It remains the only Parliament Hill structure to be razed by cabinet order, a magnificent colonial landmark, Canada’s first Supreme Court building. Here a Laval tax lawyer, Louis St. Laurent, pleaded his first federal case in 1911. As prime minister in 1956 he had it demolished to make way for a parking lot. READ MORE
Parliament for 90 years enforced a White Canada immigration policy intended to create an all-Caucasian society, literally a Great White North. It was built on crude and false assumptions of racial characteristics. Lawmakers and educators rarely speak of it today though the painful topic has inspired excellent academic research like White Settler Reserve, an exposé of attempts to create a Nordic master race on the Prairies. It was a “special experiment of immigrant colonization," newspapermen wrote in 1875. Cabinet subsidized Icelandic immigrants to colonize the southwest shore of Lake Winnipeg on territorial lands of the Cree, Ojibwe and Métis. Among the 19th century settlers were the great-great-grandparents of Professor Ryan Eyford of the University of Winnipeg, who chronicles the experiment in a crisp narrative. READ MORE
New Democrat leadership contender MP Heather McPherson (Edmonton Strathcona) yesterday had no comment after sponsoring a Commons petition targeting a Jewish charity co-founded by Heather Reisman, CEO of Indigo Books. The petition also asked Parliament to screen all Canadians returning from Israel for complicity in alleged war crimes: "I have to feel in my heart that I’ve done what I can." READ MORE
Federal agencies yesterday outlined payroll cuts that were half the 10 percent stated by Prime Minister Mark Carney. The Budget Office had sought the figures for months: "There is a lack of detail." READ MORE
A labour arbitrator has overturned Canada Post’s firing of a mail carrier who kept thousands of undelivered letters in his vehicle for months at a time. Inspectors found 6,000 pieces of mail including urgent notices: "This can only be seen as very abnormal behaviour." READ MORE
Repeal of U.S. climate mandates set the industry back “at least 15 years,” says a Department of Environment briefing note. Cabinet to date has yet to report on its review of Canada’s electric auto mandate though it was due December 31: "Why the mandate?" READ MORE
A federal agency is shopping for artificial intelligence software to replace a "specialized team" of bilingual employees paid to translate weather bulletins. The proposal by the Meteorological Service of Canada is the first of its kind in the federal use of AI: 'It would rely solely on machine to machine communication.' READ MORE
My mother knew John A. Macdonald very well. She said, “He could make you laugh at the drop of a hat.” He had snappy comebacks he used at the appropriate time. He had a very good way with people, to make them feel he was going to be a friend. He just seemed to have that magnetism. Was he an alcoholic? Today we would classify him as a borderline problem drinker. If he drank as much as everybody said he did, and accomplished what he did, I wonder what he would have done if he’d been sober all the time.
