People’s Party leader Maxime Bernier yesterday proposed a first-ever national moratorium on immigration until Parliament solves the housing crisis. “The Canadian government should work for us Canadians, not foreigners,” he told reporters: “We were called racists.”
The Department of Employment says it tripled spending on consultants in a single year to $311 million because “no employee was available,” according to an internal report. The department has more than 34,000 employees: “What is the rationale?”
Canadians face more than a quarter billion a year in higher costs for heating and cooling after Natural Resources Minister Jonathan Wilkinson’s department yesterday adopted California efficiency standards for essential home appliances. Costs will be “passed on to consumers.”
Opposition Leader Pierre Poilievre yesterday questioned why a public registry of foreign agents approved by Parliament 10 months ago is still not in operation. The Department of Public Safety did not comment: “Find out who is a bad actor.”
Prime Minister Mark Carney yesterday promised a one-stop permit system for energy projects called the Major Federal Project Office. It followed Opposition Leader Pierre Poilievre’s proposal Monday for a one-stop permit system called the Rapid Resource Project Office. Carney said his Project Office was better: “I do things.”
A yearly surtax on the wealthiest Canadians would raise tens of billions but have an unpredictable “behavioural response,” the Budget Office said yesterday. New Democrat and Green MPs have advocated a wealth tax on multi-millionaires and billionaires: “It is easy and wonderful to say to people we are going to tax the wealthiest and we are going to do this, do that.”
The Government of Canada is such a poor landlord it rates worse than New Zealand, population five million, in managing federal buildings for taxpayer savings, says a Treasury Board report. Managers spend some $10 billion a year without proper oversight, it said: “Property assets continue to deteriorate at an accelerating pace.”
Conservatives would require the Canada Revenue Agency to publicly identify corporations that pay little or no federal tax, Opposition Leader Pierre Poilievre said yesterday. Auditors would also be instructed to stop “harassing small businesses and charities,” a longstanding complaint documented through in-house Agency research: “You can’t avoid your taxes; global elites shouldn’t be able to either.”
Prime Minister Mark Carney yesterday proposed to reintroduce a tax shelter for property speculators that was abandoned 44 years ago as costly and inefficient. Carney gave no reason for resurrecting the Multi-Unit Residential Building Tax Incentive that cost taxpayers the equivalent of $11,000 for every apartment built: ‘The main beneficiaries were developers, promoters and investors.’
Parliament’s temporary curb on foreign purchase of residential real estate should be made permanent with loopholes closed, New Democrat leader Jagmeet Singh said yesterday. The measure due to expire January 1, 2027 was no substitute for a “permanent ban on foreign homebuyers,” said Singh.
The Green Party yesterday claimed unnamed political rivals were frightening its canvassers in what the national campaign manager called an “unprecedented” wave of incivility. The Party would not name names. No police were called: “What part of our democracy will be attacked next?”
Canadian businesses and consumers alike are holding what cash they have in anticipation of a recession, the Bank of Canada said yesterday. Findings were drawn from quarterly surveys: “Is a recession imminent?”
Pandemic-era bans on peaceful protests were unlawful, the Ontario Court of Appeal ruled yesterday. The decision was won by the Justice Centre for Constitutional Freedoms on behalf of citizens charged for attending anti-government rallies in 2021: “Everyone has the freedom of peaceful assembly.”
Federal election monitors yesterday said they suspect Chinese Communist Party agents are running a media campaign describing Prime Minister Mark Carney as a “rock star.” The Liberal Party was notified Sunday but made no public comment: “Carney has an ambitious economic recovery plan.”
Media including the CBC left Canadian Jews “ostracized and marginalized” by normalizing anti-Semitic themes in news coverage, B’nai Brith Canada said yesterday. The advocacy group’s Annual Audit Of Anti-Semitic Incidents for the first time faulted media as “megaphones for terrorist propaganda.”
