Hon. Mary Jane McCallum moved third reading of Bill C-226, An Act respecting the development of a national strategy to assess, prevent and address environmental racism and to advance environmental justice.

She said: Honourable senators, I rise to begin third reading debate on Bill C-226, An Act respecting the development of a national strategy to assess, prevent and address environmental racism and to advance environmental justice.

I thank former MP Lenore Zann, who first introduced an earlier version of this legislation — the former Bill C-230 — on February 26, 2020. I also thank MP Elizabeth May, the bill’s sponsor in the other place, for her years of working with grassroots and advocates to lay the groundwork required to introduce this bill. I thank the witnesses who appeared before the committee, as well as the many groups who submitted briefs to the committee. Finally, I thank the senators on the Standing Senate Committee on Energy, the Environment and Natural Resources for their engagement, open-mindedness, deliberative discussions and collegiality as we worked our way through this bill.

Colleagues, Bill C-226 intentionally does not include definitions of “environmental racism” or “environmental justice,” and this speech will speak to the reasons behind that decision. Bill C-226 is also intentionally not prescriptive in how to undertake the development and execution of the national strategy, as it must be developed in concert with affected individuals and communities. It is critical for people to speak on their own behalf about their first-hand experiences with environmental racism, and to be allowed to participate directly in environmental and policy-making decisions. As such, it must be their experiences that will inform the framework as they educate and create awareness of how environmental racism developed — and continues to develop — in their territories.

We heard in committee that some people did not know what environmental racism is. This was a very telling statement about the degree of education and awareness that is required to make Canadians better understand this class of racism. With this bill, the affected individuals and communities can share their solutions to inform a strategy that will better equip them in their fight against the racism that has affected them directly. Most simply want basic necessities and the things we all take for granted on a daily basis: access to clean and safe water, the right to health, environmental protections, community development and mitigation of destroyed environments.

Honourable senators, after excellent witness testimony, the committee agreed unanimously that there were to be no amendments to this bill. I would like to note that there was discussion of possibly including reference to the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, or UNDRIP, in the preamble; however, it must be noted that the bill before us will not only benefit First Nations and Inuit communities who experience this type of racism. Rather, this bill will also help improve the lives of countless African-Canadian/Black, Asian and other racialized communities, as well as women, the 2SLGBTQIA community, the disability community and others who face marginalization and discrimination across Canada.

However, under clause 3, subsection (2), entitled “Consultation,” it states that in developing this strategy, the minister must ensure that it is consistent with the Government of Canada’s framework for the recognition and implementation of the rights of Indigenous peoples.

Colleagues, I reference Elizabeth May in her witness testimony when she stated that she first became aware of the issues of environmental racism in dealing with Canada’s largest toxic waste site — the Sydney Tar Ponds — located in what was the only Black community on Cape Breton Island and in what had been Indigenous fishing grounds in the Muggah Creek estuary. That community work for environmental justice was documented in a 1999 film entitled Toxic Partners by Cape Breton filmmaker Neal Livingston.

Also, member of Parliament May quoted Dr. Ingrid Waldron — who holds the HOPE Chair in Peace and Health in the Global Peace and Social Justice Program in the Faculty of Humanities at McMaster University — and other Canadian academics extensively who documented the disproportionate proximity and greater exposure of Indigenous, Black and other racialized communities to polluting industries and other environmentally hazardous activities in Canada.

Dr. Waldron, in her presentation at committee, stated:

Since the fall of 2012, I have been examining the ecological, health, political and social impacts of environmental racism through a community-based collaborative approach that has included research; publications, including a book and journal publications; water testing projects; community engagement; community consultations; community advocacy; multimedia, including a Netflix documentary and media interviews; mapping using GIS analysis; education through workshops, symposiums and other events; and legislation.

She goes on to say:

The strength of Bill C-226 is that it uses an environmental justice lens that not only focuses on industry, waste, contaminants and pollutants, but also on the historical, socio-political and economic context within which environmental racism manifests in these communities across Canada. It also clearly identifies the steps that are needed to achieve environmental justice, including research, consultations with impacted communities, the involvement of impacted communities in policy-making and compensation for impacted communities. After 12 years of fighting for environmental justice for these communities, it is rewarding to see Bill C-226 waiting to be voted on at third reading in the Senate. I urge you to pass this bill. Its time has come. . . .

Chief Chris Plain from the Aamjiwnaang First Nation shared with the committee his history of environmental degradation that has developed in his community. He stated:

Aamjiwnaang . . . situated in the epicentre of what is referred to as Canada’s Chemical Valley, so named because the area contains 40% of Canada’s chemical industry. . . .

Over the past 100 years, lands and waters in Aamjiwnaang have been impoverished by over-exploitation. All facets of Aamjiwnaang’s environment are polluted, including air, land and water. . . .

Aamjiwnaang is surrounded on three sides by over 60 industrial refineries — the closest of which are literally across the street from, most importantly, community meetings, such as the band office, our church, our cemetery, our resource centre and many residences. These facilities represent 40% of Canada’s chemical refineries. It has been this way for many generations. While settler communities have been relocated at no cost to them, we remain here on our land. To us, it’s been an experience of profound environmental racism.

Chief Plain also told the committee:

. . . we need to mend the treaty relationship between Aamjiwnaang and the Crown, where Aamjiwnaang has an equal voice in decision making affecting our lands and waters, and decisions that directly affect our members. We need a seat at the table, and our concerns must inform the path forward. We want to be part of the solution. We want to feel confident that the air we are breathing isn’t slowly killing us. We want to live with peace of mind that our children will not get sick and die before us.

We hope that your work on environmental racism marks the beginning of a new honourable relationship where Aamjiwnaang can see measurable results from a government committed to doing better. . . .

Honourable senators, these are very powerful words. Another committee witness, Rueben George from the Tsleil-Waututh Nation, or TWN, stated the following in his briefing note to the Energy Committee:

In a 10 km stretch of Eastern Burrard Inlet, the core territory of the TWN, there is an aggregation of six industrial-scale above-ground oil storage facilities and their associated pipeline infrastructure, as well as marine and rail shipping activities. The Parkland oil refinery, which produces fuel for the Lower Mainland, is located directly across the water from the TWN community. A flaming tower burns waste gas here, 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. Westridge Marine Terminal, the terminus of the Trans Mountain Pipeline is also located just across the inlet and is slated to have daily transiting of tankers carrying diluted bitumen starting within the next month. These sites have histories of spills and environmental incidents. These facilities are not situated in the wealthier neighbourhoods of West Vancouver or Kitsilano, they are situated adjacent to our reserve.

