An unusual crime bill that would deny Canada Pension Plan survivor benefits to Canadians who kill would affect “one to two” people, says Employment Canada. The Conservative bill earlier passed the Commons by unanimous vote: “There really doesn’t appear to be much need for this bill”.
Conservative MPs have flooded cabinet with constituency complaints over management of the Temporary Foreign Worker Program. Cabinet correspondence obtained through Access To Information detail caucus protests against restrictions on the hiring of migrant labour: “Some Canadians are quite happy to not work, and that’s not right”.
Canada should consider compulsory voting if turnout does not improve in the 2015 campaign, says a former chief electoral officer. Jean-Pierre Kingsley praised an Australian law that’s resulted in minimum 90 percent turnouts since 1925: ‘Don’t give up on democracy’.
One of Canada’s largest public unions is dismissing claims of self-interest in opposing a cabinet bill to repeal federal regulations. The 170,000-member Public Service Alliance of Canada told the Senate national finance committee the bill appears pointless and unenforceable: “Everything that it claims to do can already be done”.
Another “toxic” lawsuit has failed at the Supreme Court. Justices declined to hear an appeal from a Saskatchewan company that claimed poisons leaching from an abandoned city dump contaminated its property: “It’s making it hard to establish case law in this area”.
Easter greetings to our friends and subscribers. Blacklock’s pauses for today’s federal holiday, and will return tomorrow — The Editor
If you suspect
a terrorist is living in your neighbourhood
you’d be relieved to know
he’s moving overseas,
but
with the new anti-terror legislation
Canada will disrupt his plans
– take away his passport –
so he can still meet you
at the grocery store,
see you
at the gas station,
open his door to your kids
on Halloween night,
all in the name of
Public Safety.
(Editor’s note: poet Shai Ben-Shalom, an Israeli-born biologist, examines current events in the Blacklock’s tradition each and every Sunday)
A bill to cap merchants’ credit card fees earning billions in revenues for Visa and MasterCard Canada has been defeated in the Senate banking committee. The measure had been endorsed by retailers and restaurateurs: “It’s a shame”.
Canada Revenue Agency would be compelled to publish a yearly blacklist of convicted tax evaders under a private bill introduced in the Senate. The agency must account for its record in tracking tax dodgers including Canadians with offshore accounts, the sponsor said: “There’s something wrong with the department”.
The Senate is expected to give final passage to a bill simplifying the reporting of deaths to federal agencies using social insurance numbers. The legislation follows an auditors’ report that complained of needless bureaucracy for grieving families: “Canadians deserve better”.
Federal regulators are declining comment on another outbreak of fish flu in an Atlantic salmon farm. The New Brunswick fisheries department confirmed the case at an undisclosed aquaculture operation in the province: “No one would know what is happening”.
A bill to proclaim Remembrance Day a federal paid holiday has been hijacked by “procedural tricks” and is now unlikely to pass, says its sponsor. The unusual delays come four months after the Commons overwhelmingly endorsed the bill in principle by a vote of 258 to 2: “They’ll effectively kill the bill”.
A regulatory reform bill lauded by cabinet as one of the first of its kind in the world has numerous loopholes and fails to address the Income Tax Act as the biggest generator of paperwork, say senators. Compliance with federal regulations typically costs small business $3,444 a year, by Industry Canada estimate: “We’re not trying to reduce the burden for lawyers here”.
Health Canada’s Food Inspection Agency is defending reassignment of inspectors following Agriculture Union protests over staffing cuts. The agency acknowledged that “shifting priorities” will see inspectors deployed based on emergencies: “Why?”
Foreign investors eyeing Canadian companies will face more lengthy and rigorous scrutiny. Reviews may extend past six months under amendments to National Security Review Of Investment Regulations: ‘It’s a significantly greater burden’.
