Honourable senators, I rise to speak in support of Bill S-244, An Act respecting Kindness Week.

Author Henry James said:

Three things in human life are important: the first is to be kind; the second is to be kind; and the third is to be kind.

The Dalai Lama says:

My religion is very simple. My religion is kindness.

Our esteemed colleagues Senators Munson, Plett and Martin have already weighed in on this debate, extolling the importance of remembering to be kind, compassionate and generous to each other. It is good for our well-being and good for Canadian society.

Senator Plett cautioned us to be aware of overuse of tools of remembrance and celebration. We wouldn’t want to risk taking away significance from other nationally observed days and events, but what could be more important than encouraging and reinforcing kind behaviour among Canadians?

This past weekend in Ottawa, many acts of kindness were essential to surviving the aftermath of the three tornadoes that hit the city, including offers of shelter, meals, neighbours refrigerating insulin, checking in on the elderly and infirm. Down on George Street in the market area, I noticed there is a kindness meter, fashioned like a parking meter, where you can contribute to support services for people living on the streets of Ottawa. The meter isn’t intended to replace direct contributions to people in need.

Imagine if kindness week was built into school curricula and young Canadians were encouraged to express and demonstrate kindness to their peers, families and neighbours. This could become a year-round habit.

Only last week, Metis elder Elsie Yanik was honoured by having a school in Fort McMurray named for her. A beneficiary of kindness when she was a child and she had lost her mother, Elsie Yanik went on to spend the rest of her life demonstrating kindness in many ways in other communities. Honouring Elsie Yanik’s legacy, the school has placed the sign “kindness is contagious” in a prominent location welcoming the students as they enter the school each day.

Before this debate, Senator Hartling’s statement on the power of one and the #BeccaToldMeTo campaign initiated by the late brave and kind New Brunswicker, Rebecca Schofield really kicked off this discussion on the importance of kindness and therefore the worthiness of setting aside special time every year to celebrate and encourage kind behaviour and actions.

My intention today is to add to the case for support of this bill by telling you a couple of short stories about kindness, citing some research and recent articles on the topic and then concluding with some final arguments.

The first short story about kindness that I’m going to tell you is actually my own.

A year ago I was bald. I had no eyelashes or eyebrows, and no fingernails or toenails. Like others in this chamber, I had come through a harrowing year of dealing with cancer, in my case breast cancer. It was a year of surgery, chemo treatments, radiation and the physical, emotional and spiritual toll that comes with that. A year later, I feel like I’m qualified to write a PhD dissertation on creative expressions of kindness and the positive impacts thereof.

I honestly believe that, along with the top calibre medical care received, the kindness administered ever so generously by family, friends, neighbours and strangers aided tremendously in my recovery and contributed to my ability to reclaim my wellness and to be here with you today.

Picture this: About two weeks after I had my first chemo treatment, my hair, formerly thick and very straight, was falling out by the handful. I went to see the wonderful Darlene Hart, the local hairstylist and special minister to chemo-affected bald women like me. I removed my hat for Darlene to see my mostly bare pate with its few stubborn remaining strands of hair. Darlene suggested she shave my head to even things up before she installed my wig.

What Darlene did next was a real gesture of compassion and kindness for this woman, for me, who had just lost a large slice of her right breast and was feeling sick, weak, terrified and very vulnerable. She asked me if I wanted to face towards or away from the mirror as she removed my final strands of pre-chemo hair while she placed and styled the new wig. Darlene knew how much trauma I and others like me with cancer go through, and she was ready to find a way to minimize the trauma. With that simple, thoughtful kind gesture, she took away some of the sting.

I experienced hundreds of moments like that over my period of treatment and recovery: daughters, brothers and sisters who flew in, and the dear friends who ministered to me over the months; the flowers from my siblings and mom that arrived like clockwork every time I came from chemo; friends offering statues of Ganesh, prayer flags, flags of hope, Celtic crosses, oil from St. Joseph’s Oratory, tears of Mary from Egypt, prayers, songs for me in the hospital chapel while I was undergoing surgery; the meals; the weekly card — for months — from friends in England; daily offerings of cards, fruit and other tokens on my doorstep; my neighbour removing every flake of snow from my walk and driveway in the morning before I could even open my eyes. There were my morning hiking and snowshoeing buddies who accommodated my slow pace as I was re-emerging from my latest chemo challenge; friends who housed me and joined me in ringing the bell at the end of my radiation treatments in Halifax.

I could go on, but I won’t. These generous and creative expressions of kindness were restorative.

In May, I attended the Dalhousie Medical School convocation as my cousin was receiving her doctorate in breast cancer research, of all things. At the convocation, the medical graduates all recited the Hippocratic Oath. One line of that oath really struck me:

I will remember that there is art to medicine as well as science, and that warmth, sympathy, and understanding may outweigh the surgeon’s knife or the chemist’s drug.

