Moved second reading of Bill S-221, An Act to provide for the recognition of the Canada jay as the national bird of Canada.

She said:

She is a life giver, a trick player and one of the smartest beings in Creation. Everything she does challenges thought and perception, gifting teachings of responsibility, relationships and life.

Many say she is a food-stealer, but she is brave in her fearlessness, bright in her mistakes. She is kind to those who are kind back, harder on those who need a dose of humility. She is the best parts of all parts.

Honourable senators, those are the words used by Niigaan Sinclair, an Anishinaabe author and son of our former colleague Murray Sinclair, to describe the bird known to them as Gwiingwiishi. To us, this bird is known as the Canada jay.

At the onset, honourable senators, I apologize if I mispronounce anything. I know how everyone struggles with the name Ataullahjan.

Colleagues, as you might have already guessed, I rise today to speak on Bill S-221, An Act to provide for the recognition of the Canada jay as the national bird of Canada.

Every country that seeks to define itself chooses symbols to reflect its values, beliefs and aspirations. That’s why symbols matter. They are the stories that we tell ourselves about who we are. They are the anchors of our national identity.

In a nation as vast and diverse as Canada, national symbols provide a common ground. It’s not just branding; it’s nation building.

Take the maple leaf, for example. Even before it appeared on our national flag in 1965, generations of Canadians had already used it as a symbol of Canadian identity. The maple tree, after all, is an important feature of the landscape of eastern parts of Canada, where Indigenous people value it for its sap and other by-products. Now, when we see the Maple Leaf displayed prominently on backpacks overseas or raised at an Olympic medal ceremony, it evokes feelings of pride, belonging and home.

Yet, here we are 158 years after Confederation. We have a flag. We have a national anthem. We even have a national tree, a national horse, but we do not have a national bird.

“But why a bird?” you may ask. Birds are some of the most commonly used symbols to shape a narrative. Out of the 195 countries in the world, 106 have an official national bird, while 21 have unofficial ones. In Canada, all provinces and territories have an official bird.

Birds are universal. They are found in every part of the world and often across national borders. They are visually striking, frequently vocal and observable in daily life.

People take delight in watching birds, thus making birding, or birdwatching, a popular hobby, especially in North America. According to a CBC News article posted last year, a growing community of young people in northern Ontario is choosing birding as their hobby of choice.

Clearly, birds fascinate a lot of people, including me. Like many Canadian households, my family has feeders and birdhouses in our backyard. There’s nothing more pleasant than waking up to the sounds of birds as dawn breaks.

Birds play an important role in our daily lives. For example, they help with pollination and pest control. They provide us with eggs and meat for sustenance. Their feathers are used in our clothing, pillows and blankets to provide warmth, as well as in decorative items and some artistic works.

Yet, birds are more than just beautiful or useful creatures. They are metaphors. They represent freedom, aspirations, vision. Their songs mark our seasons. Their feathers drift through our poetry, and their flights lift our imaginations.

Canada is home to over 450 bird species. Given this rich avian biodiversity, it’s a shame that we still don’t officially recognize a national bird.

During an official trip to West Virginia last year, I was with former MP Brenda Shanahan, and we started talking about our love of birds. She told me about this project that she had been working on with Dr. David M. Bird of McGill University to get Canada to recognize an official national bird. I would like to thank them for the all the hard work that they have done on this project.

Let me introduce you to the Canada jay. Some of you might wonder why the Canada jay. Although a bird of many names, it remains Canadian through and through: after all, it has the name of our country in all its official names: Canada jay in English, le mésangeai du Canada in French and perisoreus canadensis in Latin.

Found breeding in every province and territory of our country, this remarkable bird thrives in boreal and subalpine forests. It is not found in any other country except the United States, and that only in the western mountains of Alaska. It is also not an official bird for any other geographical entity.

In choosing a bird, we’re choosing a symbol to carry our story into the future and to emphasize our natural heritage. During this time when climate change threatens our ecosystems, when our identity continues to evolve and when our citizens seek unity, it is critical that we choose a bird that doesn’t represent just our geography but our spirit.

