Hon. Ratna Omidvar: I wish to pose a question to Senator Plett.

Senator Plett, I wonder if you have heard of a very famous Canadian comedian called Russell Peters, one of the most well‑known Canadian comedians. He is now in Los Angeles. He has a wonderful take on violence against children in Canadian families versus immigrant families. His tagline is, “Someone’s going to get hurt real bad.” He says it in his own way. I encourage you to listen to it. It will have you in splits. He makes the point that his immigrant friends feel very envious of his non-immigrant friends because immigrant parents appear to beat up their kids more violently or more regularly than, let’s say, others.

Comedy aside, I wonder if your research has indicated any such evidence to this point.

Hon. Ratna Omidvar: I am curious about Senator Plett’s proposition. I don’t have as many years in the Senate as you do, but I know enough about the Senate, as it is constructed today, to understand that the government leader and his team have certain responsibilities. However, they do not have what the other groups have, which is the authority to make statements. They can always rise up and make statements, of course, but they don’t have the capacity, let’s say every day, like three members of your caucus or two members of our caucus.

More significantly, while the members of the Government Representative Office, or GRO, have ex officio status on committees — where the real work gets done, I think we can all agree — they don’t have a committee seat. I think that is what Senator McCallum is asking for. I have certainly heard both Senator McCallum and Senator McPhedran, whilst they were members of the ISG and whilst they were unaffiliated, rise up on many occasions —

Hon. Ratna Omidvar: Would Senator Plett take a question, please?

Hon. Ratna Omidvar: Thank you, Senator Plett. Let me start by wishing you a speedy recovery and a return to this chamber. We wish you all the best. I’m sure your absence will be noted.

I would like to ask you whether your comparisons of the Senate community here are actually valid — for a simple reason. The collective age of this chamber is not the collective age of the population at large as you have described them — people who go to a hockey game; people who shop at Walmart. We are much older than that population. Many of us may well have underlying conditions, and we’ve been reminded most brutally what underlying conditions and age can do to a sick person in COVID with the passing of our colleague. Do you not believe that given the particular situation in this chamber and because of our age and the pandemic — endemic — that an abundance of caution is required and should be exercised in such a way that we can be both safe and do our job?