Hon. Marilou McPhedran: Thank you for the question, Senator Cardozo.

I think even a quick scan of major media today answers your question. For those of you who noticed, there was more coverage about Grassy Narrows and the mercury poisoning — which we had been assured a number of times was being dealt with — and we now have a current media report on the fact that that is not true and that the Indigenous community of Grassy Narrows continues, on a daily basis, to suffer terrible health consequences. By no means are we talking about history. We are talking about the combination of history that has not stopped and is the current reality as well.

Hon. Marilou McPhedran: Honourable senators, I rise today to speak in support of Bill C-226, which seeks to establish a national strategy to assess, prevent and address environmental racism while advancing environmental justice in Canada.

The goal and intent of what this legislation will accomplish cannot be overstated. Environmental racism may not be a well-known concept, but it is a profoundly damaging reality that many Canadians face with little acknowledgment or redress.

The Standing Senate Committee on Energy, the Environment and Natural Resources heard from a number of witnesses of varied backgrounds representing First Nations, Inuit, Black and other racialized communities. They also heard from renowned academics and legal experts. In essence, the possibilities presented by this legislation amount to a new lease on life for many of the most marginalized individuals, peoples and communities that are often tucked away in rural and remote regions across Canada.

This is an important note to highlight. Environmental racism, by virtue of it being a type of racism, impacts upon already marginalized peoples and communities. This, colleagues, is the exact segment of the population in Canada to which senators are supposed to be most responsible.

As set out explicitly in the Supreme Court of Canada’s 2014 ruling on the Senate reference:

Over time, the Senate also came to represent various groups that were under-represented in the House of Commons. It served as a forum for ethnic, gender, religious, linguistic, and Aboriginal groups that did not always have a meaningful opportunity to present their views through the popular democratic process . . . .

Colleagues, is there a better example of a bill that responds more directly to this obligation to represent the voiceless than the bill before us now? Bill C-226 seeks to offer tangible remedies to racialized Canadians who continuously struggle against the juggernaut that is the resource extractive industry.

Bill C-226 is truly a life-and-death proposition for many communities. This bill deals with premature deaths and premature morbidities — scientifically and empirically proven causality related to resource extractive activities.

This is not a frivolous or abstract bill. It has been a long time coming, and it has gone through all the necessary steps of review. Other countries around the world have already understood and adopted the concept of environmental justice, with Canada now close to catching up to those forward-thinking and just-minded societies. The opportunity is before us. After lengthy due diligence by senators, today is the time for us to vote on this opportunity.

Regrettably, a final vote has now been jeopardized because of a highly politicized process from which the bill’s sponsor, Senator McCallum, has been excluded.

Colleagues, Bill C-226 has had a long journey to where we are today — first introduced in a previous Parliament in February 2020, only to languish and die upon dissolution of that Parliament.

In February 2022, the leader of the Green Party in Parliament, MP Elizabeth May, introduced an enhanced version of the bill. It is before us after passage in the other place, without amendment.

Bill C-226 has been thoroughly reviewed by the Senate’s Energy Committee. Unanimously, without suggestion or discussion of amendment, it has returned to us.

Honourable colleagues, after ample due diligence, this bill has been closely examined. Its virtues and benefits have been well-established to the satisfaction of a range of senators, paying close attention to their responsibility to carefully and thoughtfully examine all dimensions of a bill brought to this chamber and to committee, now returned to all of us to follow proper, established procedures.

Today, I stand before you because, in discussion with Senator McCallum — the sponsor of Bill C-226 here — I have come to share her disappointment with some of the senatorial actions that have gone on behind the scenes.

Honourable senators, please keep in mind that Senator McCallum took this on as an unaffiliated senator, without the favour of a leader, liaison or scroll representative — in other words, without the support and privileges reserved only for caucused senators.

It has been incumbent on Senator McCallum and her office to shepherd this bill through the Senate of their own volition. I hope we can agree that “Team McCallum” has done well, that our colleague Senator McCallum has sponsored this bill with grace and tenacity at every turn.

Senators, I invite you to recall that, last spring, Senator McCallum had to fight to bring Bill C-226 to a second reading vote, which was delayed for many months until October 2023. Essentially alone, she acted with tremendous patience, restraint and — as hard as it may have been — even some deference to the “wink, wink, that’s the way things work here,” which resulted in a suite of agreed-upon bills passing before Bill C-226, that is, bills that belonged to caucused senators thereby ensuring that those bills now have priority at committee. Unfortunately, it is looking like Senator McCallum may be facing similar tactics this time around, awaiting a third reading vote.

Senator McCallum disclosed to me that in April she met with and communicated with group and caucus leadership to advocate for a fairly paced third reading vote, and that a consensus was reached to include her Bill C-226 in the recent suite of C-bills originating from the other place in the leader-brokered process that saw multiple bills expedited through this chamber.