Mr. George continues:

The Federal Government has committed to reconciliation with First Nations, but TWN has observed federal agencies continue to make decisions, develop legislation, policy and programs that have disproportionate negative implications for Indigenous peoples. The Trans Mountain Pipeline Expansion Project . . . is an example of this. TWN demonstrated to the government of Canada and to the Canadian Energy Regulator . . . National Energy Board . . . that the Project would unjustifiably infringe Tsleil-Waututh’s Aboriginal title, rights, and interests with our Indigenous law-based Assessment of the Project. Disregarding the findings of the Assessment, Canada approved the Project, prioritizing tenuous economic benefits over impacts to TWN rights and interests . . . Tsleil-Waututh . . . provided extensive data, evidence, and dialogue to Canada — including the likely extinction of the Southern Resident Killer Whales from marine shipping impacts.

Colleagues, a further witness before the Energy Committee on Bill C-226, Mr. Les Dysart, spoke in his briefing note about the extensive damage done by Manitoba Hydro to his community of South Indian Lake. This included permanent flooding of 837 square kilometres, which raised the level of Southern Indian Lake by an average of 3 metres, which is almost 10 feet. Mr. Dysart also wrote about:

Disastrous flushes of water down the Lower Churchill at high water times (these sudden inundations of up to 50 percent more water than the highest flows recorded in the 15 years prior to Diversion—often during spring ice break-up—scour the riverbed, batter shorelines, flood cabins, inundate riparian habitat, and temporarily raise levels of lakes on the river system by as much as 5.8 m (19 feet)) . . .

Mr. Dysart wrote about the wide-ranging and harrowing impacts that environmental racism from hydro activity had on his community. These included effects on fish and wildlife, including the near extinction of a distinct and culturally vital species of sturgeon; a rise in fish mercury to levels not fit for human consumption; and the decimation of the most productive inland northern fishery — Southern Indian Lake was home to the third-largest lake whitefish fishery in North America. In the decade prior to the diversion, the annual catch averaged about 400,000 kilograms. In the past decade, it was less than a tenth of that.

The effects also include the killing of beaver and muskrat by flooding and unpredictable fluctuations; the disappearance of hundreds of islands due to flooding and erosion on Southern Indian Lake; an increase in wood debris from collapsing shorelines getting caught in nets and creating half-submerged deadhead hazards for boaters; and the forced relocation of the community of South Indian Lake and the imposed burning of the old village. When they were removed from their old village, they were only allowed to take a suitcase. Finally, it caused the inundation of hundreds of documented, culturally significant sites — including graves — on Southern Indian Lake.

In his briefing note, Mr. Dysart writes:

We never wanted Churchill River Diversion. It should not exist. The water should still be free to flow as it is meant to flow. The fish should still be free to spawn where they are meant to spawn. Our beloved homelands should not be sacrificed. But we are not demanding that Churchill River Diversion be dismantled; only that damages be addressed and that we have a meaningful say in how the Diversion is operated.

Honourable senators, another witness before the Senate Energy Committee, Sarah Wiebe from the University of Victoria, recommended the enacting of Bill C-226; creating an office of environmental justice that adheres to our collaborative, multi-jurisdictional governance model; and adopting an intersectional planetary health lens to guide future environmental justice regulatory developments and administrative programming.

In a briefing note she presented to the committee, Dr. Wiebe wrote, “Environmental and human health are inseparable, but they are often treated in silos. . . .”

She continued, writing:

An intersectional planetary health lens acknowledges the need to be accountable to human and more-than-human beings. Following Dr. Waldron, a multi-pronged strategy must unapologetically centre race and “how it intersects with class, gender, and other social identities to shape the experiences of communities disproportionately impacted by a web of inequalities and environmentally hazardous industries; environmental policy that acknowledges and addresses structural and environmental determinants of health and culturally relevant participatory democracy approaches; partnerships between white led environmental justice organizations and Indigenous and Black communities; and alliances and solidarities between Indigenous and Black communities.” This lens is central to the flourishing of entire ecologies – waterways, plants, animals and atmospheres – alongside human health.

Colleagues, these environmental warriors do not give up. There has been, and continues to be, a mobilization of communities, allies and activists as they fight against the companies, laws, policies and other forces that threaten to fragment, displace, assimilate or drive impacted communities and peoples toward cultural and community disintegration. It is time we join them and support their work toward justice.

Looking through the lens of environmental injustice over the six years I have been on the Energy Committee, I have heard and seen first-hand some of the Canadian experiences and subsequent claims for justice — claims that identified how their lives and communities were negatively impacted by this specific type of racism. These claims went beyond environmental inequity or the siting of toxic sites in marginalized communities. These claims were embedded in broader struggles that included institutional racism and oppression, cultural and spiritual genocide, land dispossession, protection from contamination, equal participation, self-determination, ethical and sustainable land use, a healthy community and work environment, food insecurity, upholding of treaties, human rights and civil rights breaches, interjurisdictional gaps and unsustainable practices of resource extraction. The list goes on. That’s why it’s very difficult to define of “environmental racism” — it is so broad.

In their article entitled Indigenous Struggles, Environmental Justice, and Community Capabilities, authors David Schlosberg and David Carruthers quote Bunyan Bryant, who offers a definition that incorporates numerous conceptions of justice and illustrates the potential of environmental justice to revitalize and reconstruct functioning communities.

In Bryant’s formulation, environmental justice:

refers to those cultural norms and values, rules, regulations, behaviors, policies, and decisions to support sustainable communities, where people can interact with confidence that their environment is safe, nurturing, and productive. Environmental justice is served when people can realize their highest potential, without experiencing the “isms.” Environmental justice is supported by decent paying and safe jobs; quality schools and recreation; decent housing and adequate health care; democratic decision-making and personal empowerment; and communities free of violence, drugs, and poverty. These are communities where both cultural and biological diversity are respected and highly revered and where distributed justice prevails.

Bryant offers a broad, integrated notion of environmental justice that goes beyond mere distributional equity. The different affected groups across Canada experience environmental racism in different ways; hence, their respective definitions will be reflected in the insight and information that will be forthcoming.

