Liberal MPs yesterday by a 5 to 4 vote quashed a Commons ethics committee probe of Prime Minister Mark Carney’s proposed $1.45 billion bailout of Metro Vancouver condo speculators. A British Columbia New Democrat MP joined Conservative and Bloc Québécois members in denouncing the plan as a costly giveaway: "No one is buying it." READ MORE
Liberal Party organizer Thomas Pitfield, a senator’s son named principal secretary to the Prime Minister, yesterday was appointed to the Senate. The appointment came almost five years to the day that Liberal MPs blocked an investigation of public payments to Pitfield’s company, Data Sciences Inc. of Montréal: 'He has a wealth of experience.' READ MORE
Raising the age of eligibility for Old Age Security benefits would punish about a fifth of retirees who have no other income, says a Department of Employment briefing note. The department acknowledged the cost of seniors’ benefits overall, soon to eclipse $100 billion a year, will peak at a quarter-trillion: "Retirement is expensive." READ MORE
A federal judge yesterday upheld mandatory retirement in the Navy. It followed similar rulings involving airline pilots and firefighters who challenged mandatory age limits: "Age 60 is the compulsory retirement age for all Canadian Armed Forces members." READ MORE
Cabinet in an executive order made public yesterday granted VIA Rail exemptions from federal regulations mandating full accessibility for disabled passengers. The waiver followed years of complaints, citations and a Supreme Court ruling that faulted VIA for inadequate service: "They’ve got the staff, they’ve got it all, and the remarkable thing is, they still got it wrong." READ MORE
About a fifth of businesses anticipate a continued slowdown over the next 12 months, the Bank of Canada said yesterday in its first Business Outlook Survey since the economy fell into recession. The latest data were issued ahead of the next interest rate announcement due July 15: "Business sentiment has deteriorated." READ MORE
Cabinet yesterday said it expected to wring another 9 to 10 years’ worth of service out of its aging fleet of diesel-powered submarines at an undisclosed cost. The subs commissioned circa 1976 were bought second hand from the United Kingdom and are rarely deployed: "It will take as long as it takes but no longer." READ MORE
Robert Peary’s wife had given him a handmade flag to carry on his last expedition in 1906 when he claimed to discover the North Pole. Peary died in 1920 but left a written account of the map’s location in a cairn at Cape Columbia overlooking the Arctic Ocean. Hidden in the cairn was a rusted tin with a perfectly preserved remnant of the flag the size of a handkerchief. Later we gave it to Peary’s widow. We made other finds that year: tins of fruitcake from an 1875 British expedition, and letters addressed to Amundsen left behind by a Danish team in 1920. And we began the work of mapping the Canadian Arctic.
