Cabinet’s decriminalization of cocaine in British Columbia sets possession limits “too low” and doesn’t allow addicts to buy in bulk, says a federal report. Researchers advocated more generous possession limits from the current 2.5 grams: "Buying in bulk may be more economical particularly for people who use drugs."
Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland yesterday said it “would be just wrong for me to comment” on a Parliament Hill protest celebrating the October 7 killing and kidnapping of Jews in Israel including eight Canadians. A police investigation of the demonstration is underway: "Is that hate speech?"
Cabinet’s decision to defer a steep increase in capital gains taxes for two months was “surprising to say the least,” says Budget Officer Yves Giroux. MPs called the deferral a ploy for pre-election boosts in tax revenues: "If that's not the reason that certainly will be the effect."
Environment Minister Steven Guilbeault has postponed until after the next election the mandatory registration of $34 billion a year worth of plastic goods made in Canada from takeaway cups to fishing gear. Guilbeault’s lawyers are currently appealing a 2023 Federal Court decision that struck a "toxic" blacklisting of plastics: "Not every plastic manufactured item has the potential to create a reasonable apprehension of harm."
A federal ban on false environmental claims should be widened to include all misleading “green” advertising, say environmental groups. A cabinet bill would outlaw fake claims that certain products are environmentally friendly but not broader misleading statements that companies are “net zero."
The Public Health Agency broke its own rules in auctioning brand new $22,000 ventilators as $6 scrap, records show. Agency directives forbid the sale of licensed medical devices as scrap metal: "Do we get reimbursed?"
The newspaper chain that successfully led the national campaign for press subsidies, FP Newspapers Inc., lost more than $6 million last year, new records show. The publisher of the Winnipeg Free Press, Brandon Sun and other Manitoba titles received $989,000 in payroll rebates at taxpayers’ expense: "There does need to be a deadline."
A third of Canadians are wary of air taxis and urban drones if the federal government is responsible for regulating traffic, says in-house Department of Transport research. “A third of respondents, 31 percent, have low trust in the Government of Canada to handle the implementation of the technology,” wrote researchers.
Parliamentary critics should be forbidden from calling the Prime Minister corrupt, says Deputy Government House Leader Mark Gerretsen. The Liberal MP (Kingston & the Islands, Ont.) sought a Speaker’s ban on the adjective “to further improve decorum here.”
Two scientists fired as Chinese spies in 2021 kept their top federal security clearance for months while under investigation because “these were allegations,” the Public Health Agency told a Commons committee Friday. MPs expressed astonishment at the lapse: "How were there not red flags at that point?"
Poet Shai Ben-Shalom writes: “The chain promises cards for every occasion. I search the collection; inventory not nearly as complete as claimed. Suggestions: Our sincere condolences for the death of your mistress; we know how close you were….”
On November 13, 1971 a Cree teenager, Betty Osborne, was walking home in The Pas, Man. when she was abducted by four white men, raped, and stabbed to death with a screwdriver. It took police 16 years to get a conviction. “One of the saddest aspects of the so-called police investigation was the fact that the police began their investigation within the Aboriginal community,” notes Keetsahnak: Our Missing And Murdered Indigenous Sisters. “When no suspects were found, the police dropped their investigation.”
The fact the justice system failed an entire class of Canadian citizens is undisputed. The RCMP count 1,017 Indigenous women murdered in the period from 1980 to 2012. No other identifiable group endured such violence. As low as expectations were of the National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women, it at least fixed in the public mind that local tragedies like the murder of Betty Osborne are interconnected.
Treasury Board President Anita Anand yesterday described herself as “an extremely thorough and systematic minister” but said she did not know why Board employees paid social calls on ArriveCan contractors. “It is not my purview to oversee the day to day work of employees,” Anand told the Commons public accounts committee: "I do not know."
Cabinet yesterday denied any plans to recognize Sharia law in federal financing after citing “halal mortgages” in Tuesday’s budget. CMHC in 2023 funded research by the Islamic Family Social Services Association into mortgages suitable for observant Muslims: "Why is it in the budget?"
The federal sale of new $22,000 ventilators as scrap metal for $6 apiece is inexplicable, an MP said yesterday. The Department of Health said it had no records on the purchase of devices it licensed for use in 2020: "Was it incompetence or corruption?"