Honourable senators, 17 principles of environmental justice were adopted by the self-termed People of Color at their leadership summit held from October 24 to 27, 1991 — that is how long people have been fighting — in Washington, D.C. In the same article mentioned above, authors Schlosberg and Carruthers quote Dr. Dorceta Taylor, a professor of environmental justice at Yale. Dr. Taylor had examined these 17 principles of environmental justice and identified 25 different issues for consideration. Included in those were protection from contamination and polluting industries; environmental policy based on mutual respect; and demands for equal participation, self-determination, ethical and sustainable land use. Note that equity was only one among many concerns in these attempts to operationalize environmental justice.

Colleagues, in the recently released 2024 reports of the Commissioner of the Environment and Sustainable Development’s Report 1 entitled Contaminated Sites in the North that was released last week states:

Contaminated sites represent significant environmental and human health risks and cost Canadians billions of dollars. . . . Although work was undertaken to remediate contaminated sites, the total financial liability for federal contaminated sites is now over $10 billion.

. . . [T]he [Federal Contaminated Sites Action Plan] did not appropriately support custodians by including climate change and reconciliation with Indigenous peoples in remediation efforts, which are key priorities related to the management of contaminated sites.

The report further states, “There were more than 24,000 contaminated sites across Canada, . . . .”

The lack of reporting and meaningful information on contaminated sites, including large abandoned mines, means that the Government of Canada, decision makers, and Canadians do not have a clear picture of the environmental and financial effects of these contaminated sites.

Colleagues, there are many ways that environmental racism manifests itself in very specific sites. The article entitled Environmental Racism and First Nations: A Call for Socially Just Public Policy Development by Christina Dhillon and Michael Young states:

While the US environmental justice movement has developed at an exponential rate, Canadian efforts have been far less effective, resulting in uneven attention to and action regarding environmental justice . . . . Canadian legislation that deals directly with the inequalities created by environmental injustice is for the most part non-existent. . . . current public policy regarding environmental justice for First Nations people is needed to ensure equal rights to a safe environment for all Canadians, regardless of race and/or economic status. Failure to commit to such change is tantamount to endorsing the continuance of racist practices, a far cry from the goal of a just society.

Honourable senators, members of the Energy Committee heard first-hand from witnesses their own realities of how environmental racism, because of capital colonialism, has severely disrupted their communities, families, governance, lives, health, self-determination, culture and so on. That is why social justice for First Nations involves relationship-based respect; upholding First Nations knowledge systems and world views, identity and culture; and understanding what colonization did to our people.

In Taiaiake Alfred’s book entitled It’s All About the Land, he states:

Removing us from our land has been the project from the beginning. . . . where the Native opposes the development of the land for exploitative purposes: that Native is defined out of existence or pushed out of existence. For us to defer to this notion of Aboriginal and try to structure ourselves and conceptualize our processes and goals accordingly is the end game of colonization.

Colleagues, it is time to confront the environmental racism that systematically constructs inequities by conferring advantages upon one group at the expense of others. Power and privilege are distributed unevenly, enabling industry and governments to allow private control of extractive systems where, in the quest for profit and land, certain groups are exposed to known disproportionate risks and effects with no protective or preventive action taken.

Today, as extractive industries such as oil, mining, hydro, gas and lumber continue to cause widespread destruction of land, air and water through unsustainable practices of resource extraction, First Nations communities are needing to work harder to protect and mitigate damage to the land that had been theirs for centuries. As one witness said, as fast as they are mitigating the effect of oil on their waters and food supply, the resource companies are damaging other sites already.

It is a sustained action of not only taking, but taking without giving back. It is taking as if there are no limits to what can be withdrawn, no limits to what Brown and Black bodies can take, no limits to what a functioning society can take, no limits to what Mother Earth can take. These unsustainable practices serve to deplete our clean waters, negatively impacting our non-human relatives, destroy our life-giving forests and cause instability of the climate itself. The impact of this reality on human health cannot be overstated. Here we look at premature morbidity and mortality, sexual violence and the perpetration of the painful history that brought us to this juncture today.

Honourable senators, we must acknowledge that this type of racism has long been enabled due to a persistent valuing of economy over health and life. In the article entitled The Environment as Freedom: A Decolonial Reimaging, author Malini Ranganathan quotes Myron Ebell of the Competitive Enterprise Institute at a gathering of climate change deniers in London in early 2017 as saying, “The environmental movement is, in my view, the greatest threat to freedom and prosperity in the modern world.”

The author continues:

Donald Trump, who had earlier recruited Ebell to head his Environmental Protection Agency transition team, echoed this view by declaring in his May 2017 commencement speech: “I’ve loosened up the strangling environmental chains wrapped around our country and our economy.” According to this narrative . . . protecting the environment is freedom-robbing. Only by unshackling ourselves from the concerns of the environment can we “free” ourselves and our society.

Placing the societal dynamic that enables this reality into perspective, the noted critic of fascism, Theodor Adorno, lamented in mid-20th century Europe that:

People have so manipulated the concept of freedom that it finally boils down to the right of the stronger and richer to take from the weaker and poorer whatever they still have.

Honourable senators, the appetite for change, a change that would be brought about through this bill, is being called for — not just within this chamber and its committee. Rather, the groundswell of support externally must also be respected. The David Suzuki Foundation currently has an active petition calling on the Senate to pass Bill C-226. This petition has been signed by over 10,000 individuals who are advocating for the improvements that they know this bill will create in the lives of countless Canadians.

In a brief submitted to the Energy Committee by the Canadian Association of Physicians for the Environment, or CAPE, CAPE board member Dr. Ojistoh Horn articulates that:

Environmental racism is supported by upstream systemic factors — societal values and beliefs conforming to a capitalist economy, that humans do not have a right to a healthy environment in practice, legislation that does not fairly protect BIPOC and Indigenous communities, institutions whose siloed and competing mandates do not protect these communities and are not uniformly held accountable to the laws already in place, and programs that have been designed without input from all stakeholders.

Further, in their briefing note, CAPE also notes that:

In Akwesasne on the ON, QC and US borders the people of the . . . (Mohawk) First Nation, are subjected to toxic exposures including polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) — which have been found to be related to thyroid dysfunction, reproductive health harms, cancers, autoimmune diseases, mental health disorders, and more. The exposures are not fixed, but change over time, as PCBs degenerate and lose chlorine, making them lighter and then volatile.

In Northern BC, fracking operations are connected to childhood leukemia, cardiovascular diseases, neurological effects and respiratory illnesses. . . . Fracking also contributes significantly to methane emissions, a potent greenhouse gas, undermining efforts to address climate change.

