Prime Minister Mark Carney faces growing opposition to his “nation building” bill on warnings the Commons must pass it by midnight Friday. Environmentalists joined Conservative and Liberal MPs in questioning the scope of Bill C-5: "This should be carefully scrutinized." READ MORE
Housing Minister Gregor Robertson attempted to hide millions’ worth of investment property from MPs, according to British Columbia land titles uncovered by TheBreakerNews.com. Robertson would not discuss his real estate dealings when questioned in the House: "I think the focus here needs to be on building homes for people to live in, not building homes for investors to own." READ MORE
The Department of Public Works is hiring private IT consultants to manage 660,000 federal web pages at an undisclosed cost. It follows cabinet’s 2023 promise to “reduce spending on consulting.” READ MORE
MPs ridiculed Treasury Board President Shafqat Ali as embarrassingly uninformed after he appeared unaware of a 2024 committee motion to ban federal employees from moonlighting as contractors. Critics jeered as Ali was handed scripted answers during questioning on budget estimates: "This is embarrassing. I would be embarrassed. I am almost embarrassed for him." READ MORE
Solar panels embody the teachings of Jesus, says MP Elizabeth May (Saanich-Gulf Islands, B.C.). The re-elected Green Party leader in her first Member's Statement to the 45th Parliament endorsed the blessing of solar panels on her parish church, explaining she was trying to “follow the path of Jesus Christ in my work.” READ MORE
Poet W.N. Branson writes: "It’s a million little things that portend a fall, small enough to go unnoticed, gradual, until it’s not. And arresting it Is harder, the longer it runs..." READ MORE
Fifteen years after the G20 riot in Toronto, there is little doubt protestors won the battle. The G20, Toronto Police, media and government – all were exposed as heavy-handed and paranoiac. Putting the State on Trial is an eloquent collection of essays dissecting 72 hours in June, 2010 that smashed reputations to smithereens. Nobody – not government, not police, not media – looks good in this saga, save protestors themselves who exercised their right to dissent. “The riot gear, the verbal assaults, the seemingly irrational physical abuse on hapless citizens caught in the maze, and the initial denial by the police that any of the actions were indicative of an out-of-control policing operation, sparked outrage,” authors write. The facts: The federal cabinet insisted on holding the summit in Canada’s largest city. Then the Ontario cabinet cordoned off five square blocks of downtown Toronto under an obscure 1939 law intended to protect power plants from Nazi saboteurs. Under Regulation 233/10 any person could be arrested for entry, or failing to provide ID. It became “a trap for those who exercised their ordinarily legal rights,” as Ontario’s ombudsman later observed. READ MORE
There was a spectrum of opinion on Vietnam in those years. Officially the Canadian government professed neutrality, and there was a growing anti-war movement. Yet thousands of Canadians joined American forces to serve there. One, Peter Lemon of Toronto, became the only Canadian to win the Congressional Medal of Honor in that war. In 1970 he fended off Vietcong attackers in hand-to-hand combat while wounded comrades with his U.S. Army Ranger unit were safely evacuated to an aid station. Why did they fight? Adventure perhaps, or an idealized sense of joining the defence of a western democracy from the threat of communist expansionism and the so-called Domino Effect. Their stories are rarely told.
