More than 50,000 Canadians have completed a federally-funded program to promote awareness of mental illness, documents show. The Mental Health Commission is also sponsoring a McGill study of media treatment of mental health issues to determine if journalists are “perpetuating negative stereotypes” of sufferers.
The Supreme Court of Canada has declined to hear appeals of federal legislation stripping the Canadian Wheat Board of its monopoly over wheat and barley exports. It marks the final chapter in a government policy stemming from the Depression era.
Federal historians are being laid off as the Government of Canada winds up its $28 million observance of the War of 1812. “Morale around here is rock bottom,” said one historian at the federal directorate responsible for official military histories and other research services.
The post office has cut 4,750 jobs since first reporting a drop in letter mail volumes in 2006, including nearly a thousand positions eliminated in the past year, payroll records show. “That is the reality we are in now,” said Denis Lemelin, president of the Canadian Union of Postal Workers.
Crown agencies have paid out tens of thousands of dollars in grants to fund websites, billboards and other promotions for private enterprise, documents show. One Nova Scotia processor, Louisbourg Seafoods Ltd., received a $14,175 grant for web design under a subsidy deemed “in the best interest of economic development.”
A late season surge in grain shipments saw the St. Lawrence Seaway post a net gain in traffic for 2012, new figures show. The Seaway and Great Lakes shipping system is credited with sustaining more than a quarter-million jobs and $34,000,000,000 in economic activity, by official estimate.
A federal judge has cautioned Canadians to mind their tax affairs after dismissing a claim from an Edmonton woman charged a $67,059 reassessment for filing a return she did not read: “There is a difference between innocent and careless.”
Storekeepers and fuel retailers are appealing for federal relief from Visa and MasterCard contractors’ fees now the subject of a Senate bill and Competition Tribunal inquiry. Independent gas stations say credit card acceptance fees eat away at profit margins reduced to as little as 4 to 7¢ a litre.
Tough-on-crime legislation is also tough on municipal budgets, say Canada’s civic leaders who warn rising police costs are “not sustainable” without federal aid. Nationwide the cost of law enforcement nearly doubled in a ten-year period, according to the Federation of Canadian Municipalities.
More Canadian gun owners were stripped of their licenses under ruling Conservatives than under a previous Liberal government, new figures show. Records indicate 10,463 firearms licenses were revoked by police nationwide in the seven years prior to the Conservatives’ repeal of a national long-gun registry.The minister of public safety declined Blacklock’s request for an interview.
An American regulation on pork and beef exports struck down as unfair by the World Trade Organization cost Canadian producers $5,000,000,000, new research shows. An industry group commissioned the latest impact study to justify retaliatory tariffs if the United States does not halt the practice by a May 23 deadline.
An overwhelming majority of Canadian enterprises fail to track their greenhouse gas inventories, a trend one industry association called unsurprising due to lack of incentives. Environment Canada, now campaigning to curb total emissions by 2020, would not take Blacklock’s questions on the low monitoring rate.
Canadian labour anticipates a “set-up” over federal attempts to promote non-union contracting, says the nation’s largest workers’ group. “You can hear the train whistle coming down the tracks,” the president of the Canadian Labour Congress told Blacklock’s. “This is a set-up.”
A Crown agency is publicly trademarking a sales slogan, though it sells nothing and has no dealings with the public. “This is a little strange,” said one MP.
Canada’s first official participation in contentious Trans-Pacific Partnership trade negotiations won’t be remembered for any accomplishments, say two experienced analysts. Canada expressed no interest in the talks until last year. As late as 2008 an advisor in the Prime Minister’s Office told reporters that “Ottawa doesn’t think this so-called Trans-Pacific Partnership is worth the trouble.”