CAPE also notes that the exposure of the Athabasca Chipewyan First Nation to mine-waste contaminated oil sludge tailings ponds in Alberta and the Imperial Oil’s Kearl Mine toxic tailings ponds leak into the Peace-Athabasca river system has significantly impacted the communities’ ability to practise inherent and treaty rights, while also leading to physical and mental health issues arising therein.

The Native Women’s Association of Canada, NWAC, in their briefing note to the Energy Committee on Bill C-226, state that:

Environmental racism is not new. In Canada, Indigenous communities have fought against colonial law and policies to protect the air, land, water, species, and cultural connections to the land. Environmental racism is a form of systemic racism, which is the result of institutional policies and practices. Systemic racism is embedded in the laws, policies and institutions that govern our lives — and has been since European settlers first colonized these lands.

NWAC goes on to state that:

Indigenous Women experience gender-specific harms associated with systemic environmental racism. Changes in domestic and familial roles, perceptions of gender and identity, child-rearing and parenting norms, spiritual life, work and social activities impede their right to practice and revitalize their cultural traditions. Disproportionate numbers of Indigenous Women experience violence, abuse, loss of culture, traditions and language, unemployment, poverty, lower levels of educational attainment, and reduced access to resources.

Colleagues, in a briefing note sent to the Energy Committee, Women’s Healthy Environments Network, WHEN, wrote:

The notion of environmental racism in Bill C-226 comes from the fact that environmentally hazardous sites (including landfills and polluting industries) are established in areas inhabited by members of an Indigenous, racialized or other marginalized community. Environmental justice expert Robert Doyle Bullard summarizes environmental racism as:

The disproportionate location and greater exposure of Indigenous and racialized communities to contamination and pollution from polluting industries and other environmentally hazardous activities;

The lack of political power these communities have for resisting the placement of industrial polluters in their communities;

The implementation of policies that sanction the harmful and, in many cases, life-threatening presence of poisons in these communities;

The disproportionate negative impacts of environmental policies that result in differential rates of cleanup of environmental contaminants in these communities; and

The history of excluding Indigenous and racialized communities from mainstream environmental groups, decision-making boards, commissions and regulatory bodies.

In closing, honourable senators, I want to share some final thoughts. We are here, with the bill before us, to determine our future as a nation. Our first obligation, then, is to understand and acknowledge the true story of environmental racism in this country.

The history of environmental racism is a little-known dimension of Canadian history. It is not taught in our schools. It is not commemorated anywhere in our country or the nation’s capital. The long history of environmental racism has not been made a part of our national memory. It has been ignored or, worse, dismissed.

What is known to most Canadians is the present legacy: that Indigenous peoples and marginalized peoples in Canada do not have the same standard of life that is enjoyed by mainstream Canada. Canadians easily fall into the trap of blaming people who have been marginalized for the conditions in which they live and for failing to address their problems adequately.

That blaming leads inevitably to disrespect. That disrespect, however, also flows from the many generations of public policy founded on the view that people of colour were somehow inferior. This long-overdue conversation on environmental racism would inquire why, in a land of bounty, we have Third World poverty. It is because, “there is no real poverty in this country; there is simply excessive greed.”

So gently I offer my hand and ask,

Let me find my talk

So I can teach you about me.

That was a quote from Rita Joe, in 1988.

So, I’m appealing to you to listen and to read more about environmental racism. I want to thank you for listening and taking the time to be here. Kinanâskomitin. Thank you.

[Translation]

Hon. Mary Jane McCallum: Honourable senators, I rise to speak in support of Senator McPhedran’s amendment to Bill C-29, the national council for reconciliation act.

Colleagues, the term “time immemorial” has been used in many research articles, books and documents; it has been used by First Nations leaders, Elders, knowledge keepers and scholars. In our First Nations ways of being and knowing, it is a tribute to our connection to Creator and in our prayers, in Cree, we say kâkike, kâkike; forever and ever. It is a reminder of our sacred responsibility to the seven generations before us and that these ancestors also had their seven generations before them. It is also a reminder of our responsibility to the generations yet to come, including my grandson’s seven generations.

I now speak to the term “time immemorial” from a Cree perspective. In the book entitled Untuwe Pi Kin He Who We Are: Treaty Elders’ Teachings Volume I, Nisichawayasi Nehetho Nation and Kihche’otthasowewin — the Great Law of the Creator, Elder D’Arcy Linklater shares the great law of the creator from the Nisichawayasi Nehetho perspective. This is comprised of 12 laws of which the fourth states Aski Kanache Pumenikewin, which means that the conduct of a person must be in accordance with the sacred duty to protect N’tuskenan, the land, life, home and spiritual shelter entrusted to us by Kihche’manitou, for our children, michimahch’ohc. That is a different form of time immemorial.

Honourable senators, I spoke yesterday to Elder Claudette Commanda at the installation of the Indigenous Chiropractors Caucus. In her prayers, she said that her ancestors from Kitigan Zibi First Nation have been here since time immemorial and their lands remain unceded today. These are the lands we stand on. The First Nations knowledge of the term “time immemorial” and seven generations is uniquely situated on Turtle Island and keeping the land pristine.

I would like to draw your attention to the April 2019 report by the Standing Senate Committee on Aboriginal peoples entitled How Did We Get Here? A Concise, Unvarnished Account of the History of the Relationship between Indigenous Peoples and Canada. This report’s section entitled, “From Sovereign Nations to Wards of the State: The Story of First Nations’ Relationship with the Crown” has a subsection entitled “From Time Immemorial: The Life of First Nations Before the Arrival of Settlers,” where it states:

For thousands of years before the arrival of Europeans, First Nations lived on their traditional territories, depending on the lands and waters around them for sustenance. First Nations relationships to the land were a central part of their identity, as reflected in the diversity of cultures, laws, languages, ways of life and forms of governance that flourished across the area that is now Canada. . . .

The report continues:

When newcomers first arrived on the shores of Eastern Canada, they brought with them ideas about the land and the Indigenous inhabitants of the country, embodied in the concepts of terra nullius and the doctrine of discovery. . . . As explained by Elder Fred Kelly, the concept of terra nullius allowed ‘a discoverer ... [to] occupy the land by virtue of the fact that there is nobody there other than the animals’; this essentially allowed a discoverer to overlook the presence of Indigenous Peoples who were living on that land. A related concept, the doctrine of discovery ‘held that the discovery of such lands gave the discovering nation immediate sovereignty and all right and title to it.

