The CBC has seven vice-presidents, ten directors general, five directors of finance and a “strategic intelligence department” with a $900,000 budget, according to records disclosed in a labour hearing. Management has praised its “visionary talent” in spending a $1.3 billion-a year federal grant: “We are covering the planet with very few resources.”

The Prime Minister’s Office has named a Canadian supplier blamed for selling substandard pandemic masks for use at municipal nursing homes in Toronto. The city’s solicitor had asked that the name be withheld: “So consider that confidential.”

Cabinet has signed an order, the first of its kind, that caps selected fees charged taxpayers by accountants and tax consultants at $100 a year. Consultants had called the cap ruinous for 60,000 firms nationwide that handle claims for disability credis, though the sponsor of a bill to regulate fees said too many taxpayers were victimized by unscrupulous promoters: “This money was siphoned off by the middlemen.”

Evan Siddall, retiring $459,000-a year chief executive of CMHC, in farewell remarks to the Commons finance committee said the corporation never lied to Canadians about home equity taxes. Siddall did not comment on Access To Information records: “I was accused of lying, in fact, and a media cover-up on this.”

Self-help seminars for federal prisoners cost taxpayers up to $7,331 per inmate but may save money in the end, says a Correctional Service study. Participation is voluntary in group discussions on “goal setting,” “learning style,” “healing” and other topics: ‘The ultimate goal is to assist offenders in becoming law-abiding citizens.’

A Senate committee has endorsed a bill to appoint an “artist laureate” to inspire the nation. “Give a vote of moral support to Canadian creators in this very dark time,” said Senator Patricia Bovey (Man.), sponsor of the bill: “It expresses the soul and substance of who we are as Canadians.”

Canada’s original NORAD headquarters, an underground complex once home to the nation’s first supercomputer, will be scrapped. The Department of National Defence said it could think of no further use for the 1963 bunker at North Bay, Ont.: “Bringing the facility up to health and safety standards is not feasible.”

Easter greetings to all friends and subscribers. Blacklock’s pauses for the national observance this Good Friday — The Editor

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau faces censure in the Commons after refusing to allow MPs to question his political aides over dealings with We Charity. The Commons ethics committee yesterday saw notice of a motion citing Trudeau’s office for defying a House order: “I always thought Canada was supposed to be a democratic country where decisions by the House held some value.”

A Commons committee yesterday by a 6-5 vote ordered the Public Health Agency to disclose records on the firing of two Chinese scientists at a federal lab. Iain Stewart, president of the Agency, refused to take questions on the Winnipeg incident when cross-examined by MPs: “There is obviously a profound public interest in this.”

Opposition MPs on the Commons environment committee yesterday overruled cabinet objections in approving a bill to ban plastic waste exports. “Our worry is the domestic situation that could occur,” said Liberal MP Raj Saini (Kitchener Centre, Ont.).

Defendants in criminal court can be ordered to remove face masks even in a pandemic, an Alberta judge has ruled. Court of Queen’s Bench Justice Douglas Mah called it an unusual order, the first of its kind: “Under normal circumstances his face would be completely visible.”

Federal regulators yesterday stepped back from major restrictions on two common farm pesticides. The neonicotinoids eight years ago were rated “very highly toxic to aquatic invertebrates,” but yesterday were upgraded to “acceptable.”