My doctors, nurses, radiation technologists and other health care professionals were all well-versed in the art of kindness and the science of medicine.

Coming to the Senate, I have also experienced kindness including early dinner invitations; Senator Marshall showed me the location of the women’s washroom; Senator Saint-Germain encouraged me to choose a date for my swearing in when my family could be present. But that is enough about me.

My second story on the importance of kindness is one shared by someone in my hometown of Antigonish, Tareq Hadhad.

Tareq was our first community sponsored Syrian refugee. We now have five Syrian families in our town of 5,000. He and his family are behind the remarkable Peace by Chocolate business.

Tareq recently posted this little story on Facebook:

Late December 2015, I got my first Canadian phone number and the first call I got after two hours was from a woman in her sixties from Newfoundland but living in Nova Scotia. She dialed my number and she thought she had called her daughter.

She said, “Hey Catherine whaddayet”.

Me - Tareq “Sorry Ma’am could you repeat what you said because I couldn’t get it.

She was trying to call her daughter.

Even though the number was wrong, our phone conversation lasted for 15 minutes, then she asked me “oh yeah how is the weather up there in Antigonish.” “How long you been here” etc.

The story is, after she knew I was a newcomer to the country, she kept calling me every second month to check-in how I am doing and if I needed anything.

After our last conversation last month, she invited me to her son’s wedding in the fall.

Tareq concludes with:

Now trust me, the Maritimers are the kindest, most humble and sweetest people you will ever meet.

Just imagine what this woman’s simple expression of kindness meant to this young refugee man who had lost everything in Damascus. He’d lost his home, the family chocolate factory, his community and his career path.

David R. Hamilton’s book, The Five Side Effects of Kindness, asserts that although we shouldn’t be kind for personal benefit, there are five main side effects of kindness. First — and we’ve heard a little bit about this — is the helper’s high, that feel-good state we get by elevated levels of dopamine in the brain. The second is healthier hearts. With emotional warmth, our bodies produce oxytocin, a cardiovascular protective hormone. The third is that kindness can slow aging, reduce inflammation related to the vagus nerve and, again, produce oxytocin. The fourth is that kindness expressed makes for better relationships. It can reduce the emotional distance between people, so we feel more bonded and connected. Finally, the fifth side effect is that kindness is contagious. It can foster imitation and have a ripple effect in society. Remember the #BeccaToldMeTo campaign?

In her Saturday, May 26, Globe and Mail article about “How not to be a jerk,” Wency Leung cites Sally Kohn’s The Opposite of Hate: A Field Guide to Repairing Our Humanity and Dr. Brian Goldman’s The Power of Kindness: Why Empathy is Essential in Everyday Life. Dr. Goldman, after some self-reflection and wide-ranging research, concludes, “Kindness and empathy are a choice — a choice between your own needs and your instinct to help others.” He goes on to speak about what it would take to create a kinder society:

It is important to first create the conditions for kindness and empathy to flourish by reducing the amount of stress in our society — making sure people have enough to eat, a sense of purpose, better education, better access to education, clean air, clean water, safe neighbourhoods — the basic building blocks of society.

Dr. Goldman concludes by saying that “it helps to have leadership which models kind behaviour.”

I would add that true kindness, the kind that we as Canadian parliamentarians would promote and engage in, would be kindness based on an understanding and an expression of a shared humanity and would be informed by a sense of what is right and just.

Fellow senators, here is our chance. The preamble to Bill S-244 states:

Whereas kindness encourages values such as empathy, respect, gratitude and compassion;

Whereas kind acts lead to the improved health and well-being of Canadians;

Whereas Kindness Week is already celebrated in some Canadian cities;

Whereas designating and celebrating a Kindness Week throughout Canada will encourage acts of kindness, volunteerism and charitable giving to the benefit of all Canadians;

Whereas Kindness Week will connect individuals and organizations to share resources, information and tools to foster more acts of kindness;

And whereas Parliament envisions that Kindness Week might encourage a culture of kindness in Canada throughout the year;

Let’s send this bill to committee so that we can develop more tools and opportunities to advance kindness in our land and in our world. Wouldn’t it be great if Canada became known as a nation of kind and generous people? It could add a potent dimension to our much-touted status as polite people.

As the prominent French-born American Quaker Stephen Grellet is said to have uttered:

I shall pass through this world but once. Any good therefore that I can do or any kindness that I can show to any human being, let me do it now. Let me not defer or neglect it, for I shall not pass this way again.

Colleagues, we are given this senatorial opportunity for impact just once. Let’s make the most of it and advance this bill. Thank you. Welalioq.