Hon. Katherine Hay: Honourable senators, I am not sure if I’m the last speaker tonight. I’m between you and your committee or dinner. I am going to start with just four words: kindness, leadership, courage and hope. That is what I want to talk about today.

With kindness, leadership and hope — throw in some of that courage and grit — the needle will move. Change will begin, and action will happen. That is for sure.

Let us start with kindness. That is a beautiful place to start. Let’s start with Senator Mary Coyle. It is indisputable that she is one of the kindest of humans. Today, I want to acknowledge Senator Mary Coyle, an extraordinary leader who shines a light on critically important world issues as a top-tier public servant. That is what matters to her, I believe.

She is relentless in her quest to move that proverbial needle that I spoke about — steeped in values — for the people of Canada from coast to coast to coast.

It may have been — and I’m stretching the facts a little bit here — almost exactly one year ago today, more or less, that I was a newly minted senator, not yet sworn in. I think you know where I am going to go, senator. I remember it clearly. I was wandering the awe-inspiring halls of East Block. I was a little lost, no doubt, and that was not just on how to get to my temporary office, which was in the actual basement of East Block beside the boiler — Senator Ince will know this intimately because we shared that office.

I was thinking, “So here I am. Do I even belong? Where do I even begin?”

Perhaps it was not miraculous, but I kind of like to think it was. Out walks Senator Coyle from her office, and her kindness extended into an invitation to meet: my first real, in-person meeting with a senator as a senator about Senate business. I am not going to channel my inner Sally Field here, if you know what I mean, but that meeting did two things for me: I started to see how I belonged, and I saw where to begin as a member of the Senators for Climate Solutions. I will be forever grateful for that day of inspiration.

From her kindness comes the leadership I spoke about: strong, thoughtful, inclusive, wide-ranging and relevant. Your leadership and your work matter, senator, a lot. Your inquiry matters a lot. Climate change is very real. You don’t have far to look to see it and be impacted by it.

In fact, I’m going to look back to an April 24 article, just a few days ago, in The Globe and Mail:

Under the midnight sun on July 14, 2024, Kevin Arey was at Shingle Point — a summer coastal camp for Inuvialuit families on the Yukon coast of the Beaufort Sea — when he was stopped in his tracks. There, in the ocean, was a beaver.

Mr. Arey is an Imaryuk Monitor, whose job is to protect fish, wildlife and traditional land use in the . . . westernmost region of Inuit Nunangat, the Inuit homeland in Canada.

Growing up, he had never seen a beaver on these lands and waterways, and certainly never in saltwater. Now, he says, “They’re everywhere — every square inch of the Delta.”

New research confirms . . . Driven by climate change, North America’s most famous rodent is moving into the Far North, with cascading consequences for waterways, wildlife and a way of life.

Leadership is required.

I look around this chamber. It is staggering how leadership flows from every seat, from each one of you — years of leadership and unique experiences — yet we all have a common goal. Regardless of where we sit in the chamber, or why, that common thread is public service, working on behalf of the people of Canada. You all know it. You show it. You live it. I see it. I feel it. I respect it. I don’t want to discount it in any way, shape or form. Yet, that is exactly what I expect from senators in the Senate of Canada: leadership.

Not to discount it in any way at all, yet, it is the obvious place to look for leadership: the Senate of Canada. Sometimes, though, it is the not-so-obvious place where I have found something a little bit more. Sometimes, the boat needs to be rocked or the needle needs to move in a different direction. Folks in the Maritimes know — from coast to coast to coast — that if the needle moves one degree or the ship moves one degree, the direction changes.

What I am asking us to do is to engage in untethered, innovative thinking, unencumbered by protocol, filled with bravery and grit. Voices that are, perhaps, quieter than ours, but that are maybe more fiercely determined because they see a future that is theirs to shape but is not in their hands.

There is youth leadership from all the communities we serve: extraordinary leadership, brave and fierce. Those are the leaders of the Canadian Youth Climate Assembly. Many people describe young people as our future leaders, always with warmth, caring and kindness, of course.

Sometimes, my friends, it is a bit performative: acknowledging our future leaders, our young people and the future leaders of our communities and our country. I categorically and absolutely disagree with that. I disagree. They are absolutely not our future leaders. They are leading today, both where it is obvious and where it is not. Young people in Canada are showing extraordinary leadership today.

