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DEBATES OF THE SENATE 1st SESSION • 43rd PARLIAMENT • VOLUME 151 • NUMBER 9 OFFICIAL REPORT (HANSARD) Wednesday, February 19, 2020 The Honourable GEORGE J. FUREY, Speaker CONTENTS (Daily index of proceedings appears at back of this issue). Debates Services: D’Arcy McPherson, National Press Building, Room 906, Tel. 613-995-5756 Publications Centre: Kim Laughren, National Press Building, Room 926, Tel. 343-550-5002 Published by the Senate Available on the Internet: http://www.parl.gc.ca 229 THE SENATE Wednesday, February 19, 2020 The Senate met at 2 p.m., the Speaker in the chair. Lincoln Alexander Day was declared in Canada in 2015, and takes place on his birthday each year on January 21. This year, on the occasion of Lincoln Alexander Day, a former Prayers. parliamentary page paid tribute to his hero, saying: . Alexander did not allow himself to be defined by his The Hon. the Speaker: Honourable senators, I want to remind circumstances, and that because of his example, my friends you that there is a limit of three minutes for speaking on and I believed at an early age that we did not have to be Senators’ Statements. The table officer will stand when there are defined by ours. 10 seconds left. If you see the table officer standing, please wrap up your statement. Honourable senators, it was my privilege during my time with the OPP to cross paths with “Linc,” as he was affectionately known, many times over. He was an honorary commissioner. He conferred on me my commission as a newly minted inspector in 1989. That night was particularly special by the words he spoke. As he presented me with my commission, he leaned forward and quietly said, “You and I have something in common tonight.” SENATORS’ STATEMENTS Yes, in a room full of 150 people, I was the only woman and he was the only person of colour. LINCOLN ALEXANDER, P.C., O.C., O.ONT. Lincoln Alexander was an inspiration to many of us. He was a bridge-builder for a better Canada. He once said: Hon. Gwen Boniface: Honourable senators, I rise today to It is not your duty to be average. It is your duty to set a commemorate Black History Month and pay tribute to the higher example for others to follow. memory of Lincoln Alexander. Undoubtedly, many of you are familiar with his achievements and accolades. They include being the first black person to be elected as a Member of In his lifetime, he did that over and over again. Thank you. Parliament, the first black Lieutenant Governor of Ontario, and for having several schools, a parkway and the Ontario Provincial Hon. Senators: Hear, hear! Police headquarters named after him. But perhaps what is most remarkable about Lincoln Alexander is the impact of his accomplishments on current and future Canadians. VISITORS IN THE GALLERY From truly humble beginnings and against great odds, Lincoln The Hon. the Speaker: Honourable senators, I wish to draw Alexander achieved what many with privileges and opportunities your attention to the presence in the gallery of Mrs. Nicole could only dream of in a lifetime. From a young age, his Baptiste, President of Mosaïque interculturelle. She is immigrant parents emphasized the importance of education and accompanied by a number of African Canadian authors. They are hard work. The title of his memoir, Go to School, You’re a Little the guests of the Honourable Senators Mégie and Bernard. Black Boy, is a phrase his mother would often say to him. The values that were emphasized in his formative years shaped the On behalf of all honourable senators, I welcome you to the priorities he set during his tenure as Lieutenant Governor of Senate of Canada. Ontario. They were: empowering youth, access to education, advocating for seniors and promoting multiculturalism. The legacy of his achievements gives young Canadians the hope that Hon. Senators: Hear, hear! their dreams are achievable. ISAAC ALLEN JACK In his memoir, he explained the great impact a trip to Africa had on him. He gained confidence and inspiration to strive for Hon. Carolyn Stewart Olsen: Honourable senators, I rise great things, having seen examples of great African role models, today during Black History Month to celebrate a real heroine. and this made him realize there was a lack of such examples in Canada. This defining moment in his life inspired incredible accomplishments for an individual who became such a Recently, I learned that some New Brunswickers were briefly distinguished Canadian. slave owners, a fact I was greatly surprised to hear. 230 SENATE DEBATES February 19, 2020 Isaac Allen Jack was a founding member of the New I thank you for this. I found our history to be fascinating. With Brunswick Historical Society and the New Brunswick