The CBC predicts an ongoing collapse in its local TV news viewership. The audience for local suppertime newscasts has fallen 27 percent in two years, and is now a fraction the audience of the CBC’s private competitors: “Canadians are taking their eyeballs and wallets somewhere else.”
Federal payroll systems are so dysfunctional one union yesterday said it wants fixed IOU pay dates written into its next contract. “Crazy things happen,” said Debi Daviau, president of the 60,000-member Professional Institute of the Public Service.
Senators are drafting a confidential harassment policy that would see appointment of a private law firm to hear staff complaints. The initiative follows the 2017 resignation of one senator accused of improper conduct by eight current and former employees: “We can’t have that.”
Countless regulations are enough to make small business gag, the Commons industry committee was told. One tax attorney cited an Alberta-mandated guide instructing employers on how to safely hire a rent-a-car: “It makes me almost throw up.”
An uproar over the SNC-Lavalin Group Inc. probe forced an abrupt end to a routine meeting of the Commons finance committee. Liberal MP Wayne Easter (Malpeque, P.E.I.), committee chair, gaveled an adjournment after members began arguing over contacts with Lavalin lobbyists: “You can’t silence me.”
Sunwing Airlines Inc. spent more than a quarter-million dollars on late luggage deliveries to customers following nightmare holiday flights last April, according to documents filed with the Canadian Transportation Agency. The regulator cited Sunwing for breach of regulations after scores of flights were delayed: “Tensions began to rise.”
Cabinet says it has no deadline to resume construction of taxpayer-owned Trans Mountain Pipeline following a second licensing approval by regulators. “We are not anticipating, basically,” an official told reporters: “We are not going to cut corners.”
Senior officials yesterday told the Commons justice committee they cannot remember private meetings with lobbyists for SNC-Lavalin Group Inc. Michael Wernick, Clerk of the Privy Council, replied “I don’t recall” and “I don’t know” five times when questioned by MPs. Two Liberal appointees have resigned to date over allegations the Prime Minister’s Office sought to quash a criminal prosecution of the company on corruption charges: “Is that your testimony?”
The British Columbia Supreme Court has upheld an insurer’s refusal to pay out a house fire claim after the homeowner refused to report marijuana plants on the property. It’s the first ruling of its kind since Parliament legalized home cultivation of cannabis plants: “Would it matter if I grew tomatoes or cucumbers?”
The labour department says it will not name owners of eight factories that illegally hired migrant farmworkers. Staff claimed disclosure would breach the Access To Information Act, though more than a hundred other scofflaws are identified on a federal website: “The names of the employers cannot be provided.”
Canadian factories are getting pounded by 2018 Trump tariffs on steel and aluminum, says the chair of the Commons trade committee. A committee report urges that cabinet consider all “potential actions” to lift punishing cross-border duties: “Is there hurt out there? Yes there is.”
A Québec judge has dismissed a class action lawsuit against Subway over its sale of chicken sandwiches. The Court said a 2017 CBC Marketplace report that prompted the lawsuit was of little value: “There is no misrepresentation.”
The Conservative chair of the Senate transport committee yesterday invoked Chuck Berry and the Minnesota Vikings in ridiculing complaints over a turn of phrase he used in a speech at a public rally. Liberals described the language as too violent.
“Ridiculous,” said Senator David Tkachuk (Sask.): “I’m not going to apologize for a figure of speech. Everybody knows exactly what I meant.”
Tkachuk on February 19 spoke to a Parliament Hill rally of United We Roll protestors, a convoy of truckers, farmers and contractors that staged two days of demonstrations outside the Commons chamber. Protestors opposed Bill C-69 An Act To Enact The Impact Assessment Act that rewrites oil and gas permit regulations, and the 2018 Greenhouse Gas Pollution Pricing Act mandating a national carbon tax.
Senator Tkachuk in a YouTube excerpt of his speech stated: “I know you’ve rolled all the way here, and I’m going to ask you one more thing. I want you to roll over every Liberal left in the country, because when they’re gone, these bills are gone. Thank you very much. The very best of luck.”
Critics yesterday demanded Tkachuk apologize. “I’m a Liberal,” said Senator Dennis Dawson (Que.). “I have to be careful when I cross the street because they are around the Hill, and you encouraged them to roll over me.”
Senator Terry Mercer (N.S.), Deputy Leader of the Senate Liberal caucus, called the phrase unparliamentary. “I’m concerned some would interpret these remarks as advocating physical violence against the supporters of a particular party, including parliamentarians,” said Mercer.
“I was using a figure of speech playing on the United We Roll slogan, and referring to defeating every single Liberal in the next election which would kill the bill,” replied Senator Tkachuk. “Every trucker understood exactly what I said, but the Liberals seem to have a problem.”
“I’m sure when Chuck Berry said ‘Roll Over Beethoven’ he was not talking about rolling over the corpse of Beethoven,” said Tkachuk. “I’m sure when the Minnesota Vikings call their linemen the ‘Purple People Eaters’ they didn’t exactly mean that they were eating purple people. When the Orange Crush of the Denver Broncos were called the ‘Orange Crush’ no one believes they were really crushing oranges.”
Senator Frances Lankin (Independent-Ont.) said she considered the remark inappropriate “in these days of hate crimes and vehicular violence”: “You could apologize that people are taking it that way and make it clear we stand united in abhorring violence,” said Lankin.
Replied Senator Tkachuk: “If any feelings were hurt I hope you find a safe place, but I’ll tell you I want the same apology from all the rest of you the next time you call Conservatives racist, the next time you call us bigots and say we associate with those people, because the Liberal Party does it all the time.”
By Staff 
The Commons by a vote of 159 to 133 yesterday rejected a judicial inquiry into alleged political interference in the criminal prosecution of SNC-Lavalin Group Inc. The House fell silent as former attorney general Jody Wilson-Raybould vowed to “speak my truth” on why she quit cabinet, and whether the Prime Minister’s Office pressured her to seek an out-of-court settlement with the contractor: “Canadians want to know.”
Federal regulators plan an elaborate sting operation at banks to test lenders’ compliance with new consumer protection rules. The Financial Consumer Agency of Canada is hiring 200 “mystery shoppers” to pose as everyday customers: “Oh, we’ve got a great credit card for you.”
