Senator Gold: The extension of the loan repayment to Canadians is an example of this government being sensitive to the fact that though the payments were necessary for many thousands of businesses and, indeed, critical in helping our economy weather this storm, circumstances have made it difficult for many to repay it. That is why the government is extending the time in order to give companies a longer period of time to repay and take advantage of the benefits that the program provides.

Hon. Diane Bellemare: Colleagues, I rise today to pay tribute to Étienne Gabrysz-Forget, whom some of you will remember as being part of the Senate family, since he was my parliamentary adviser from 2014 to 2016. He took his own life on April 21, just before his thirty-third birthday. A lawyer by training who specialized in litigation, he had a bright and promising future ahead of him. At the time of his passing, he was working for the Morency law firm. He always sought justice and wanted to become a judge. He supported me very well in my work as a senator.

He was the one who conducted the statistical research that can be found on my website regarding senates around the world. We were trying to better understand the unique nature of the Canadian Senate in relation to other senates around the world.

He encouraged me when I decided to become an independent senator, and later when I agreed to join Senator Harder in the Office of the Government Representative in the Senate. He also left his mark on today’s Senate by proposing a new title for the Deputy Leader of the Government in the Senate, namely the Legislative Deputy, which is now in the Parliament of Canada Act.

Étienne was a mischievous, sociable soul who loved to laugh. He talked to everyone and was very quick-witted. One morning, he decided, without telling me, to talk about Senate reform with the Minister of Democratic Reform at the time, none other than the current Leader of the Opposition, Pierre Poilievre, and it did not go as well as he thought it would. Étienne also liked to have his picture taken with the Speaker of the Senate, Pierre Claude Nolin.

Under his refined, well-dressed exterior, Étienne was a complex being. He was trying to find his way. His spirts were low, but I never ever would have thought that he would resort to such an irreversible act. However, as senators know, mental health problems can sometimes manifest suddenly and without warning. Temporary problems can lead to lasting consequences.

We will never know what he was thinking when he did what he did, but what we do know is that he knew he was having an unbearable anxiety attack and that he went to the hospital to stop himself from committing suicide. Unfortunately, the staff there did not feel it was necessary to keep an eye on him and sent him home. Even specialists have a hard time truly grasping mental health issues because they are so intangible. What a waste.

Colleagues, we take care of our physical health by having our blood pressure taken, getting blood tests and watching our weight, but we also need to take care of our mental health and that of our loved ones.

Étienne, there were so many people at your funeral. It was incredible, and yet you felt alone. Many of us are thinking of you and hold you close in our thoughts.

Étienne leaves behind his mother, Marguerite Gabrysz, his sister, Fanny, her partner, Guillaume and his young nephew, Adrien, whom he never met since the child was born just weeks after his death, as well as his uncles, aunts and many friends.

Rest in peace. Thank you.

[English]

Hon. Gwen Boniface: Honourable senators, welcome back.

Toronto Police Constable Andrew Hong; South Simcoe Police Constable Devon Northrup; South Simcoe Constable Morgan Russell; RCMP Constable Shaelyn Yang; OPP Constable Grzegorz Pierzchala; Edmonton Police Constable Travis Jordan; Edmonton Police Constable Brett Ryan; Sûreté du Québec Sergeant Maureen Breau; RCMP Constable Harvinder Singh Dhami; OPP Sergeant Eric Mueller; OPP Detective Constable Steven Tourangeau.

Dear colleagues, 11 Canadian police officers’ lives were taken while in the line of duty in the past year. Eleven spouses and life partners no longer have their person. Twelve children have been left with a gaping hole they will feel for the rest of their lives. An unborn child will never meet their father. Parents an ocean away have lost their daughter. A retired police officer has lost the child who followed in their footsteps. It is a club nobody wants to belong to. It has been devastating for families and colleagues, and so tragic for our communities and our own sense of safety.

This Sunday is Police and Peace Officers’ National Memorial Day. Every year, on the last Sunday in September, a memorial service is held on Parliament Hill to honour the lives of police officers and peace officers who have been killed in the line of duty. The memorial gives an opportunity for their loved ones to gather, grieve and remember together.

