Environment Canada is restricting use of hydrofluorocarbons as refrigerants in compliance with U.S. regulations. The European Union is to begin phasing out HFCs as an environmental peril this year: “We’d like Canada to lead for once”.
Cabinet will not reopen a Coast Guard Station in Vancouver despite delays in response to a spill of bunker fuel from a grain carrier in the city’s English Bay. “We are not talking about perfection,” said one Conservative MP: “Excellence is not the same as perfection”.
Environment Canada is attempting to regulate emissions of a suspected cancer-causing chemical three years after listing it as toxic. Hydrazine, used mainly to prevent corrosion in power plant boilers, is identified as “possibly carcinogenic to humans” by the European Commission and U.S. Environmental Protection Agency: “It is dangerous”.
Canadians faced jail for driving a car or turning the thermostat above 16° under secret regulations drafted in case of a 1960s war with Soviet Russia. All cities were to be run by “Zone Commissioners” with the power to seize food and control the banks, according to secret Cold War files released under Access To Information: ‘They are extraordinary and very broad powers’.
Telecom regulators will not say if they have in fact levied the largest anti-spam fine of its kind in Canada, after announcing the penalty weeks ago. A Québec firm Compu-Finder Ltd. was threatened with a $1.1 million penalty on March 5: “I think there is a lot of vagueness”.
Health Canada proposes to restrict the non-medical use of antibiotics in food production, but stopped short of detailing regulations. It follows a Senate committee report that 80 percent of the drugs bought by farmers are used as medically-unnecessary growth promoters in poultry and livestock: “There’s a lot of detail in it that needs to be fleshed out”.
Famed Gaspé and 24 other Québec ports are to be tested for mercury, lead, PCBs and other toxins by Transport Canada. Environmental audits will include tests of drinking water, the department said: ‘We will mitigate the environmental impact of activities on the sites we own’.
The Supreme Court has ruled a shareholder who dumped stock over misleading media reports has no claim against the company. Interveners in the case included investors’ rights advocates: “That’s quite a low standard”.
Privacy advocates worry
that their voice may not be heard
in the debate over the Anti-Terrorism bill.
Someone should reassure them
that their voice will be heard, recorded,
meetings videotaped,
email messages reviewed, filed,
even before they click ‘Send’.
(Editor’s note: poet Shai Ben-Shalom, an Israeli-born biologist, examines current events in the Blacklock’s tradition each and every Sunday)
A court ruling that federal agencies have no right to charge the public for releasing most public records will have a far-reaching effect on access to information, says the Office of the Information Commissioner. A federal judge ruled that charges running to thousands of dollars were disallowed by regulation: “We need more decisions like this”.
Courts confirm Canada Revenue Agency has a right to use evidence collected in unrelated criminal cases to hit taxpayers with penalties for unreported income. It follows a trove of damning financial records seized from a Toronto-area shopping centre operator in 1999: “It can be quite a mess”.
A Senate review of the Canada Border Services Agency will be finalized within weeks, says the chair of the national security committee. However a private bill to appoint an Inspector General to oversee the agency is certain to lapse this year: “There is no reason”.
Canadian accountants rate cyberattacks a leading concern but say most would quickly spot any hackers’ bid to access financial records. The findings are detailed in a joint Canada-U.S. study of accounting professionals: “Hacking, data thefts and large-scale fraud are now all too common”.
Federal agencies have no right to bill high fees for retrieving public documents under Access To Information, a federal judge has ruled. It follows charges of thousands of dollars on Canadians attempting to see government records: “Parliament made it very clear: no regulation — no fee”.
Allegations that a drug maker sought to keep low-cost generic alternatives off the market will be heard by the Supreme Court Monday. The appeal focuses on an industry practice dubbed “evergreening”: “It’s the fault of Parliament for creating this insane system”.
