Blacklock's Reporter

To read this delightful account of wartime eating is to comprehend for the first time our mothers’ odd fascination with liver. Livestock organs have today vanished from most supermarkets including items that butchers once creatively marketed as “variety meats” – calves’ brains, tongue, tripe and kidneys. None blighted so many childhoods as liver: liver loaf, minced liver, liver sauté, and most appalling, fried liver and onions, a dense, grey, mealy dish that could only be choked down with ketchup. “Eat liver frequently” was the decree of the 1944 Official Food Rules. An entire generation of homemakers took the admonishment to heart long after victory was ours. READ MORE

Anti-terror surveillance is so haphazard one Liberal MP yesterday said his fiancé was flagged after wiring funds to India to buy a traditional wedding dress. The Commons finance committee earlier heard testimony from a University of Waterloo researcher that banks have also targeted depositors for wearing hoodies and sunglasses: "Why?" READ MORE

Parliamentary Budget Officer Jean-Denis Fréchette says he fears fake news peddlers will spoil new legislation permitting first-ever costing of party election platforms.  The 2019 campaign will be the first under rules allowing the Office to calculate expenses of campaign promises: "What I am afraid of is third parties, like media." READ MORE

The Public Sector Labour Relations and Employment Board has overturned the firing of a prison guard for marijuana use. The Board said the employee, though lacking in common sense, did not deserve dismissal for carrying cannabis in a government vehicle: "I think this is a serious lack of judgment." READ MORE

Marine shippers yesterday applied for an exemption from the national carbon tax, one day after MPs voted to exempt 46,000 commercial fishermen. A lobbyist told the Senate energy committee the tax will cost shippers millions: "There’s a lineup at the door for everybody who wants to be exempted." READ MORE

Attorney General Jody Wilson-Raybould yesterday criticized senators for deleting what she called the “centrepiece” of a cabinet bill on impaired driving. The Senate legal and constitutional affairs committee voted down random roadside testing as unconstitutional, a position endorsed by the Canadian Civil Liberties Association and advocates representing 36,000 lawyers: "I think it's irresponsible." READ MORE

The Commons finance committee last night voted to exempt Canada’s 46,000 commercial fishermen from paying the national carbon tax. The vote on a snap amendment followed “unrelenting pressure” against the tax, said one MP: 'There is a possibility we might go further.' READ MORE