An internet advocacy group yesterday blitzed MPs with thousands of protest emails over a cabinet bill to censor YouTube. Heritage Minister Steven Guilbeault said critics were confused: ‘He lied to us and inserted a Trojan Horse regulatory power over all user audiovisual content.’
A federal air passenger rights regulator in a confidential letter to the airline lobby complained hearings on travelers’ complaints were “time consuming,” and proposed to “minimize the number of complaints” formally reviewed by the Canadian Transportation Agency. CEO Scott Streiner wrote the letter as 19,000 passengers contacted his Agency for help after being denied cash refunds for prepaid tickets: “I recognize how challenging and unprecedented this period is for the members of the National Airlines Council.”
Taxpayers calling the Canada Revenue Agency may have a better than one in ten chance of getting bad advice, records show. The Agency has said it is not liable for costs incurred by tax filers who act on inaccurate information: “You’re the big machine.”
A federal loan program for small business has been oversubscribed by more than a billion, according to Department of Industry figures. Records show a quarter of applications for interest-free $60,000 loans were rejected, on average: “It was oversubscribed in the very first round.”
Languages Commissioner Raymond Théberge waited nearly two weeks to notify internet users of a privacy breach at his office. Staff mistakenly disclosed the IP addresses of more than 1,500 people who filed complaints with Théberge over a two-year period: “I have a responsibility.”
Paul Glover, the $273,000-a year head of a federal IT agency, yesterday said his work was so secretive he couldn’t comment on his own news releases. Glover invoked national security in refusing to tell Parliament the location of government data centres until MPs pointed out the street addresses were searchable on Google: “Are you serious?”
Heritage Minister Steven Guilbeault in a draft order to federal regulators says enforcement of a YouTube censorship bill must comply with “the government’s vision” of internet content. Scofflaws are punishable by $15 million fines: “What you can’t change you desperately try to control.”
CMHC spent nearly a million dollars to delete the word “mortgage” from its name, Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation. Staff in internal emails enthused the marketing exercise “gave them chills” and wanted to celebrate with champagne, according to Access To Information records disclosed yesterday by the Canadian Taxpayers Federation: “I wish we could pop open some bubbly together!”
The Commons this morning at 1:56 am passed a rush bill to end a strike at the Port of Montréal. Labour Minister Filomena Tassi claimed striking longshoremen were preventing delivery of life-saving pandemic supplies, though a Liberal MP clarified the union had offered to unload medical goods.”The impact of this is grave.”
A proposal to ban single-use plastics is federal overreach, Alberta Energy Minister Sonya Savage yesterday told the Commons environment committee. Cabinet has no say over local waste management, said Savage: “This approach we believe intrudes into provincial jurisdiction.”
Auditors are citing Canadian diplomats for billing unexplained moving expenses including business class flights and cash for “house hunting trips.” The Department of Foreign Affairs spends $36.9 million a year on staff moves: “Expenditures were not reasonable.”
Health Minister Patricia Hajdu’s department threw away millions of dollars’ worth of pandemic masks, gloves and other crucial supplies prior to the outbreak of Covid-19, officials disclosed yesterday. The Public Health Agency concealed the information for over a year, claiming national security. The MP who requested the disclosure said Agency mismanagement raised questions of criminal liability: “24,000 people died.”
Heritage Minister Steven Guilbeault yesterday defended an abrupt policy change in support of censoring YouTube videos. Cabinet last Friday had MPs on the Commons heritage committee vote to regulate YouTube under the Broadcasting Act despite an earlier pledge to let “user-generated content” alone: “It is all about restricting content that ‘undermines social cohesion,’ but what does that even mean?”
Federal departments and agencies awarded $5.8 million in contracts to China suppliers last year even as Chinese jailers held Canadians in arbitrary detention, records show. It was “business as usual,” said an MP who sought the figures: “It is wrong.”
A federal “cost savings” program to electrify transit will see vehicles purchased at double the cost of conventional buses, data show. Infrastructure Minister Catherine McKenna launched the program March 4 on a promise of savings: “We’re tackling climate change.”