In light of Government Motion No. 167 and the current discussion around the discriminatory realities facing unaffiliated senators, this agreement for expedition was welcome, excellent news. It is not every day that unaffiliated senators are considered favourably in such high-level discussions.

But was this predictably, sadly, short-lived fairness?

I’m advised that Senator McCallum was informed yesterday evening that, due to leaders being unable to agree to the passage of a further suite of bills, Bill C-226 has been dropped and now its final vote is excluded from the deal. It was suggested that perhaps a vote could be held at some nebulous point in the fall.

Honourable senators, I thank you again for your attention to my speech this week setting out the daily discrimination experienced by unaffiliated senators under the Senate’s practice of Aristotelian equality, where those of us who are different are treated differently and unfairly.

Please allow me to reiterate and underscore a critically important point here. Unaffiliated senators do not have the same leverage or equal opportunity to advocate for our items to progress through the legislative process. We have no bargaining chips of our own. We are excluded from discussions that produce decisions. We have no representative or champion within these discussions. We are shut out and shut down.

Being advised after the fact that a previous verbal agreement to have Bill C-226 receive its final vote will now not be honoured is disheartening. The long-standing and normalized process of horse-trading bills or paring off bills is a practice that is oppositional to the tenets of modernization.

Should not bills be considered and weighed on merit through careful consideration at committee with ample opportunity for senators to speak at readings? How does it make sense that a bill lives or dies based on the timelines and favours accorded to other unrelated legislation? We have just seen some bills advance to committee without a single senator speaking at second reading, for example, Bill C-275.

Let’s be honest about the impact on bills such as Bill C-226. This favouritism, this truncated due diligence, impedes the fair, final disposition of bills such as Bill C-226 that has succeeded at every stage of comprehensive review in both houses. How can this disparate treatment be viewed as acceptable?

Honourable colleagues, I stand before you today to call upon each of us to act responsively out of respect for our own careful, thoughtful standards on legislative review. Supporting this bill respects our standards and a primary purpose of the Senate: giving vulnerable minorities from coast to coast to coast a lifeline by which they can begin to improve their lives, health and environments.

Colleagues, I urge you to support our colleague Senator McCallum. Support Bill C-226 and support the voiceless and underrepresented Canadians to whom the Senate has a particular duty of care.

In conclusion, Your Honour, I call for the question on Bill C-226. Thank you. Meegwetch.

Hon. Marilou McPhedran: Honourable senators, hello, bonjour, tansi.

As a senator for Manitoba, I acknowledge that I live on Treaty 1 territory, the traditional lands of the Anishinaabe, Cree, Oji‑Cree, Dakota and Dene peoples, and the homeland of the Métis Nation.

I acknowledge that the Parliament of Canada is situated on unceded and unsurrendered Algonquin Anishinaabe territory.

[English]

I rise today to speak in support of Bill C-226, introduced in the other place by Member of Parliament Elizabeth May, Co-leader of the Green Party of Canada, and sponsored here by my esteemed Manitoba colleague Senator M.J. McCallum.

Honourable senators, it is heartening to note that this is one of the rare private member’s bills that received government support, as you heard when Senator Gold spoke in favour earlier this week.

It is my hope that I can best voice my support for this bill — which asks the Minister of Environment and Climate Change to develop a national strategy to counter environmental racism — by noting the ways in which passage of this bill will bring Canada more into alignment with existing international obligations including the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. Let us recall that apologies have been issued by Canada to Indigenous peoples, and now we must see actions to match. Bill C-226 could well galvanize such actions.

Having reviewed other contributions to this debate, the international context has certainly been mentioned, but I hope it will be helpful if I add some more detail to this aspect of why Bill C-226 is so deserving of our support.

Allow me to begin to observe why alignment with and implementation of our international human rights obligations is important and relevant to this bill on countering environmental racism.

To quote the Institute for Research on Public Policy just yesterday:

While Canada has long had a stellar reputation internationally for protecting human rights, our domestic track record is more dismal than that reputation would suggest. Time and again, decision-makers have failed to implement United Nations human rights treaties and recommendations at home on issues including the rights of Indigenous peoples, racism, gender equality, refugees and migrants, disability, housing, law enforcement and corporate accountability.

At the core of Canada ratifying any international rights treaty is our constitutionally entrenched commitment to equality rights, as well as the practical outcome that people in Canada can not only know and claim their rights, but — through implementation — they can also live their rights.

In the international context, Canada has recognized various human rights implicated by hazardous substances and wastes through its ratification or accession of seven United Nations human rights treaties. Under these treaties, Canada has specific obligations. These obligations, assumed voluntarily by Canada in signing and ratifying such treaties, clearly set out commitments to protect, respect and fulfill universal human rights, including the right to life and dignity; health; security of the person and bodily integrity; safe food and water; adequate housing; and safe and healthy working conditions.

Canada has specific obligations regarding the human rights of all people in Canada — all underpinned by protection from discrimination. These rights and obligations combine to create a duty for Canada to counter environmental racism.

