Prime Minister Mark Carney yesterday said Canada met its NATO obligation to spend $60 billion or 2 percent of gross domestic product on military preparedness. No budget document substantiates the $60 billion figure: “It’s focus.”
The Canada Revenue Agency will no longer mail T1 tax returns to paper filers at a $1.8 million annual saving. Traditionalists will have to download and print their own forms: “The Agency sent educational letters to them.”
The taxpayer-backed Canada Infrastructure Bank yesterday acknowledged it knowingly approved a $206 million loan to a Nova Scotia wind farm operated by friends of the Liberal Party. CEO Ehren Cory confirmed Liberals would not have to make payments until their venture proved profitable: “That’s why the Bank exists.”
It will take decades to begin searching for purported graves at an Indian Residential School site in Kamloops, B.C., the chief of the Tk’emlups te Secwepemc First Nation said last evening. “Holocaust investigations have continued for more than 75 years,” Chief Rosanne Casimir told senators. “Truth takes time.”
Liberal MPs are blocking disclosure of a secret audit regarding millions in administrative cost overruns for the Canada Dental Care Plan. MP Hedy Fry (Vancouver Centre), chair of the Commons health committee, gaveled an adjournment after Opposition members pressed for the audit to be made public: “This committee is really, really disorderly.”
Health Minister Marjorie Michel yesterday said she is reviewing regulation of sports betting ads as a mental health risk. “We will come with more later,” she told the Senate: “Yes, we see the suicide rates.”
The Department of Transport yesterday assumed direct control of the Gordie Howe International Bridge from a Crown corporation at Windsor, Ont. It followed a threat by U.S. President Donald Trump to block the Bridge’s opening this year unless billions were paid in compensation: “The regulations allow Transport Canada to intervene where required.”
Public Safety Minister Gary Anandasangaree estimates more than 166,000 “assault-style” firearms are subject to a $742 million national buyback program. Only 51,000 have been registered with six days remaining before expiry of a compensation deadline: “I’m cautiously optimistic.”
Cabinet spent billions on electric transit buses without any data on how they perform in winter months, records show. Managers said they had “not been made aware” of any problems since then-Environment Minister Catherine McKenna launched the subsidy program in 2021: “It is another step forward for smart public transit funding.”
Senators yesterday warned the Department of Finance they will seek to split unwieldy omnibus budget bills. Cabinet last came close to losing a split bill on a tie vote in 2017: “The 1994 Budget Implementation Act was only 24 pages long whereas recent bills routinely exceeded 600 pages.”
Federal New Democrats face a “hard road” in recovering from the disastrous 2025 election, four-term MP Jenny Kwan (Vancouver East) yesterday told reporters. The Party selects a new leader Sunday: “I’m not going to pretend that it’s going to be a cakewalk.”
Taxpayers are owed details of specific steps cabinet will take to save the post office, members of the Senate national finance committee said yesterday. Senators complained of little tangible action since cabinet months ago promised “structural reforms.”
Immigration Minister Lena Diab yesterday denied responsibility for an audit that found her department was indifferent to known cases of fraud by foreign students. “We are doing our job,” she told the Commons immigration committee.
Opposition members yesterday challenged the Department of Immigration to account for policies that cost Canadians’ jobs. “The unemployment rate for students is at 18 percent,” Conservative MP Vincent Neil Ho (Richmond Hill South, Ont.) told the Commons immigration committee.
An error by an anonymous clerk is to blame for records showing Prime Minister Mark Carney was untruthful with reporters when discussing his private meetings with Chinese Communist leaders, the Commons was told yesterday. The MP who uncovered the fact said Carney keeps “trying to change his story.”
