Chief Public Health Officer Dr. Theresa Tam and dozens of other pandemic managers were required to sign a secret oath promising never to divulge information that “may result in embarrassment” for cabinet, Access To Information records show. “Quite a few” were required to sign the pledge, said a newly-released federal memo: “It makes me wonder, what is so damaging?”
The health department in its last memo to then-Addictions Minister Ya’ara Saks cautioned that “changing laws alone is not sufficient” to reduce drug overdose deaths. The December 17 memo came nearly two years after cabinet changed federal law to decriminalize personal possession of narcotics in British Columbia: “If pressed on national decriminalization, there is no plan for national decriminalization.”
There is no obvious public interest in Alberta’s proposed withdrawal from the Canada Pension Plan, Premier Danielle Smith said yesterday. The federal cabinet had opposed divvying up the $699.6 billion fund: “I am not seeing there is an appetite to put it to the people.”
The national poverty rate is up again for a fourth consecutive year to 10.2 percent, Statistics Canada said yesterday. The rate was even higher, as much as 10.9 percent, using new calculations to be introduced this year: “Four million Canadians lived below the poverty line.”
A public utility attempted a 70 percent excess charge for release of records on its handling of a 2023 strike, Ontario’s Office of the Information Commissioner has ruled. Hydro Ottawa tried to bill more than a half million dollars for what it claimed were thousands of hours needed to review and censor documents sought by Blacklock’s: ‘The fee is excessive and not reasonable.’
CBC News for the second time in six weeks faces demands that it submit to the same independent scrutiny as all other television and radio stations. It is the only broadcaster in Canada permitted to deal with audience complaints in-house: ‘It misrepresented facts, laundered disinformation from Hamas-controlled sources and contributed to the normalization of anti-Semitic narratives.’
Canada’s economy has fallen into what the Canadian Chamber of Commerce yesterday called a “worst case forecast.” Cabinet in its last Economic Statement had claimed the nation would be a G7 leader in growth this year: “The economy took a dive.”
Asking Customs officers to cross the U.S. border does not qualify as foreign service work, a labour board has ruled. Canada Border Services Agency officers claimed “foreign assignment” benefits each time they drove ten kilometres to Blaine, Washington: “There are thousands of employees who commute across the Canada-U.S. border every day.”
The co-leader of the federal Green Party yesterday resigned after polling fifth in a five-candidate contest for a seat in Parliament. Jonathan Pedneault, former Amnesty International organizer, said election results overall were “deeply disappointing.”
Abusive remarks about religion or race are an offence against “all of Canada,” says an Ontario Provincial Court judge. The observation came in sentencing of a Black man for hectoring two Muslim teenagers aboard a transit bus: “His threats were cruel.”
