The Department of Health spent more than $200 million on a pandemic program with untrained staff and little oversight, says an internal report. Auditors relied on grant recipients to explain if they used the money wisely: “Most of the original staff members had left and those who replaced them had no previous experience.”
The federal cabinet must make “more effort in a more urgent fashion” to lift Chinese tariffs on 40,000 canola farmers, Saskatchewan Premier Scott Moe said yesterday. Only Prime Minister Mark Carney can speak for the nation in a trade war, he said: “It’s very, very serious.”
Cabinet should cut billions in seniors’ benefits, says a federally-funded research group. A total $13.9 billion in cuts are detailed in a budget submission by Generation Squeeze, a University of British Columbia group that previously lobbied cabinet for a home equity tax: “It’s appropriate to ask retirees with six-figure incomes to accept fewer taxpayer dollars.”
Parliament must permit free debate on immigration quotas without “emotionally driven objections,” an Ottawa think tank said yesterday. Conservatives and Bloc Québecois MPs have sought significant reductions including curbs on 3,049,277 temporary permit holders: “I’m not going to accept that every proposal that immigration should be reduced is racist.”
A costly green subsidy program will not come close to achieving promised greenhouse gas emission reductions though the Department of Environment twice lowered its targets, says an in-house report. The failed Low Carbon Economy Fund was a “good example” of climate leadership, then-Environment Minister Steven Guilbeault said in 2022.
A federal agency yesterday warned “costs remain uncertain” in a federal program to subsidize small, experimental modular nuclear reactors. Aid to date includes $27.2 million for a prototype by Westinghouse Electric Canada that counts Prime Minister Mark Carney among its shareholders: ‘Costs can be relatively high.’
A federal agency is hiring a U.S. consultant for tips on “how Washington works” at a taxpayers’ charge of more than $170,000. It did not explain why it bypassed the Department of Foreign Affairs that has 13,235 employees including a fully-staffed Embassy in Washington: ‘It requires specialized knowledge.’
Mark Carney must consult Parliament before recognizing Palestine as a country, B’nai Brith petitioners yesterday wrote the Prime Minister. The historic concession was so “profoundly troubling” and lacking in “moral clarity” it warrants parliamentary debate, wrote petitioners including rabbis and CEOs: “The Canadian public must have a say.”
The Department of Indigenous Service is committed to finding “pretendians” in a federal directory of Indigenous contractors, says a briefing note. Managers have yet to disclose the findings of an audit into how many federal suppliers faked First Nations, Inuit or Métis ownership to qualify for billions in contracts set aside for Indigenous firms: “This is huge.”
The Canadian Embassy in Washington hired a US$2,000-an hour consultant for tips on how to talk to Americans, records show. It followed then-Foreign Minister Mélanie Joly’s boast that Canadian diplomats had expertise that “goes deep at different levels of American society.”
The Canadian Union of Public Employees is asking that a federal judge cite Labour Minister Patty Hajdu for unlawful misuse of her powers to quash a legal strike by 10,500 Air Canada flight attendants. Hajdu yesterday did not comment but earlier told reporters she did not like strikes: “Is your government anti-union?”
The number of homeless veterans has declined steadily, by at least 17 percent in the past two years, says a Department of Veterans Affairs memo. Managers credited in part a program that pays tax-free emergency grants in hardship cases: “I could literally save their life.”
Most high schoolers of the Covid generation spend far in excess of recommended “screen time” on the internet, says a Public Health Agency report. New findings drawn from questionnaires with 26,000 students nationwide followed warnings that pandemic school closures disrupted childhood activities like sports and clubs: ‘Frequent internet use has become especially common.’
Retail startups in Canada are down by more than a fifth since the pandemic, says new Department of Industry research. It followed a 12 percent rise in bankruptcies last year to near levels not seen since the 2008 financial panic: “This report is one of the first to examine the impact of Covid-19 on entrepreneurship.”
A four-day strike by Air Canada flight attendants ended this morning after management came to terms, says the Canadian Union of Public Employees. The tentative agreement at 4:23 am Eastern came a day after strike leaders defied a picket ban imposed by the federal cabinet: “We will not turn our back on these workers.”