Colleagues, we know this has been a tragic year — in a way that is unlike any other that I have experienced. I invite you to join my family and me, and all the dignitaries and the police family at the service, which begins at 11 a.m. on Sunday. The parade will step off at 10:15 on Wellington Street at the Supreme Court. Please join as we remember them, grieve with their families and honour their dedication and commitment to our communities. Thank you, meegwetch.

Senator Marshall: My supplementary question relates to — again — the lack of financial information. It’s just not available. When I asked you the question in May or June, I mentioned that there is an air of secrecy over some of this information. At the time, you took offence and didn’t agree with me.

Even the simplest of information isn’t being provided. This is information that, historically, the government has been free to provide to us in committee. I find that the door is now being shut on even the most basic information.

I’ll give you an example. In June, I asked Department of Finance officials for the consolidated debt of the government. That would be the central government plus all its Crown corporations. In the past, they have always provided me with the number or would later send it as a follow-up. Now I can’t get that number.

The strange thing about this is that I could get the number myself, but I’d have to go through about 12 different financial documents and add up the numbers. It would take me a day to do it. I don’t understand why the government is so secretive over very basic financial information.

You continually talk about transparency, but when you talk about the government being transparent, I always think about the difficulty I’m having in getting basic financial information.

My question is the same as the last time: Why is the government so secretive about basic information that, though I can’t say is readily available, you could find if you put a day’s effort into it? Can you answer that question? Can you explain it?

Senator Batters: The Department of Justice actually would have this information, or absolutely should have this information, as they draft such a bill, because all we’re looking at are the types of offences and the number of years that an offence would potentially be subject to. If you don’t know the answer, that’s fine, but can you please get us the answer as soon as possible, particularly as you are looking for very quick passage? You are the Senate sponsor of this bill and the government leader in the Senate.

The Department of Justice absolutely would have done such an assessment to determine how many potential offences this type of bill would cover. Could you please get us that information as soon as possible?

Senator Gold: Thank you for your question and your comment.

I have confidence in the Senate. I have confidence in the committee that it will develop a work plan that is appropriate to the bill — its content, the issues it raises and its importance. I’m confident that the Senate will strike the appropriate balance as we have always done — at least in this era — balancing the importance of the bill and the support for the bill from those who are seized with the responsibility of living with it — Indigenous and other communities, and provinces and territories — and the need for us to do our constitutional job of providing proper, critical review of legislation before us. That is what is before us, and I have every confidence we will do the job Canadians expect us to do.

[Translation]

Hon. Percy E. Downe: Honourable senators, I would like to thank the senators who have added their signatures in support of our efforts to have the U.K. government correct the appalling situation where recipients of the U.K. State Pension in Canada are receiving pensions of declining value because they are not indexed. U.K. State Pension recipients in the United States and a host of other countries — Turkey, Iceland, Philippines, this list goes on — receive indexed pensions, but not in Canada.

Given the high inflation in our country, some of these pensioners are now living in poverty and therefore must be supported by the Canadian government through the Guaranteed Income Supplement rather than pensions into which they contributed in the United Kingdom.

Colleagues, over 120,000 U.K. citizens living in Canada are collecting non-indexed British state pensions, and our Canadian economy is losing over $450 million in spending power because of the U.K. government.

As a reminder, Canada indexes the Canada Pension Plan, or CPP, regardless of where in the world the recipient lives. As the U.K. government now tries to negotiate a free trade deal with Canada, this would be a great opportunity for the United Kingdom government to show goodwill by removing this irritant between our countries and treating their citizens in a fair and compassionate manner. Thank you, colleagues.

Senator Gold: Thank you for your question. It’s a fair question. I think that’s a question that should be explored at committee and posed to the officials as to why specific mention was made not just simply of Parliament but of the Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights in the House of Commons, which is typically the place in the other place that deals with these matters.

Senator Gold: At the risk of repeating myself, it’s up to the committee to decide how to proceed with this bill.

I wear two hats: one as a parent and the other as the Government Representative. I also have some suggestions when it comes to witnesses, like the other committee members I’m sure. As I already said to Senator Downe, we need to take our time, given the issues raised. Yes, it’s always interesting and important to consult committee evidence from the other place from time to time. However, in my experience of nearly seven years in the Senate, it isn’t often that we say that they’ve done good work and there isn’t much left to do. The same witnesses appear regularly before our committees with the same briefs; the same questions are asked and the same answers are given.