In Bill C-226, we see a practical, measured way for Canada to take some big steps forward in bringing Canada more into alignment with existing international human rights obligations.

With the bill’s short title, national strategy respecting environmental racism and environmental justice act, it is set out in this bill that the national strategy must include measures to examine the link between race, socio-economic status and environmental risk; collect information and statistics relating to the location of environmental hazards; collect information and statistics relating to negative health outcomes in communities that have been affected by environmental racism; and assess the administration and enforcement of environmental laws in each province. It must also include measures to address environmental racism in relation to possible amendments to federal laws, policies and programs; the involvement of community groups in environmental policy-making; compensation for individuals or communities; ongoing funding for affected communities; and the access of affected communities to clean air and water.

In his 2020 report on Canada, the UN Special Rapporteur on the implications for human rights of the environmentally sound management and disposal of hazardous substances and wastes — after visiting a number of racialized communities, and meeting with government representatives in British Columbia, Alberta, Ontario and Quebec — noted:

Canada has obligations regarding the rights to information, participation, access to justice and remedies, and specific obligations regarding the rights of Indigenous peoples, children, different genders, workers, minorities, migrants, and persons with disabilities, among other vulnerable groups . . . .

Together, these rights and obligations create a duty for Canada to prevent exposure to toxic and otherwise hazardous substances. The only way to protect against violations of the above human rights is to prevent exposure. . . . However, businesses have critical responsibilities to prevent exposure as well.

To respect my time boundaries today, I’ll limit references to former UN special rapporteur Baskut Tuncak in his report on Canada, but I do want to note that he acknowledged that Canada has ratified all international chemicals and wastes treaties, and is in the process of moving toward adhering to the Basel Ban Amendment to the Basel Convention, which Canada adopted in 1992, with the primary objective of protecting human health and environments from the adverse effects of waste. If Canada respects and implements the Basel Ban Amendment, hazardous waste can no longer be exported to other countries from Canada.

The UN special rapporteur also noted numerous concerns; for example, he noted the “jurisdictional quagmire” faced by Indigenous peoples — where reserves often fall between the cracks of federal and provincial jurisdiction, posing a risk for unregulated exposures. For example, throughout Canada, provincial drinking water quality standards are not applicable on reserves, and federal standards are not legally binding, as they have yet to be set. As stated by the UN special rapporteur, “Jurisdictional separation is not an excuse for shortcomings by the Government in taking prompt action to address toxic exposures.”

He also noted:

. . . marginalized groups, and Indigenous peoples in particular, find themselves on the wrong side of a toxic divide, subject to conditions that would not be acceptable elsewhere in Canada.

Honourable colleagues, environmental racism has two main components: distributive spatial injustice and procedural injustice. The first is concerned primarily with the inequitable location of industrial polluters and other environmentally hazardous projects, and the second focuses on institutional mechanisms and policies that perpetuate inequitable distribution of those activities.

Close to home for me, year after year, Indigenous leaders in Manitoba present well-documented actions of Manitoba Hydro that — as they have noted — show how these two components of injustice operate in systemic ways to the detriment and, far too often, the destruction of First Nations communities.

According to Wa Ni Ska Tan, an alliance of Manitoba First Nations:

Manitoba Hydro has profited for over a hundred years at the expense of its First Nation partners. It pushes for the development of devastating hydroelectric mega projects to make millions of dollars exporting power to the United States, and Indigenous communities pay the price a thousand times over. New partnerships . . . are more of the same, with communities being saddled with millions of dollars in debt — on top of cultural and environmental costs — for a generating station that provides little or no economic benefit.

Colleagues, there is a cruel irony in the fact that many First Nations families report high electricity bills — often upward of $500 per month. This seems particularly unfair, as the power is generated from their now-destroyed ancestral lands.

In short, in Manitoba, Indigenous traditional livelihoods and ways of being are often undermined or destroyed by environmental racism. For example, Senator McCallum has spoken here about the negative impact of “man camps” — how the influx of external workers for hydroelectric developments can lead to increased sexual exploitation, substance abuse and social disruption, exacerbated by incidents marked by racism and sexism that have led to violence and loss.

In concluding his report on Canada, the UN special rapporteur made a number of recommendations that are addressed positively in Bill C-226. I will note one that relates directly to the adoption of this bill: “Establish a sound environmental justice framework based on the principles of procedural justice, geographic justice, and social justice . . . .”

Colleagues, given the importance of the issues discussed, and being conscious of how time will become more limited for non‑government bills as we navigate the precious — and pressured — final weeks before we rise in June, I now invite your active support for this bill. Let’s send it to committee for continued study as soon as we possibly can.

Thank you. Meegwetch.

(On motion of Senator Martin, debate adjourned.)

[Translation]

The Senate proceeded to consideration of the eighth report of the Standing Committee on Internal Economy, Budgets and Administration, entitled Amendments to the Senate Administrative Rules, presented in the Senate on May 16, 2023.