Loyalist the history we see — and I’ve always said, “Oh, we never had Society. While he wrote in 1898: slavery in Canada” — I find this to be a real eye-opener. I commend Nancy Morton. She should be a heroine in our history To . people of today, excepting perhaps a few of those books today. Thank you. who reside in the former slave-holding states of . America, slavery generally seems to be so . indefensible that they find it hard to believe that it not only existed, but VISITORS IN THE GALLERY was approved by many . within the present century. The Hon. the Speaker: Honourable senators, I wish to draw I emphasize that he wrote that in 1898, before the American your attention to the presence in the gallery of Mackenzie Klyne Civil War, and after the war between the British and the who is the son of the Honourable Senator Klyne. Americans. On behalf of all honourable senators, I welcome you to the In 18th century New Brunswick, the legal status of slavery was Senate of Canada. very ambiguous, and there were some among the loyalist settlers who came up from the United States and brought their slaves Hon. Senators: Hear, hear! with them who were determined to take advantage of that. The Hon. the Speaker: Honourable senators, I wish to draw Nancy Morton was enslaved to a man named Caleb Jones. your attention to the presence in the gallery of representatives Mr. Jones brought his slaves with him from Maryland when he from the Grain Growers of Canada. They are the guests of the settled on a 900-acre tract of land in Fredericton after the war Honourable Senator Black (Ontario). between the British and the Americans. I am taking some On behalf of all honourable senators, I welcome you to the liberties in saying this, but I feel that Jones was a cruel master. Senate of Canada. We can infer his reputation from the repeated attempts his slaves made to escape his grasp. We know they did this because Jones Hon. Senators: Hear, hear! placed advertisements within the Royal Gazette lamenting the escapes and asking for people to return the slaves to him. Jones didn’t like his peers and they didn’t like him. Later in life, his CORONAVIRUS fellow magistrates requested he be removed so they could be spared, as one said, the mortification of ever working with him Hon. Tony Dean: Honourable senators, I rise today to talk again. about Canada’s response to the coronavirus outbreak. Nancy Morton, his slave, became a central figure in Canadian In 2002, I was involved, along with many others, in managing legal history when she sued Jones for her freedom. I can tell you the SARS crisis in Ontario. That outbreak was challenging in how proud I am of New Brunswick, which had two lawyers who many respects, but we also learned a lot about preparedness for took her case and fought it in that time. I think that was a future events. In his 2003 report on SARS, Dr. David Naylor tremendous kudos to our province. found that the response to SARS was hampered by issues of governance, poor integration of government responses, and • (1410) inadequate resources to investigate and confirm the nature of the disease and to track patterns of infection. Some Hon. Senators: Hear, hear. Here we are 18 years later, and what a difference we have seen Senator Stewart Olsen: The case went all the way up to the in the past several weeks. The Public Health Agency of Canada, Supreme Court of New Brunswick in 1800. Of the four judges PHAC, was created as a result of the Naylor report, as was the who heard the case, three were slave owners. Ward Chipman, position of Canada’s Chief Public Health Officer, a position who would later become a judge in his own right, and Samuel currently held by Dr. Theresa Tam. Denny Street, a flamboyant duellist, were her counsel. PHAC has provided national leadership in responding to the In his brief to the court, Chipman wrote: coronavirus, and has enabled close collaboration and information sharing between all levels of government, and the medical and . I trust that we shall not in this Province . introduce scientific communities. into our political system a practice so derogatory to every principle of law and justice. Many of the gaps identified by Dr. Naylor have been successfully addressed, including clarity of governance, more Tragically, the four justices of the court split, thus nullifying rapid identification of the nature of disease outbreaks, an Nancy’s plea. Nancy was returned to bondage. Can you imagine improved ability to track disease outbreaks, close cooperation what she must have felt? and information sharing between all levels of government, and an integrated and science-led approach to risk-based public Justice Isaac Allen, one of the slave owners of the court, ruled communications.