I had the privilege of working alongside young people several years ago and have continued to do so for many years since. With youth leading the way, the digital e-mental health space was literally reshaped, and it was not rocket science. It was simply good, common business sense.

I looked around a board table at Kids Help Phone, or KHP — and I am still plugging the only 24-7 e-mental health digital solution for young people in Canada — in 2017 and wondered how this table of mostly bankers and lawyers from Toronto or some of the big business hubs across the country were going to lead with clarity “on behalf of young people.”

It was an “aha moment.” They should not lead “on behalf of young people.” What they should be doing is leading “alongside and with young people.”

Quite simply, here is where it is not rocket science: We changed our bylaws — that’s quite simple — to require an ex officio voting member on the board of directors and on every single standing committee of that board to have a member from our national youth council. If not, the board would be out of compliance, which is a really big governance deal.

At the same time, since we did that — opening up the bylaws — we did the same thing for the Indigenous Advisory Council and our Black Advisory Council. Onto the board as ex officio voting members, and note that 50% of all of those councils are youth from coast to coast to coast.

What happened as a result of that? Youth co-created every single service program. Youth shifted the strategic direction of a national organization. They showed up at these lofty governance tables, prepared and ready to serve. They used their voices with courage.

Can you imagine being in your first year of university and sitting around a table, like us? That was pretty intimidating, and yet they did it. They unlocked, in fact, the potential of KHP, including its new brand and its foray into innovation. The reason why we moved into artificial intelligence, or AI, was because of the youth. Then a global pandemic shut the world down. That was pre-pandemic, and KHP has accelerated 250% since then in every part of the business: from the front lines through to funding. That would not have happened without the youth leaders at every decision-making table.

Youth are the epitome of leadership then and today. I tell that story because it should not be hard to be inclusive, inviting those that we serve to the decision-making tables. That should not be hard. Also, colleagues, it is a good business decision.

Our job as adult business leaders is not to applaud the leadership from our own seats, warmly congratulate young people or feel proud of them and then move on. Our job is to bring those leaders of today to the table, hear them, see them and ensure that they are at the table to help shape decisions that will define the future for us all.

That is why I feel so much urgency and enormous respect for the work of the Canadian Youth Climate Assembly. This incredible group of leaders sat right here in this chamber last fall in our decision-making seats. I love that symbolism. It was a “wow moment” for me.

You may or may not have heard me say, “Know who you are, and you’ll know where you should go.” These young people who were sitting in this chamber knew who they were and exactly where the heck they, and we, should go with regard to climate. They sure did. The Canadian Youth Climate Assembly matters. It moves the needle, and I love how they laid it out.

Their voice was clear, and their message to parliamentarians was clear: Don’t just talk about climate change; be accountable to actionable change. The future depends on it.

The report that they produced is trailblazing, and it must be considered. The report speaks openly about eco-anxiety, grief, frustration and emotional distress linked to climate change. It reflects a generation that is carrying real emotional weight as they consider what the future may hold. This matters deeply.

Data tells the story — and you know I had to go to data — on the impact of climate change to youth and their well-being. A couple of years ago, for the first time, climate or environmental anxiety made it into the top 10 reasons why young people were reaching out to KHP, and it moved to the sixth-most significant reason.

I want to give you the magnitude of the numbers: 4.5 million interactions a year. That’s a significant number. That’s not a great top 10 list to be on. By the way, when young people reached out about climate anxiety, they were also most likely to talk about hopelessness.

Now, let’s move on to hope — my favourite. Kindness, leadership, courage and hope, because I am filled with hope.

I was in this chamber with the leaders of the Youth Climate Change Assembly. They were not, “Woe is me.” They had strong ideas. They were not, “Do something for me.” Not at all. They felt a great deal of worry and concern, for sure, with even a bit of an edge of hopelessness. Yet, they were energized, and they showed up fully with real solutions and strategies. It is in that report.

They were not passing the buck over to the adults or passing it up to people like us. They asked us to own it — just like they owned it — as leaders in this chamber, and that is what gives me so much hope: that kindness, courage, hope and leadership. You don’t have to look far for it. You just have to look to the young people today. That is obvious.

I thank you, Senator Coyle, and all of the Senators for Climate Solutions, for the work you have done because it matters. I thank the young people who sat in this chamber. Their leadership is obvious.

Thank you very much.

Some Hon. Senators: Hear, hear.