Rheal Leger from my home region of New Brunswick. Rheal was a remarkable person who died too young from a work-related illness at the age of 57.

His career started as a volunteer firefighter in 1984. In 2014, he was promoted to captain of the Dieppe Fire Department. He served his community for 39 years and positively impacted many people through his work. His crew was like an extended family to him.

In 2000, he received the Canadian Firefighter of the Year bravery award for rescuing a mother and her two children from her car that was sinking in Babineau Creek. Even though he was off-duty at the time, when he saw the car in the water, he responded quickly and pulled the family to safety.

His wife Carol was the love of his life, and they enjoyed an extraordinary partnership as creators of their dreams, including building their cottage on the Richibucto River. His carpentry skills were impressive, and Carol enjoyed creating ideas for him to build. They travelled and enjoyed many pleasant memories.

Rheal’s love for his four children was unshakeable, and he promoted their independence. Growing up in Dieppe, his siblings have countless stories of the ways he helped them along life’s path. Rheal and Carol enjoyed life, and I remember attending a birthday party for Carol’s sister Darlene at the beach where I met them, and there was singing, dancing and laughter — I could see the joie de vivre.

Following the protocol for death in the line of duty from the Canadian Association of Fire Chiefs, a ceremony in the honour of Captain Leger was held at the campus of Collège communautaire du Nouveau-Brunswick in Dieppe on January 25, 2023. In lieu of flowers, the family asked that we do something nice for somebody unexpectedly and without explanation.

Dieppe’s Fire Chief Marc Cormier said:

Rheal’s departure allows us to reflect on what’s important in life and reminds us all no matter what colour patch we wear on our shoulders, or what colour badge we put on our chest, we must support each other at times of need.

And Rheal has stood by us during stressful times in our careers and we must pay tribute to him by keeping that going.

Recently, Captain Glenn Miller, Ashley Graham and Brian Parker — New Brunswick delegates from the International Association of Fire Fighters, or IAFF, 30th Canadian Legislative Conference in Ottawa — met with me to discuss the importance of preventing and treating cancers and illnesses related to firefighting. It is estimated that 95% of deaths in the line of duty are attributed to cancers linked to firefighting.

On May 4, it’s so important to remember the dedication and risk firefighters take in their occupation and to ensure appropriate legislation is in place.

As we remember Rheal and the sacrifice he made for the safety of our community, I want to extend my deepest condolences to his wife, Carol, their children, their siblings and family, and to his extended family, his firefighter colleagues.

[Translation]

We will always remember your sacrifice, and let us remember to thank our firefighters as well.

Thank you very much.

[English]

The Hon. the Speaker: Honourable senators, I wish to draw your attention to the presence in the gallery of Marc Leblanc, son of Senator Hartling; Jody Leblanc, her daughter-in-law; and Maxwell Leblanc, her grandson.

On behalf of all honourable senators, I welcome you to the Senate of Canada.

The Hon. the Speaker: Honourable senators, I wish to draw your attention to the presence in the gallery of a group of representatives from MS Canada. They are the guests of the Honourable Senator Coyle.

On behalf of all honourable senators, I welcome you to the Senate of Canada.

The Hon. the Speaker: Honourable senators, I wish to draw your attention to the presence in the gallery of The Honourable Ranj Pillai, member of the Legislative Assembly and Premier of the Yukon. He is the guest of the Honourable Senator Duncan.

On behalf of all honourable senators, I welcome you to the Senate of Canada.

The Hon. the Speaker: Honourable senators, I wish to draw your attention to the presence in the gallery of Marc Leblanc, son of Senator Hartling; Jody Leblanc, her daughter-in-law; and Maxwell Leblanc, her grandson.

On behalf of all honourable senators, I welcome you to the Senate of Canada.