The Canada jay is a member of the Corvidae family, which consist of jays, crows, magpies, and ravens — arguably the smartest birds on the planet. For the Canada jay, this intelligence is shown in distinctive ways. Like other jays and crows, the Canada jay stores food, but unlike its cousins that cache food items in the ground, the Canada jay stores them up in the trees, above the snow line, where these caches will remain accessible despite the thick blanket of snow that covers the ground. And if you think that these food caches are composed of non-perishable, long-lasting seeds — the usual choice for food-storing birds — you would be wrong. The Canada jay stores highly perishable items by coating them in copious amounts of saliva and sticking them to the bark of spruce trees and other conifers, where there are volatile resins that slow down the action of decay-causing bacteria and fungi until winter when the cold temperatures further delay the decomposition process.

As if this were not remarkable enough, individual Canada jays have been documented to make as many as 1,000 individual caches in one single midsummer day so that by the time winter comes around, a single bird may have stashed tens of thousands of food items over its territory. What is even more extraordinary is the considerable evidence showing that they remember where they have hidden those caches of food. Clearly, a great memory and hard work are among the positive attributes of this bird.

These positive qualities do not stop there. Unlike many other birds, the Canada jay is totally monogamous and typically stays with the same mate for life. Talk about unusual. This monogamy is not just for show. A Canada jay pair stays together year-round on their territory, often remaining close to one another. Sometimes, they even perch together side by side while actually touching one another. Now, that’s what I call romance in the forest.

Besides being loyal, the Canada jay is also a very friendly, very curious, very bold bird. It approaches hikers and campers; it perches on hats, hands and ski poles and inspects camps. It is very observant of its environment and will investigate new sights and sounds in its territory. It is also so tame and trusting that researchers have counted its eggs by using a finger to gently pry up an incubating female to peek underneath.

As trusting as it is, however, the Canada jay is not oblivious to danger. In the coastal mountains of British Columbia, where bird-eating raptors threaten their survival, Canada jays typically live in territorial flocks. In other parts of Canada, territories are rarely occupied by more than three birds: a mated pair and, at most, one extra bird that is typically one of their own young from the previous nesting.

Here, they face a different threat: red squirrels. To minimize the danger posed by a squirrel discovering their nest, jay parents reduce the number of their feeding visits to the nests while maximizing the amount of food they bring on each trip. If there is a third, younger bird in the territory, jay birds are ruthless in preventing it from approaching the nest until the nestlings gain the ability to fly and are therefore less vulnerable to squirrel attacks.

Beyond its undeniable charm, the Canada jay is a master of adaptation. It can undergo hypothermia at night to save energy. It sunbathes even on the coldest of days. And the best part of it all, honourable colleagues? It does not desert Canada for warmer climates when winter comes.

Isn’t it amazing to find a bird species that not only survives but thrives in the cold?

How does it do so, you may ask? Well, just like how we Canadians have adapted to our winters, so has the Canada jay. It has done so in such a remarkable way that it nests in temperatures of -30 degrees when most of other bird species haven’t even returned from the south yet. It builds its nest in February. Its eggs are laid in March and hatch in early April.

Such behaviour is perplexing, as almost all other birds in the boreal forest wait until fresh food is abundant before they nest. However, this early nesting works well for the Canada jay. Their young are more likely to escape nest predators and prevail in competition with later-produced young, and they end up having more time to accumulate and store food for the winter. Early nesting also ensures that the youngsters will adapt to the cold, allowing them to survive in the coldest months of the year.

The Canada jay is hardy. It’s intelligent. It’s loyal and it’s confident. It’s a bird that stores food for leaner days, a bird that stays with us through bitter-cold winters, a bird so friendly that it approaches humans instead of flying away from them. Clearly, it is a bird that lives with grace and resilience, just like Canadians.

Let us not forget that the Canada jay was the first bird — and perhaps the only bird — to greet thousands of explorers, fur trappers, loggers, prospectors, settlers and First Peoples in their camps in the dead of winter. It has long held a place in Indigenous cultures, especially among the First Nations peoples.

There are more than 30 English vernacular names for this remarkable bird, but the most common is whiskey jack, a name derived from one of the Canada jay’s names in the Algonquian family of languages, most likely from the Cree word wîskicâhk. As such, it is one of the very few English vernacular names for a North American bird species borrowed from an Indigenous language and the only one that is widely used today.

The Canada jay also figures in Indigenous stories. According to Lawrence Martin, former Grand Chief of the Mushkegowuk Council, the wîskicâhk is a sacred bird in many Cree communities. He said:

One of the stories is about the bird providing itself to the Cree people when they were near starvation. It is a storyteller. It comes to warn you when misfortune is headed your way.

