Parliament ran its own tavern for 49 years. It was a “very natural place,” said John A. Macdonald. It accounted “for the fine, free flow of language in the press and the House,” one senator recalled years afterward. The place was so convivial reformers twice tried to shut it down. Sober and sadder are today’s holidays on Parliament Hill.
The author, an Israeli-born biologist, examines current events in the Blacklock’s tradition.
Tax Court has clarified terms of a federal transit credit in the case of a commuter with a grievance amid “understandable” confusion. A judge disqualified a credit , though Court heard testimony that Canada Revenue had accepted similar claims in the past, and a Toronto-area transit system continues to mistakenly advise commuters the claim is valid.
A Manitoba inventor is applying to Industry Canada to patent a new musical instrument, an exotic guitar-shaped device made of spruce and maple wood and played with a bow: “People are interested because it is different.”
A federal agency has upheld Air Canada’s refusal to carry medical research primates as cargo amid widespread public protest. The Canadian Transportation Agency said the airline made a “rational business decision” after 47,000 Canadians petitioned the carrier to stop shipping lab monkeys.
Northern Ontario has become the unionized bank capital of Canada with federal certification of another branch, in Elliott Lake — an event so uncommon the Canadian Bankers Association says it has no data on the number of branches organized nationwide, though there are “not that many.”
When Liberal MP Carolyn Parrish launched a bitter anti-U.S. rant for the TV cameras in 2003 – “Damn Americans, I hate those bastards,” she said – nobody noted her hometown of Mississauga, Ont. was headquarters for Wal-Mart Canada, GE Canada and Hershey Canada. Thus the “continuing paradox” of Canada-US relations, writes political scientist Geoffrey Hale. The same Canadians who harp on “American untrustworthiness” – like, say, MPs from Mississauga – will never hesitate to “take advantage of their proximity to the United States to get the most they can from the relationship.”
Saskatoon is rated in a national audit as the most tax competitive city in Canada. “It was hard work,” said a local official, noting the city achieved its rating in part by eliminating a 14.5 business tax and rolling it into non-residential property assessments. The City of Ottawa did not make the winners’ list.
The government says it anticipates little grumbling over a $234,000,000 hike in passport fees starting in the new year.
A Toronto-area firm that chauffeured drunk drivers home is now out of business and saddled with a $50,000 Federal Court judgment because its name was too similar to a company headquartered in Calgary: “It might have helped if they had shown up in court.”
Christmas tree sales are dropping sharply amid cheap imports of fake trees and aggressive sales by U.S. growers. Federal figures show that sales of real, grown-in-Canada Christmas trees have declined by almost a quarter since 2006.
Commercial greenhouse growers say they are intrigued, and troubled, by a federal proposal to privatize marijuana production for medical use. Health Canada projects 40 percent-a year growth in the sale of medical marijuana, and a 70 percent rise in wholesale prices, under a scheme to privatize production in 2014.
A federal effort to tax, license and regulate one of the nation’s largest fish farming systems remains unfinished into its third year after the Department of Fisheries announced by “error” it was finally consulting with industry on new fees.
A senator campaigning to regulate storekeepers’ credit fees urged lawmakers to lead the nation by example in avoiding card purchases this Christmas. “Do not use credit cards during our break,” said Senator Pierrette Ringuette, who introduced a bill to reduce Visa and MasterCard contractors’ fees by at least half.
Detecting deadly pathogens in food within minutes could be the next breakthrough in Canadian food science, researchers say. Scientists aim for a test that would detect bacterium in an hour or less. It follows food scares that prompted the closure of two separate Alberta meatpackers in the past two months.