In contrast, First Nations relied on the land for their sustenance — hunting, fishing or farming to feed their families and communities. For the Cree, land is ‘not about ownership and money.’ Instead, Cree People have a holistic understanding of land reflected in the concept of uski, which ‘includes all living things, such as the animals, plants, the trees, the fish, the rivers, the lakes and...the rocks...[and] also includes our concept of the sky world.’ The Cree view the land as integral to their culture, language and identity, and recognize that humans ‘are only a small part of our environment and...totally dependent on uski for their survival.’

The Government of Canada website, regarding the UNDRIP, or United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples Act, Action Plan, in “Chapter 1: Shared priorities,” states:

As a preliminary note to this Chapter, Canada recognizes that the UN Declaration Act states that “measures to implement the Declaration in Canada must take into account the diversity of Indigenous peoples and, in particular, the diversity of the identities, cultures, languages, customs, practices, rights and legal traditions of First Nations, Inuit and the Métis and of their institutions and governance structures, their relationships to the land and Indigenous knowledge.”

Canada recognizes that while some priorities may be shared among First Nations, Inuit and Métis, adopting a distinctions-based approach requires that Canada’s relationships and engagement with First Nations, Inuit and Métis include different approaches or actions and result in different outcomes. . . .

Honourable senators, in legal terms, “time immemorial” originated in English common law, where it referred to a legal concept signifying a period way back in time where there is no recollection of record to prove a custom, right or claim.

In the U.K., a statute of the year 1275 said that the time before King Richard I’s reign or 1189 was declared to be time immemorial.

You will see the difference here between how the two define the word.

Colleagues, much of the remaining information I will share is taken from a book published by the Thompson Rivers University entitled Histories of Indigenous Peoples and Canada, which reads:

Canadians — including many Indigenous people — came to understand Indigenous histories as tangential, small, unimportant, and even a blind alley. This kind of thinking enabled Canadian authorities and citizens to regard Indigenous communities as being “without history,” as in, outside of history. And no one outside of history is going to fare very well . . . We — all of us — are those Canadians invited to engage in the Truth and Reconciliation process. Some truths are unknowable but what we can know, what truths we can distill from the past will be essential to the long hard climb toward reconciliation.

One common form of histories across cultures is that they legitimate a society’s claim to be where it is. . . . For millennia, Indigenous history was maintained by many means —

— including oral history.

Privileging the written word, European and Euro-Canadian historians overwhelmingly disregarded and sometimes disparaged the oral tradition. In New France, British North America, and Canada, the colonialist strategy was more subtle: it simply denied the existence of a historic past [of the First Nations]. Since material records by First Nations were dependent on an interpreter, these skills became less common as alien diseases, warfare and relocation interrupted the connection between the past and its heirs and hence the importance of oral history.

The book continues:

A systematic academic archaeological dig that stretched from the 1880s to the 1950s in Marpole Midden, a traditional village and burial site of enormous importance, pointed to occupation that stretched back at least fifteen hundred years and abandonment sometime in the mid-1700s. . . . The Ottawa Citizen newspaper in 1948 took the view that, whoever they were, the people whose remains constitute the Marpole Midden “. . . were not Indians certainly.” This tendency to deny a history before colonization survives in the practice among some scholars and commentators — still found in some quarters today — to refer to the period before the arrival of Europeans as “pre-historic.” This alleged absence . . . allowed newcomers to write their own history over top of Indigenous Histories . . . Europeans in the early contact period might transcribe Indigenous voices, but that is always filtered through the Europeans’ lens of what is important and how they understood the speaker. For example, they were more likely to journal about beaver pelts than . . . Cree moral debates and Ktunaxa understandings of the past.

Honourable senators, we must ensure that, as educated and civilized champions of the marginalized, we do not continue to place First Nations, Métis and Inuit histories into a monolith, and that we do not adopt legislation that, once again, ignores First Nations histories.

We have to ensure that we do the right thing and continue to accurately place First Nations within Canadian history. What remains problematic is the persistent use of the term “Indigenous”; it remains a form of assimilation.

Colleagues, when Bruce Trigger broadened historical approaches now described as ethno-history, he was able to transform understandings of the pre-, proto- and post-contact history of the Wendat.

At first, Western scholars were astonished that Indigenous knowledge included centuries-old elements. One example included:

The Heiltsuk, a.k.a. Bella Bella, people’s history and their insistence that their direct ancestors lived in their region for many millennia; recent archaeological evidence validates this claim back about fourteen thousand years.

“Vindication” may seem like the right word here, but it has been more like an education. Euro-Canadian society as a whole has been slow to grasp the strength and depth of Indigenous historical knowledge . . . Indigenous societies speak of knowledge keepers, not necessarily knowledge providers. Under no obligation to disclose their historical knowledge, Indigenous peoples nevertheless have the right to demand truthfulness in historical studies —

 — and in this case, truthfulness in legislation.

Honourable senators, changing the wording in the amendment — to reflect the truth — is not about denying the status and authority of the Métis. It was never about excluding.

My intention, and the intention of the amendment before us, is in regard to historical accuracy. Such an amendment is not signalling that Métis are of lesser importance. It is a historical fact that they came later in Canadian society because of the Métis shared biology between a First Nations woman and a European man.

Honourable senators, if we deny historical accuracy, then we are facilitating a harmful illusion of Canada’s history that will ultimately have deleterious impacts on First Nations rights, history and culture.

We must be resolute that we approach our work in giving sober second thought with diligence, and that includes ensuring the legislation we pass is fundamentally accurate.

In the book entitled We All Go Back to the Land: The Who, Why, and How of Land Acknowledgements, author Suzanne Keeptwo states:

Although the Land Acknowledgement is perceived as a relatively new phenomenon, it prompts mainstream Canadians to re-imagine an Inhabited world — a world prior to European settlement, that is unlike any other.

Hon. Mary Jane McCallum: We will keep the vote to 5:30.

Senator McCallum: I was supposed to ask for leave, and Senator Klyne has withdrawn his motion. So I am maintaining the vote should go ahead at 5:30. It is done.

Senator McCallum: Honourable senators, with your leave, I would like to withdraw the motion and have the vote at 5:30.

Senator McCallum: No, I’m not.