He goes on to describe how the whiskey jack accompanies hunters and helps lost travellers find their way.

Wouldn’t it be such an honour to have this bird represent our nation?

The Royal Canadian Geographical Society launched the National Bird Project to get Canada to name its official national bird by the country’s one-hundred-fiftieth anniversary in 2017. After months of voting, the Canada jay emerged as one of the five most popular candidates.

After further consultation with experts and citizens across the country, they chose the Canada jay as the top contender. It beat out flashier contenders including the loon, the snowy owl and the Canada goose. Why? Because people recognized something familiar, something trustworthy in this bird, something enduring, something that reminds us of the values that we hold dear.

The Canada jay is not the loudest, not the biggest, not the rarest, but it is ours; it is distinctly, proudly, undeniably Canadian. We don’t need to invent a new narrative. It’s already here. It’s in our forests. It’s on our trails. It’s in the stories of hikers, campers, Elders and scientists alike. The Canada jay has already won the heart of this nation. All we must do now is acknowledge it.

Some will ask, “Why not the loon? Why not the goose or the snowy owl?” These are all great birds and all worthy of admiration, but let us remember that the loon is already on our dollar, and it is the official bird of Ontario. How about the goose? It’s iconic, but perhaps too infamous. Who among us hasn’t been chased by one? How about the snowy owl? It’s a stunning choice, but it’s a seasonal visitor to many parts of Canada, and it’s also the official bird of Quebec.

The Canada jay, by contrast, is a year-round resident of our country. It stays with us. It weathers the storm. By choosing it as our national bird, we will not be “promoting” the official bird of any of our provinces or territories. The Canada jay is as federal as a bird can be. Its deep connection to the people and history of our country sets the Canada jay apart from other birds. It is an emblem of openness and trust, a humble companion in our wilderness and a true Canadian in feathered form. It’s time we honour a bird that reflects who we really are, not just in appearance but also in spirit.

Symbols don’t define us, but they do reflect us. In moments of uncertainty and in times of challenge, we turn to our symbols to remind us of who we are. At a time when our sovereignty is being threatened, it is crucial that we, as a nation, remember what matters most — our history, our peoples, our values and our land.

When the bald eagle was chosen in the United States, it wasn’t just about feathers and talons; it was about creating a new national identity. It was about uniting people with the powerful image of what they aspired to be.

Today, we stand on similar ground. We are a country redefining itself, reconciling with its past and looking boldly to the future. Let us choose a bird that mirrors that journey. Imagine choosing a national bird not because it is loud or flamboyant, but because it is wise, resourceful, kind and resilient. These are the words that describe us Canadians and what we stand for.

This is what we will accomplish by officially recognizing the Canada jay as our national bird. Let it soar into our national consciousness as the bird that best represents our values. Let us not wait another 158 years. Let us act now. Thank you.

Would Senator Ataullahjan take a question?

Yes, I would.

I was just wondering if you have heard the name “moose bird.” In New Brunswick, we call the Canada jay a moose bird. I have had moose birds eat out of my hand while on fishing trips. They are the same bird. Maybe we could call it a moose bird.

We could, but I think Canada jay is widely recognized.

Yes, it is.

Thank you, senator, for sharing that information with me. I learn. As I live and grow older, I continue to learn. Thank you very much.

You’re welcome.

Thank you, senator. I agree; difficult circumstances call for resourcefulness and being a trickster — when need be, I think we can all be tricksters. I’m not going to hold that against the Canada jay.

First of all, thank you so much for that poetic, compelling speech.

Why do we not have a national bird? Is this something that has been discussed or contemplated in the past? After 158 years, why are we doing this? I think it is very important, and I too support the bill wholeheartedly.

Thank you, Senator Martin. I was surprised that we do not have a national bird. Like I said, we have a tree and we have a horse, but we don’t have a national bird.

When you see this bird — I was lucky enough to table this bill — you realize that it is a very important symbol. If I look at the colours, to me it represents Canada in the winter: blue-grey and beautiful. It goes with everything, and there is beauty in those colours too.

