Blacklock's Reporter

One day in 2004 two co-workers – one black, one white – had an unpleasant physical alteration at a slaughterhouse in Brooks, Alta. The black man was fired. About 200 Sudanese employees protested the wrongful dismissal. “Management told them, go back to your jobs or we’ll fire you,” one witness recalled. They refused. Sixty were fired. The incident set in motion an extraordinary series of events documented in Defying Expectations by Professor Jason Foster of Athabasca University. Foster is a former policy director with the Alberta Federation of Labour, and a skillful writer whose account reads like a screenplay. The Brooks plant was the least promising candidate for a union drive anywhere in Canada.  READ MORE

Condo speculators in Metro Vancouver caught with thousands of unsold units should be allowed to fail, says a Commons petition sponsored without comment by Conservative MP Dan Albas (Okanagan Lake West-South Kelowna, B.C.). Petitioners opposed a $1.45 billion bailout of developers at taxpayers’ expense: "Unsold units should be allowed to fall to prices that households can afford through open market discounts, credit or losses, or receivership." READ MORE

Military and civilian employees in the Department of National Defence have been cited for cheating on timesheets and fuel cards at taxpayers’ expense. No individuals were discharged though similar offences resulted in firings and police investigations in other departments: "We are constantly looking." READ MORE

Diplomats in staff emails depicted Fiji as a backwater where it was hard to find office supplies or make a long-distance phone call, Access To Information records show. Liberal MP Randeep Sarai (Surrey Centre, B.C.), Secretary of State for International Development, last January 16 opened Canada's first Fijian mission in what cabinet called an important step in “Canada’s Indo-Pacific Strategy.” READ MORE

A highway billboard calling the Prime Minister a liar was Charter-protected free expression, an Ontario Superior Court judge ruled yesterday. Counsel with the Justice Centre for Constitutional Freedoms that won the case called the decision “a welcome affirmation of the importance of political expression.” READ MORE

The Atlantic Lottery Corporation of Moncton yesterday was fined $212,025 for breach of anti-money laundering regulations. The penalty is the latest in a series of violations by casino operators: "Very suspicious." READ MORE

Parks Canada in an internal report calls the creation of national parks culturally “harmful” and a “colonial injustice.” Management “now acknowledges this harmful historical legacy,” said the newly-disclosed report withheld from the public for two years. READ MORE