Hon. Mary Jane McCallum: Therefore, honourable senators, in amendment, I move:

That Bill C-29, as amended, be not now read a third time, but that it be further amended in the preamble, on page 1, by replacing line 1 with the following:

“Whereas, since time immemorial, First Nations and Inuit peo-”.

Thank you.

Senator McCallum: We are not leaving anyone out unintentionally. That is the reality.

I disagree with the word “Indigenous.” This country has moved from using “Aboriginal” to now using “Indigenous,” and that includes all the groups.

When I look at the history of how First Nations people were targeted — as were the Inuit people — they were specifically and persistently targeted by legislation to bring them down, and that has to be taken into account. It was all about the land. The country needs to know. We hear “time immemorial,” and when I use that term, that is from the Cree term. There is a Cree word for “time immemorial.” Can you comment on that?

Senator McCallum: I have spoken to Métis people, and I met with the Manitoba Métis Federation this morning. I have spoken to them about this amendment; they agreed with it. I said to them, “First Nations women are the matriarch of the Métis Nation because without them, and without the people who came over — the French, and the British — there would have been no Métis Nation.”

How can you say, Senator LaBoucane-Benson, that there were three groups here, when the Europeans hadn’t come, and there were only the First Nations? First Nations includes all the tribes that were here. It’s the original peoples — it is just that we can’t come up with one term. In Cree, we call ourselves nêhiyawak, but they didn’t take that into consideration — it’s human beings.

That’s why it is very important. This is truth and reconciliation. The truth is there were only First Nations and Inuit peoples when people landed here. Can you comment on that?

Hon. Mary Jane McCallum: I wanted to say that the three, especially the AFN — I know for certain — are not rights holders. They represent rights holders, but they aren’t themselves.

I have heard of CAP before. They were a really great organization at one time, and then it fell into disarray. I know because I worked and I heard what happened there. That is why I asked them the questions in the committee. I asked them the questions and asked them to send the answers by the end of that week. They never sent the answers, and those are critical.

I became concerned that they weren’t doing the work they are saying they do and they’re not representing the people they say they do. If they were doing such great work — and we keep hearing that, but with this group of CAP, I have not heard one example of great work. I have tried to be fair to them. I have told them four times that I would like this information, and they never came back with it. That makes me suspicious.

When you say there’s respect for past contributions, yes, we have that, but we need to respect what is happening now. My sense is that there is very little being done.

Yes, this bill is extremely important, and we need to base it on truth. We have not received truth from CAP. We understand NWAC; we worked extensively with them on Bill C-69, working with Indigenous women across the country, so I know how hard they work.

You can’t say there’s symmetry or it’s not fair. I look at who does the work. I will support those.

There is the issue of “pretendians” and identity theft. That was the basis. Who is CAP? They still have not said who they are. There is not a CAP organization in Manitoba. I don’t know anyone whom they represent, and that is why if we say this is truth and reconciliation, then let’s base it on truth. Not one person here has said what they’ve done.

I just wanted to put that out there. I don’t have anything against them. If they had told me what they did, who their membership was, and what they had accomplished, I would support them, but I can’t.

Hon. Mary Jane McCallum: As a former student of a residential school, I want to correct something.

Senator McCallum: Okay. I’ll ask a question.

[Translation]

Senator McCallum: I worked extensively with organizations, even before I became a senator. I have worked with the Native Women’s Association of Canada, or NWAC, with the National Association of Friendship Centres and other groups, and they have been great allies and advocates. I have asked groups of women in the past week — healing groups — if CAP has advocated for them, and each group said no. I have never worked with CAP in the 30 years that I have worked with Indigenous people.

Can you tell me why you say that because NWAC is there, CAP should be there, when NWAC has done such great work? Thank you.

Senator McCallum: I heard for the third time people saying that there was extensive consultation done with residential school survivors. As a former student who went through an eight-hour day to do my story, you cannot consult when we are in the midst of darkness and just starting to sift through experience. Don’t you think that testifying publicly about painful personal memories and having it relegated to consultation is hurtful and does injury to former students? Thank you.

[Translation]

Senator McCallum: I’m not a regular member of the Indigenous Peoples Committee. I didn’t receive any mail. I did go out and ask those representing missing and murdered women. They said they come to our meetings, but they haven’t done anything. I have gone to Sixties Scoop; they don’t represent them. I have asked people in Manitoba, “What do you know about CAP?” and I have not heard anything.

Maybe other members received information, but I didn’t. I did talk with two of the administrators, and they’ve never provided information to me. Thank you.

Senator McCallum: Yes.

Hon. Mary Jane McCallum: Honourable senators, I rise today to speak to Bill C-282, An Act to amend the Department of Foreign Affairs, Trade and Development Act (supply management). I would like to thank Senator Gerba for sponsoring this very important bill.

Colleagues, I would like to begin by repeating part of her speech because it bears repeating. In her remarks, Senator Gerba stated:

Honourable senators, Bill C-282 is about protecting the supply management system. It is very simple. The bill amends section 10 of the Department of Foreign Affairs, Trade and Development Act to safeguard the system by making it a ministerial responsibility. It adds supply management to the list of directives that the minister must adhere to in conducting Canada’s external affairs, specifically during free trade agreement negotiations. The minister responsible for international trade won’t be able to do anything that would hurt supply management. It can no longer be used as a bargaining chip. Taking supply management off the table in international negotiations will preserve it forever.

Supply management in dairy, eggs and poultry has been a polarizing topic both nationally and internationally. What are the rifts that exist between those who support and those who oppose the system? In a 2017 article entitled “’Milk is Milk’: Marketing Milk in Ontario and the Origins of Supply Management,” author Jodey Nurse-Gupta examines the divisions between industry stakeholders during the implementation of the Ontario Milk Marketing Board, or OMMB, in order to better understand why some saw the board’s plan as rational and fair while others believed that OMMB policies infringed on their freedom and retarded the rationalization of the Ontario dairy industry.

Before the OMMB was established, chronic oversupply of milk resulted in devastatingly low milk prices. The divisions that existed between dairy producers were based on the differing purposes of milk production — those who produced fluid milk for the consumer; those who produced milk for cheese making; those who separated cream on the farm for butter making; and those who supplied industrial milk for manufacturing items like powdered or condensed milk — resulted in conflict between producers when milk prices were low. The OMMB was formed in 1965 to ensure that all producers received the same, fair price for their milk.

The reaction to pooling milk was met with anger among those producers who had held advantages in the dairy industry but who were now forced to participate in what they called:

. . . nothing more than a socialist grab of the money paid to some producers, so that other producers can get paid for their milk. . . .

