Blacklock's Reporter

Women and Gender Equality Minister Rechie Valdez's department is the first to delete all departmental Twitter accounts. An Access To Information memo said hurtful remarks by the public on social media “created significant mental strain for employees.” READ MORE

Nearly 13,000 people sleep in cars, alleys or abandoned buildings nationwide according to new data by Housing Minister Gregor Robertson’s department. The count of homeless people, the most comprehensive to date, found another 4,700 slept in tent cities: 'Unsheltered locations included streets, alleys, parks, transit stations, abandoned buildings, vehicles, ravines and other outdoor locations.' READ MORE

Liberal MP Lori Idlout (Nunavut) cannot act as a federal contractor, the Ethics Commissioner has ruled. Idlout was major shareholder in a company that received hundreds of thousands to conduct Indigenous workshops for federal employees: "I am ordered by the Ethics Commissioner." READ MORE

Edmonton grain millers, Winnipeg telecom providers and bankers in Yarmouth, N.S. must speak French under draft federal regulations detailed Saturday by Heritage Minister Marc Miller. The first-ever requirements follow complaints of “the decline of French in Canada.” READ MORE

The Department of Transport is hiring consultants to assess the impact of “a transborder joint venture between two airlines,” it said. The country’s largest carriers already have joint venture agreements with U.S. airlines dating back eight years: "This requirement is conditional to the launch of a public interest assessment." READ MORE

Poet Shai Ben-Shalom writes: "At Walmart, passed on the self-checkout and stood in line for the cashier. Followed her red-and-purple nail polish as she placed my socks, toothbrush, and cat food in the plastic bag..." READ MORE

For anyone who's driven the Trans-Canada Highway from Winnipeg to Toronto by the north shore of Lake Superior, where your only companions are 2,000 kilometres of rocks and trees, an arresting thought: “Canada and Europe rank among the most urbanized areas in the world.” So Governing Cities Through Regions draws readers into a compelling conflict that’s escaped the attention of most pundits and politicians. “There are now increasing tensions between the demands of more complex urban cities and economies, and the political constitutions and institutions of national affairs,” editors write. Canada has no Minister of Urban Development. Alberta in 1994 shut down its regional planning commissions as an austerity measure. Planning was strictly voluntary. As Prof. Pierre Hamel of the Université de Montréal puts it, “This standpoint is anything but awkward to observers of the urban scene, as Canadians are increasingly living in cities and have never been more concentrated in city-regions.” READ MORE