An estimated $114.7 million to care for illegal immigrants must be shared by all provinces, Border Security Minister Bill Blair yesterday told the Commons immigration committee. Blair acknowledged new funding is a fraction of costs carried by provinces and municipalities to date: “We’re not going to leave them on the street, in the snow.”
A cabinet bill to appoint a Commissioner of Indigenous Languages appears largely symbolic, Indigenous groups told the Commons heritage committee. Critics questioned a lack of committed funding and educational tools to preserve First Nations, Métis and Inuit dialects: “That makes me nervous.”
Cabinet yesterday introduced contentious new animal welfare regulations. Reforms to protect livestock and poultry in transport prompted tens of thousands of petitions from farmers and animal rights advocates alike: “Canadians don’t think animals should be mistreated in cages before they are killed for food.”
The Commons justice committee yesterday agreed to summon testimony from ex-attorney general Jody Wilson-Raybould in a widening corruption probe. The concession came as cabinet opposed a full judicial inquiry of dealings between the Prime Minister’s Office and a federal contractor: “You don’t think there’s something going on?”
Minister of Democrat Institutions Karina Gould yesterday suggested MP consider federal regulation of social media. “The government is taking this issue seriously,” Gould told the House affairs committee. “We’re looking at it from both a hard and soft angle.”
Canadian regulators enforce so many rules there is no national count of how many there are, the Commons industry committee was told yesterday. Federal agencies alone enforce some 30,000 rules, by official estimate: “Do you actually have an assessment of how many regulations we have in Canada?”
MPs yesterday expressed astonishment over the volume of defects in newly-renovated Parliament buildings. The Department of Public Works earlier told Blacklock’s records on deficiencies in construction, engineering, design and architecture of West Block and a new Senate chamber run to more than 100,000 pages: “There have been construction deficiencies.”
More than 1 in 5 employees at a beleaguered federal payroll agency say they’ve witnessed workplace bullying among co-workers. The Public Service Pay Centre in Miramichi, N.B. runs the failed Phoenix Pay System that’s garbled pay for 62 percent of employees: “This is not about blame whatsoever.”
The Commons justice committee will vote today on whether to quash or call testimony from a second official to resign over allegations of political interference in the criminal prosecution of SNC-Lavalin Group Inc. The Prime Minister’s principal secretary Gerald Butts abruptly resigned yesterday, six days after ex-Attorney General Jody Wilson-Raybould quit cabinet: “Life is full of uncertainties.”
Transport Canada yesterday said it is reviewing “impairment policies” including random workplace drug testing. The review follows the repeal of a 95-year ban on recreational marijuana last October 17: ‘It will consider the prevalence and risk of impairment from drugs including cannabis.’
A federal panel cautions gender-neutral language may provoke “complaints, jokes or refusals” in government polling. Agencies are struggling with terminology for Canadians who identify as neither male nor female: “For example, individuals who are non-binary, a-gender or two-spirited.”
Quota-protected farmers should brace for an urban backlash over costs of federal aid, members of the Senate agriculture committee said yesterday. Cabinet has promised $4.3 billion in compensation to egg, poultry and dairy producers affected by trade pacts: “We’ve given them some ammunition.”
A labour board has upheld the firing of a federal employee accused of secretly recording a supervisors’ meeting. The case unraveled when a manager spotted a tape recorder atop a six-foot filing cabinet: “It is not government policy to record employees.”
Labour Minister Patricia Hajdu in a confidential 2018 order waived penalties against major corporations that illegally hired migrant workers, according to Access To Information records. Staff urged Hajdu to keep it “low profile”.
The chair of the Senate human rights committee says she has encountered anti-Black bigotry on Parliament Hill, aboard commercial airline flights and in “countless” other circumstances. “I am feeling emotional just telling you this,” said Senator Wanda Thomas Bernard (Independent-N.S.).
“I don’t wear a sign that says I’m a Senator, so when I am in public spaces and people don’t recognize me, I am treated with the same kind of discrimination that faces other people of African descent in this country,” said Bernard: “It’s like a thousand little cuts.”
Bernard in a Senate webcast marking African History Month with O’Neal Ishimwe, a Senate page, said: “As a person whose family has been here since the 1700s, a person of African descent, as a Black person growing up in Canada, you were made to feel every single day that you don’t really belong.”
In a subsequent interview, Bernard cited specific instances of “racist micro-aggression” she has encountered as a legislator. “Racism is actually a form of violence,” said Bernard. “Every time you experience that, it’s a micro-violent act.”
Bernard said in 2018 she attempted to board a Parliament Hill bus to attend Senate business. “It was a very cold, blustery day and I was bundled up,” she said. “I was taking a shuttle bus to Parliament’s Centre Block. As people ahead of me got on the bus, I stepped on and was immediately asked for ID. I was the only person of African descent on the bus, and the only one who was asked for ID. I had to unbutton my coat to find my Senate pin. Nobody else who got on that bus was asked for ID.”
“Bystanders didn’t say anything,” said Bernard. “I had other passengers address me: ‘Excuse me, Senator’, ‘Are you going to sit down, Senator?’ The driver knew.”
“We need to ensure all staff who work on Parliament Hill are respectful of all people,” said Bernard. “It’s important. This is significant. We are all Canadians.”
“Now I prefer to walk,” said Bernard. “I try to avoid encounters that may be uncomfortable.”
“Vile” Incident
Bernard said she filed a formal complaint with an unidentified carrier – “I don’t want to name the airline,” she said – following a separate incident last December on a flight from Ottawa to Halifax.
“I was in an aisle seat and after all passengers had boarded, I saw that nobody was sitting in the window seat. So I moved. The flight attendant spotted this and in a very vile, accusatory tone said: ‘Why did you move? Who gave you permission to move?’ Her tone was so vile, a passenger in the next row had a shocked look on her face. The flight attendant noticed this, and proceeded to explain to the other woman, not to me, that ‘I have to check because people pay extra money for these seats, and we can’t just have anybody sitting there.’”
“I sat quietly for the rest of the flight,” said Bernard. “This was racist micro-aggression, absolutely. Later I asked the other passenger, this was a white woman, if she would act as a witness for my formal complaint, and she agreed. I filed my complaint December 19. I haven’t had a response yet. That flight attendant did not even apologize.”
“These are two examples that stand out, but of course there are other incidents,” said Bernard. “If I as a Senator have to deal with this, where are we? And what hope is there for the critical mass of people of African descent in this country?”
Bernard described the bus incident as the “last straw” that prompted her March 1 to introduce a Notice Of Inquiry to “call the attention of the Senate to anti-Black racism”. The matter is pending.
Bernard also sponsored Bill S-255 An Act Proclaiming Emancipation Day to observe each August 1st the anniversary of the passage of an 1834 U.K. Act For The Abolition Of Slavery Throughout The British Colonies. The bill is awaiting a vote on Second Reading.
“It is largely an educational tool,” said Bernard. “We need to understand the institutional harm of slavery that occurred in our country. I don’t want this just to be about individual cases of discrimination. We have not seen systemic change. We’re not seeing the progress for people of African descent that we should be seeing.”
“We used to talk about the glass ceiling for women,” said Bernard. “But for African-Canadians, there is a concrete ceiling. It is nearly impossible to break through that.”
Bernard, a former professor at Dalhousie University’s School of Social Work, was appointed to the Senate in 2016.
By Staff 
