Eight years after Parliament passed the Veterans Hiring Act the Department of Veterans Affairs yesterday said it had no figures on how many veterans were actually hired. “We absolutely believe in hiring veterans,” Steven Harris, assistant deputy minister, testified at the Commons veterans affairs committee: “We do make efforts.”

Emergency powers invoked against the Freedom Convoy were no excuse for privacy breaches, the federal privacy commissioner said yesterday. “Privacy protection is not just a set of technical rules,” Commissioner Philippe Dufresne wrote a parliamentary committee: “Even in an emergency, public institutions must continue to operate under lawful authority.”

Billions spent on consultants have created a “shadow public service” unaccountable to taxpayers, a union executive yesterday told the Commons government operations committee. Federal departments and agencies spend $16.7 billion a year on consultants, by Treasury Board estimate: “This shadow public service plays by an entirely different set of rules.”

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau yesterday rejected demands that he withdraw the appointment of his “inclusion” advisor for inflammatory comments. One cabinet minister described remarks by Amira Elghawaby as “really inappropriate.”

Cabinet has successfully opposed a Federal Court petition that it formally sanction Communist China as genocidal. A judge rejected the petition by lawyers acting on behalf of minority Uyghur Muslims held in Chinese slave camps: ‘Canada has decided not to act.’

A federal bank awarded senior staff $104 million in pandemic bonuses and pay raises even as it reported a net loss and customers struggled with “extreme hardship,” records show. Access To Information figures obtained by the Canadian Taxpayers Federation tracked Covid perks paid by the Business Development Bank: ‘They should not have doled out big bonuses.’

A decade of Stephen Harper as Prime Minister was more hurtful than 9/11, a federal “inclusion” advisor wrote in a 2015 newspaper column. Amira Elghawaby in other commentaries complained middle-class Canadians never experienced inequity and advocated for Muslim prayer in public schools since “parents of these children pay taxes.”

Cabinet attempts to save its latest gun bill is a “delicate conversation,” says Government House Leader Mark Holland. The bill introduced eight months ago faces stiff opposition in the Commons public safety committee: “This is a very difficult, emotional, difficult issue.”

Arguing, gossiping and cussing are forms of workplace violence along with assault, murder and arson, says a Parks Canada report. The internal audit on workplace health counted 20 “violent incidents” over a two-year period but did not elaborate: “Most people think of violence as a physical assault. However workplace violence is a much broader problem.”

The House affairs committee tomorrow begins its review of electoral redistricting for the first time in a decade. Proposed changes would see the City of Toronto lose one federal seat while Calgary and suburbs gain two: “Groups have argued the electoral system should be redesigned to represent their own interests.”

A Toronto Star writer who advocated deposing the Queen as racist and opposed Canada Day as a celebration of “European, Judeo-Christian storytelling” yesterday was named Special Representative on Combating Islamophobia. Cabinet aides would not comment on the writings of activist Amira Elghawaby: “Time to wake up.”

There is no current estimate of how many billions were wasted on the costliest pandemic subsidy program, the Canada Revenue Agency yesterday told the Commons public accounts committee. “It really was a first-time thing for everybody so there’s lots of lessons to be learned,” testified Revenue Commissioner Bob Hamilton: “It’s hard to say.”

Federal climate change programs fuel inflation, the Bank of Canada said yesterday. Researchers said green energy “raises costs.”

The federal prison system has been ordered to pay an employee $310,000 in damages for malicious mistreatment. Management peddled gossip and slander in falsely accusing a British Columbia guard of smuggling drugs, wrote a labour board arbitrator: “The employer’s conduct through the unfortunately lengthy saga from 2016 to 2020 was malicious, reprehensible, deliberate and shameful.”