For me, it’s not simply a question of saying they didn’t conduct a study. They made their decision, and it’s their prerogative to do so. We have a job to do, and I prefer to focus on the need to study this bill properly, regardless of what happened in the other place. Again, I’m confident we will do the job right. This bill is rather short, but that doesn’t make it any less important. It’s not a quantitative issue, nor is it new. There’s already case law on reverse onus. The courts have provided us with certain criteria. We have a responsibility not only to study the bill properly, but also to respect the parameters of our role in making constitutional public policy choices, with the support of all the provinces and territories. We have to find the right balance. Once again, I have full confidence in the House, and I believe that the committee is in a good position to study the bill.

[English]

Hon. Elizabeth Marshall: My question is also for the Leader of the Government in the Senate. Senator Gold, I have asked numerous questions in this chamber and also in committee, looking for basic financial information but getting no answers. In June, I asked you if the subsidies for the battery plants were included in Budget 2023, but I have yet to receive an answer. Then, in May or June, I asked the Minister of Finance for the revised interest costs on the debt because the Bank of Canada has raised interest rates several times. The figure in the budget is $43.9 billion, but it’s going to be more than that. I noticed yesterday in this chamber somebody used the $43.9 billion figure again. Again, I couldn’t get an answer from the minister.

I can cite many examples where I have been looking for information and I can’t get it, and it’s basic information. So the document that I have been using mostly is the Public Accounts of Canada for the year ended March 2022. But that information is now 18 months old. It is six months now after the fiscal year just ended.

Next week, our National Finance Committee will continue their study of the Main Estimates. It would be very helpful if we had the actual numbers for last year so that we could look at the estimates for this year and compare the numbers.

My question is this: When will the government release the 2023 Public Accounts — are they going to make us wait until December as they did the year before last?

Hon. Donald Neil Plett (Leader of the Opposition): Senator Gold, on Tuesday, my colleagues and I asked you multiple questions about Prime Minister Trudeau’s Senate appointments to the National Security and Intelligence Committee of Parliamentarians, known as NSICOP. We asked for transparency on the appointments and we have asked you to get information from the Prime Minister as a representative of the Trudeau government in this chamber. Senator Gold, you have had two days to make a phone call and get an answer from your boss, the Prime Minister. Why are there no Conservative opposition senators on NSICOP?

Hon. Marc Gold (Government Representative in the Senate): Thank you for your question. As I answered on many occasions on Tuesday, the Prime Minister made the decision based upon a range of criteria, from the need for diversity to geographic and others, the competencies that different candidates would have brought forward and the needs of the committee.

Hon. Senators: Agreed.

(At 4:59 p.m., the Senate was continued until Tuesday, September 26, 2023, at 2 p.m.)

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

Some Hon. Senators: Hear, hear.

Hon. Stan Kutcher introduced Bill S-276, An Act respecting Ukrainian Heritage Month.

(Bill read first time.)

Hon. Patti LaBoucane-Benson (Legislative Deputy to the Government Representative in the Senate): Honourable senators, I give notice that, at the next sitting of the Senate, I will move:

That, notwithstanding any provision of the Rules, previous order, or usual practice, until the end of the day on June 30, 2024, any joint committee be authorized to hold hybrid meetings, with the provisions of the order of February 10, 2022, concerning such meetings, having effect; and

That a message be sent to the House of Commons to acquaint that house accordingly.

Hon. Patti LaBoucane-Benson (Legislative Deputy to the Government Representative in the Senate): Honourable senators, I have the honour to table, in both official languages, the government response to the eleventh report of the Standing Senate Committee on Social Affairs, Science and Technology, entitled All Together — The Role of Gender-based Analysis Plus in the Policy Process: reducing barriers to an inclusive intersectional policy analysis, tabled in the Senate on March 30, 2023.

(Pursuant to rule 12-23(4), this response and the original report are deemed referred to the Standing Senate Committee on Social Affairs, Science and Technology.)

The Hon. the Speaker: Honourable senators, when shall this bill be read the second time?

(On motion of Senator Kutcher, bill placed on the Orders of the Day for second reading two days hence.)