William Macpherson, the OMMB’s director of finance, responded by saying:

. . . no question at all that we are taking from the rich and giving to the poor. That’s what we’re here for. . . .

. . . milk is milk, and it deserves a price based on the total market.

Others had reservations about a system of controlled production and marketing that did not allow for individuals to act independently in the market. Marketing boards in general had a history of being criticized for their interference with the laws of supply and demand and forced producer participation. By definition, a marketing board is a system of compulsory cooperation. Marketing boards require all producers of a certain product in a specified region to be compelled by law to adhere to the regulations of a marketing plan, which typically has the approval of the majority of producers of the product. The main objective was to maintain or increase, stabilize and equalize the income of producers.

Honourable senators, while milk is not the only supply-managed commodity in Canada — eggs and poultry are also supply managed — the dairy industry is most criticized because it holds significant market opportunities for dairy-exporting nations like the United States, New Zealand and states of the European Union.

Dairy producers elsewhere in the world have struggled in recent years to receive milk prices that cover their cost of production. Add in the issue of power asymmetry between producer and processor and/or supermarket and the result is a volatile mix. This contrasts with the Canadian system, suggesting that the stability Canada’s industry has in terms of reducing chronic milk surpluses and providing stable income for farmers will allow supply management to survive calls for it to be repealed.

The system of supply management as it exists today has undergone transformation over the decades. The basic pillars of the system — import controls, producer pricing and production discipline — were established in the 1960s and 1970s under the direction of provincial marketing boards with national coordination. Senator Gerba spoke articulately on these pillars in her speech. The creation of the OMMB was a significant catalyst in the development of supply management nationally.

Honourable senators, there were conflicts over market intervention. Some saw marketing board plans as rational and fair; others demonized the board for infringing on their freedom. Those who supported the OMMB included most of the provinces’ dairy producers who were suffering financial hardship; farmer representatives who witnessed the unfairness and instability inherent in previous dairy policies; and politicians and bureaucrats who were well aware of the social and economic costs of chronic overproduction. They recognized the necessity of controlling the milk supply and instituting fair farmer pricing in order to provide some balance within the historically unstable industry.

Those in opposition were fluid milk producers who believed they would lose market share to other dairy producers under the new system; dairy processors who resisted any interference in their ability to bargain for milk at the lowest possible cost; and consumers who were told by media outlets that they would be forced to pay more for their milk and other dairy products. Critics of controlled marketing also charged that such systems supported small-scale farmers at the expense of more modern, efficient and large-scale operations.

Opponents reinforced the idea that the OMMB’s policies were misguided by labelling such regulation as undemocratic and contrary to a free market system. The OMMB and their supporters defended the board’s policies as beginning the process of bringing rationality and stability to an industry where none had existed before.

Why was the supply system created? Why has it been maintained despite the proliferation of neo-liberal policies that dominate the discourse on international agricultural trade?

Colleagues, marketing boards first became popular in Canada after World War I because of the wartime grain price stabilization through the Canadian Wheat Board. The attraction for farmers and government was peace in the industry and reasonable pricing not subject to wild market fluctuations as well as a sense of fair play.

In 1929, during the Great Depression, marketing adjustments were sought by farmers in an effort to resist declining incomes. The result was the passage of two acts in 1927 and 1929 which were later repealed by the Supreme Court of Canada in 1931. However, they encouraged farmers to organize and demand orderly marketing from their governments.

Between 1929 and 1934, Ontario farm incomes had declined by over 40%. Dairy farmers were hit hard when dairy processors lost significant export contracts to Britain for items like cheese and domestic milk prices plummeted because of the “milk wars” between competing dairy processors and distributors.

While consumers benefited from the resulting cheap milk, price wars devastated the producers. Producers urged the government to pass legislation that would allow farmers more bargaining power to secure their “fair share of the consumer’s dollar.”

In 1934, the Milk Control Board, MCB, was established:

. . . to “bring some order out of the chaos” that the dairy industry had become. The MCB was given jurisdiction to “inquire into any matter relating to the producing, supplying, processing, handling, distributing, or sale of milk.”

Many governments around the world with valuable dairy industries retained more control over the dairy business after the war than before and moved to enact new regulations governing dairy production and trade.

Britain, New Zealand, Australia, Sweden, Denmark, Germany, Switzerland and Austria all introduced new legislation in the postwar period that enabled some sort of dairy support measures, including import restrictions, export subsidies, equalization schemes and price supports.

In the 1940s and 1950s, dairy exports declined in spite of increasing production. As stated by Nurse-Gupta:

Dairy farmers and their representatives insisted that more marketing control was needed to stabilize the industry and provide fair pricing for farm products. Critics insisted, however, that farmers had to “help themselves,” specifically by becoming modern and efficient producers.

Honourable senators, surplus dairy products continued to plague the industry in the 1960s. The federal subsidies for export dairy products such as butter, cheese, condensed milk and powdered milk caused overproduction.

It was the division of responsibility between the two governments based on the idea that fluid milk was a domestic issue, while other dairy products fell under export and trade responsibilities that was artificial and needed to be resolved.

While dairy processors had benefitted from oversupplies of milk through depressed prices, many farmers and farm leaders realized that the asymmetrical power relationships that existed between producers and processors in the dairy industry meant that farmers were price takers with little ability to negotiate fair terms individually. While critics of marketing schemes charged that marketing plans were dictatorial and socialist, supporters employed the language of exploitation and injustice to defend increased regulation in the industry.

The OMMB was able to establish the first milk pool in northern Ontario. It involved 342 farmers in the Nipissing, Sudbury and Manitoulin districts and served as a testing ground before the board began a milk pool for fluid shippers in southern Ontario in 1968. The pool was ultimately effective in raising milk producers’ incomes, and the response from area farmers was generally positive.

As the author of “Milk is Milk” writes:

Supply management was, and continues to be, a divisive topic because it challenges elements of neoliberal policies that are central to the discourse of international trade.

Increasingly, scholars and policy-makers are acknowledging that neoliberal policies:

. . . have been unable to secure healthy and sustainable returns for producers and have had serious consequences on animal welfare, the environment, agricultural workers, and food security and sovereignty.

In the 2014 article “Crying over Spilt Milk: The History of Dairy Supply Management and Its Role in Recent Trade Negotiations” —

Hon. Mary Jane McCallum: Honourable senators, I rise today to speak against the twelfth report of the Standing Senate Committee on Agriculture and Forestry with regards to Bill C-234, An Act to amend the Greenhouse Gas Pollution Pricing Act.