I know that in 2017, Professor Bird worked very hard to have this bird recognized as a national symbol. Regarding everybody I have met who does birdwatching, they all agree that this is the bird that should represent our country. Brenda Shanahan and I were just having that conversation. She said, “Professor Bird sent this book to everyone, which I have sent to all of you.” She was the only MP who took an interest in this and started the conversation. I told Professor Bird, “Next time you want anything done, come to the senators because we are the ones who get things done.”

Honourable senators, I find myself once again with prepared remarks, but also in awe of my colleagues and their eloquence. I would like to speak to Bill S-221, the national bird of Canada act, and I thank Senator Ataullahjan and all of the questioners for their eloquent remarks.

As the bill’s critic — a most supportive critic — along with the sage words and the wonderful story that Senator Ataullahjan has presented today, I would like to express my thanks to her and her colleagues for their work on this initiative.

I would like to give some background as to why I think this bill is important and why I think we should ensure its swift passage in the Senate.

My early working life as the manager of the Whitehorse Chamber of Commerce included management of the T.C. Richards Building, a historic building in Whitehorse that, at the time, was the Visitor Reception Centre and home to non-profit organizations, including the Law Society of Yukon, Ducks Unlimited Canada and the Girl Guides of Canada Yukon Council. My volunteer commitment to our community was serving as the provincial commissioner for the Girl Guides. The Girl Guide and Brownie camp property was located at Marsh Lake, which is about a 40-minute drive from Whitehorse.

Yukoners in the area know that spring is truly on its way when the thousands of tundra and trumpeter swans arrive to the slowly opening waters, providing them with their abundant feeding grounds at Marsh Lake. One of my favourite memories of this time was working with my colleague Dale Eftoda from Ducks Unlimited and the Government of Yukon’s Renewable Resources Department and the Girl Guides of Canada Yukon Council to transform the Brownie camp at Marsh Lake into the Swan Haven Interpretive Centre. It was colleagues working together.

Swan Haven is a wildlife refuge and an interpretive centre. Now, 30 years later, it offers an annual return of the swans — the Celebration of Swans festival — and it offers people from throughout the Yukon, northern B.C. and Alaska the opportunity to welcome spring and to witness the annual migration of swans, ducks and geese, as well as to learn more about birds and to appreciate the trumpeting music of thousands of these swans.

Coincidentally, not to miss a somewhat economic opportunity, the arrival of the swans also signals the opportunity to purchase Girl Guide cookies in the spring. They generally arrive at the same time as the swans.

Knowing that this project is close to my heart, you won’t be surprised to learn that I was keen to take part in Canada Jay On the Hill.

The event was organized by MPs Richard Cannings, Lloyd Longfield, Elizabeth May and Brenda Shanahan, as well as our dear colleague, Salma Ataullahjan, who has her own love affair with these birds.

This day was an opportunity to learn why the Canada jay should be designated our country’s official bird, which is the motivation behind our colleague’s Bill S-221.

Honourable senators have been provided with the book The Canada Jay: The National Bird of Canada? by our colleague. The senator has also eloquently highlighted the salient reasons for this initiative.

If you haven’t had an opportunity to review the book — or, perhaps, have only just entered the chamber or tuned in — allow me to reinforce the qualities that I consider most important to this discussion.

First Nations and Inuit peoples of Canada have been guardians of this land and all that walk upon it for millennia. The bird was often referred to as the whisky jack in English, as you have heard or will have read, derived from the Cree words “wîskicâhk” and “wîskacân.”

Mark Nadjiwan, in Chapter 9 of the book you were given, notes that although his preference would be the more common, Indigenously derived name of whisky jack, he is accepting of the name of the bird the Canada jay, as “Canada” is itself a variation of the word “kanata,” meaning “village.”

As a representative of one of Canada’s three territories — each having only one representative — honourable senators will be aware of how strongly I feel that everything we do must be inclusive and representative of the whole country.

The Canada jay is present in every province and territory — unlike the maple tree — and the newest baby birds from previous years are known to help feed the fledglings in a familial setting. It might remind you of federalism, on occasion.

Perhaps most importantly in this challenging time — as Senator Ataullahjan has pointed out — it does not fly south in the winter. It stays in Canada year-round.

Clearly, dear colleagues, I am supportive of Bill S-221. However, I would be remiss in my capacity as a friendly critic if I did not recognize elements of some contention in this bill.

Primarily, there are those who will ask this question: Why the grey jay, the Canada jay? The work undertaken to select the Canada jay — formally and correctly recognized in 2018 by the American Ornithological Society, reverting the name back to what it was before 1957 — is well documented in Chapter 5 of the book.

