Cabinet will not disclose the budget for the June 8 swearing-in of the new Governor General. The ceremony is the first of its kind since Prime Minister Mark Carney promised to cut spending and “make tough choices.” READ MORE
PM Garbles ‘Great Albertans’
Mark Carney misidentified the first Alberta prime minister in a videotaped tribute to “great Albertans,” records show. Carney’s office could not name the first Alberta prime minister when asked: "I think when I come to Parliament of the great Albertans." READ MORE
Reward, Punish On Housing
Parliament should withhold federal funding from municipalities that fail to build more homes, says the Canadian Human Rights Commission. It promoted a variation of a 2025 campaign proposal by the Opposition to reward local authorities that build and punish those that don't: "Municipal governments would be required to demonstrate concrete progress." READ MORE
Want Say On Foreign Treaties
Indigenous Canadians should be formally consulted on all new foreign treaties, the Assembly of First Nations has told the Senate. Consultation with chiefs must be mandatory, they said: "First Nations have engaged in trade since time immemorial." READ MORE
Cable TV Audience Over 55
New CRTC data confirm a sharp generational divide between Canadians who rely on TV newscasts and those who get their news on the internet. “A lower proportion used regular television as a primary source for their news and information content,” said in-house research. READ MORE
Sunday Poem: “Devastated”
Poet Shai Ben-Shalom writes: "The news channel brings stories from the storm into my living room. My eyes to the screen; my heart skips a beat..." READ MORE
Review: Memoir Of A Runaway
Police were not infrequent visitors to author Cheri DiNovo’s childhood home. All families have troubles but DiNovo’s make Angela’s Ashes look like a holiday camp. “I grew up in a violent, neurotic, narcissistic household where victims of their own personal traumas acted out in nasty, aggressive ways,” she writes. “This is not to blame any of them.” Take Uncle Ken, one of the more responsible adults in the home. “It was Ken who took me to dance classes, Ken who took us shopping, Ken who drove us up to the family cottage and stayed with us there, Ken who financially supported us, Ken who always arrived at breakfast at the same time,” writes DiNovo. “My breakfast was Sugar Crisp, white toast and milk. His, brown toast and coffee. It was also Ken who, one day as I was slurping down my second bowl of cereal, picked up a knife and slashed my Aunt Lorna across the neck.” READ MORE
Guest Commentary
I remember one oldtimer telling me, “You don’t have to be smart or know all the answers to work hard. You can compensate for a lot with hard work.” I never forgot that miner’s advice. On completing high school I landed my first industrial job as a hard-rock miner for Copperline Mines Ltd. in Parsons, B.C. My mother Angeline had raised us at our home in Trail. My father Vincent worked at the Cominco smelter. Dad didn’t want me working there. Sickness robbed him of a happy retirement. So, I worked.