Honourable senators, farming has a special place in my heart. I mentioned in a previous debate that I met Dr. Robert Glenn in 1972, when I worked with him as a dental assistant. He took me under his wing and became a surrogate father to me.

While working as a dentist, he was also a farmer and would talk to me about farming. I asked him why he continued to farm when so much could be against him, such as the weather, the costs and the time. I soon understood, despite the time and work ethic required and the possibility that he might not have made any money by the end of the season, the love he had for farming. He said, “My girl, it’s in your blood.”

So when I see farmers, I see that.

If we divide the earth into four quarters, three quarters would represent water — the oceans, lakes and rivers. The remaining quarter would represent the land. Half of that land, one eighth of the earth, is too hostile to support us. That leaves one eighth of the earth for us to live on. I urge you to remember that as we’re having this debate.

In October 2023, the Ontario Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs stated:

Energy-efficient barns traditionally were barns that were well insulated. The primary cost factors in poultry farming were considered to be feed costs and chick costs, not energy costs. But now farmers are facing a situation where energy costs may double in the next few years.

“We really started to focus on energy costs about three years ago, particularly when we had threats of rolling blackouts in the summer months,” comments Bill Revington . . .

— who is general manager of farm operations for a large commercial poultry producer.

The 2022 Independent Auditor’s Report entitled Carbon Pricing — Environment and Climate Change Canada, under the subheading “Supporting burdened groups,” states that “Some groups remain disproportionately burdened by carbon pricing.” The report notes that these groups include “ . . . low-income households; Indigenous peoples; northern and remote communities; emission-intensive, trade-exposed industries; and small- and medium-sized enterprises.”

The federal government implemented measures to mitigate the burden of the federal backstop on the groups that would be disproportionately burdened by carbon pricing. However, the Office of the Auditor General of Canada found that small- and medium-sized enterprises were still disproportionately burdened.

One of the principles used to guide the pan-Canadian approach to pricing carbon pollution was that carbon-pricing policies should use some of the revenue from carbon pricing to avoid a disproportionate burden on certain groups. Environment and Climate Change Canada made efforts to identify groups that could be disproportionately burdened by carbon pricing and included small- and medium-sized enterprises. Without mitigating measures, these burdens could include an increase in the cost of living, potential employment losses and increases in operating costs for some trade-exposed industries. The Office of the Auditor General of Canada stated that the relative effects of carbon-pricing systems on burdened groups and Indigenous peoples will not be assessed until the next interim review of the benchmark in 2026. That’s a long time to leave our farmers in limbo.

To support certain organizations, $218 million of the fuel charge proceeds was allocated to Environment and Climate Change Canada to be delivered through the Climate Action Incentive Fund over two years. The fund was created to help organizations make energy-efficient improvements and retrofits to reduce energy use, costs and carbon pollution, with funding delivered through three separate funding streams. Eligible recipients include small- and medium-sized enterprises as well as municipalities, universities, schools and hospitals.

In the 2019-20 fiscal year, none of the funds allocated to the Climate Action Incentive Fund had been spent. In the 2020-21 fiscal year, 44%, which amounted to $95 million, of the allocated funds had been spent. The department told the Office of the Auditor General of Canada that modifications aimed to address these issues were not implemented because the Climate Action Incentive Fund was sunsetting. The department had not addressed the burden from carbon pricing faced by small- and medium-sized enterprises.

The recommendation made by the Office of the Auditor General of Canada was to address the disproportionate burden that carbon pricing may have on certain groups and Indigenous peoples. Environment and Climate Change Canada should work with provinces and territories to assess the burden of carbon-pricing systems on certain groups and report publicly on measures implemented in jurisdictions to mitigate the burden of carbon pricing on these groups.

Honourable senators, the cost of producing food and the land on which it is produced is increasingly at odds with the tighter and tighter concentration and distribution of economic power. Urban sprawl and land rezoned for residential subdivisions have the ability to reduce the farmland available to feed Canadians. Why would people allow the land that is the basis of a central food source to be flipped into housing, causing farmers to lose their businesses?

As Jeff Rubin explained in an autumn 2013 article in The Globe and Mail:

The price of farmland in Canada has outpaced both residential and commercial real estate, gaining an average of 12 per cent over the last five years. In some hotspots, such as southwestern Ontario, the price-per-acre has been going up by as much as 50 per cent a year. Even pension plans and hedge funds have become players in the pursuit of prime agricultural land, interest that is only sending prices that much higher.

The pressure to rezone is a reality for many farms.

The EU’s common agricultural policy, or CAP, launched in 1962 and it is a partnership between agriculture and society, and between Europe and its farmers. Its main aims are to improve agricultural productivity so that consumers have a stable supply of affordable food, and to ensure that EU farmers can make a reasonable living. Fifty years after CAP was implemented, the EU recognized the need to address the following challenges: food security — at the global level, food production will have to double in order to feed a world population of 9 billion people in 2050; climate change and sustainable management of natural resources; looking after the countryside across the EU and keeping the rural economy alive; providing training for land managers, farmers and farm advisers; providing specialist advice and assistance in preparing conservation plans; and paying farmers for the ecological goods and services they provide, such as clean water and habitats for wildlife.

Honourable senators, don’t you think we owe it to all types of food production in Canada to do the same? This is not only an issue of carbon pricing; it is also one of food security and sovereignty.

As I said, I am speaking against the report, and ask that you pass Bill C-234 as soon as possible. Thank you.

Senator McCallum: Can I have two minutes?

Senator McCallum: Thank you.

Bruce Muirhead states:

To date, Canadian governments have committed themselves to maintaining the system. . . . To lose it, however, would be a tragedy — it has served dairy farmers, consumers and processors well over the years, providing cost-effective, safe and secure dairy products in a world where those realities are increasingly difficult to guarantee.

Honourable senators, I urge you to support this bill.

Kinanâskomitinâwâw.

Thank you.

(On motion of Senator Loffreda, debate adjourned.)

On the Order:

Resuming debate on the motion of the Honourable Senator Clement, seconded by the Honourable Senator Duncan, for the second reading of Bill S-1001, An Act to amalgamate The Roman Catholic Episcopal Corporation of Ottawa and The Roman Catholic Episcopal Corporation for the Diocese of Alexandria-Cornwall, in Ontario, Canada.