It is Canadian Geographic and birders throughout the country that have requested this initiative and chosen the Canada jay. Honourable senators, it is Canadians who guide what we do for Canada, and I do not dispute their choice or their efforts.

“Why now?” we may ask. Surely, as the chamber of sober second thought, in light of urgent and pressing priorities, we have weightier matters to consider than Canada’s national bird, but let us consider and ponder for a moment the importance of symbols.

Our flag, ours since 1965 — within the lifetime of most, if not all of us in this chamber — is a source of pride. The colours red and white lend so well to our dress, especially the uniforms of our Olympic, Paralympic and Special Olympic athletes. The maple leaf lends itself to all our art forms.

Of course, there are our national games, lacrosse and hockey, the latter often referred to as “our game,” with the hardest of all the sports trophies to win — the Stanley Cup, named after Lord Stanley, Canada’s sixth Governor General.

Finding ourselves in the midst of the Stanley Cup finals lends itself to another question of note in reviewing this bill: why now? Having been a politician for a few years, I know better than to stand between people and the Stanley Cup finals, and I am grateful that Game 4 is tomorrow and not tonight.

Honourable senators will be very familiar with the expression “opportunity only knocks once.” At the risk of being labelled a political opportunist, dear colleagues, opportunity is knocking.

Yes, there are very weighty issues under discussion in the other place and among the public throughout our country. Those discussions are forthcoming to this chamber.

Fires threaten throughout the West, impairing health and air quality here in the East. We are still rebuilding from devastating weather events from recent memory in Atlantic Canada. The very real question of how best to present all Canadians with permitted, environmentally responsible nation-building projects with Indigenous involvement that will work for everyone and for Canada’s future is very much on everyone’s mind.

Shortly there will be a conference in Montreal for Food Banks Canada. Food and food security is a national issue, if not another national crisis.

Colleagues, we also hear the phrase “taking immediate action and showing results for our work.” Should the Senate take the time to discuss Bill S-221 to recognize a national bird?

I offer a resounding “But of course, right now.”

There is an opportunity now. As we await the results of the discussions of the duly elected representatives at the first ministers’ table, the Assembly of First Nations and the Inuit Tapiriit Kanatami with the Prime Minister, and the consideration of legislative proposals in the other place, there is an opportunity to do what I would consider a little housekeeping. That is something we are often able to offer in the Senate, such as when the renumbering of legislation has been overlooked or when there is an unintended consequence of a misinterpretation between the French and English versions of legislation. These are relatively minor amendments that can and, on occasion, do initiate in the Senate.

We have often considered those items without, perhaps, significant time spent in committee, with the understanding and appreciation that these are matters that should be dealt with immediately.

As I’m speaking, I have an opportunity to perform housekeeping on behalf of provincial and territorial emergency management organizations — or EMOs, as they are called — to remind us all during this time of evacuations in many parts of rural and remote Canada of our emergency kit, the grab-and-go bag or the go box. All Canadians, especially in rural Canada, are asked to have that go box packed — that one box or bag you take when you are going out the door. It has the all-important family documents, a battery-operated FM radio to access the CBC, medications, pet food and water — the list is on the provincial, territorial and national EMO websites.

Passing this legislation, accepting the suggestion of Canadians to nominate the Canada jay as Canada’s national bird, is housekeeping. It is packing that go box. It is keeping our elbows up. It is accepting the pass from previous colleagues in the other place and scoring a winning goal in overtime. To pass this legislation without extensive study — study that has already been done by Canadians over the years — is highly possible, and the opportunity that now knocks is one I truly believe we should take.

In this unique time of nation building and a willingness throughout the country to set aside regional differences to build one mighty Team Canada, recognizing the national bird adds to these efforts as a very special symbol of unity.

I would urge and ask all honourable senators to engage in the debate and to pass Bill S-221 before we adjourn for the summer, before someone else thinks this bird belongs to them, as climate change continues to be a threat to its existence and to demonstrate to our colleagues in the other place — and to all Canadians — that we can, in the spirit of collegiality, listen to and act on a simple request from Canadian birders to recognize the Canada jay as Canada’s national bird.

Thank you so much. I appreciate your time and attention.

Shä̀w níthän. Mahsi’cho. Gùnáłchîsh.