Twenty-five Canadian diplomats were fired last year and another 11 abruptly quit while under investigation, says the Department of Foreign Affairs. Wrongdoing included security breaches and suspicious activities in an unnamed “country of concern.” READ MORE
Most Canadians who applied for subsidized dentistry under the federal Dental Care Plan were already regular patients in private care, new data show. Federal agencies to date have not accounted for billions in cost over-runs on the program: "If employers were to start dropping their plans because there is some new federal plan, that is a potential concern." READ MORE
Canadian corporate media from the outbreak of the pandemic acted as government propagandists, says a former foreign correspondent. Speaking at a public hearing, Rodney Palmer said media dependent on cabinet for licenses or subsidies worked to quash criticism of Covid-era mandates: "I know they shifted their allegiance from the people of Canada." READ MORE
A federal labour board has ordered the Canada Revenue Agency to pay a total $13,500 in damages to two Christian employees suspended for defying its vaccine mandate. The discipline was discriminatory, an adjudicator ruled: "How does a manager decide?" READ MORE
Federal researchers will spend three years and $12.6 million attempting to substantiate claimed benefits of a Trudeau-era venture, the $1 billion National School Food Program. “More data are needed,” the Canadian Institutes of Health Research said in an internal memo. READ MORE
Poet W.N. Branson writes: "When did it all fall apart? A bill given Royal assent? A memo sent on some Friday in November? A million bad decisions?..." READ MORE
Canadians of a certain vintage can still recall when DDT was found in every kitchen cupboard and it was considered eccentric not to throw candy wrappings out the car window. The Ontario Department of Highways used to spend $1 million a year clearing roadside litter. This did not change by osmosis. It took years of litigation and dramatic protest by a comparatively few people. “It was a burn-out job but you loved it,” one organizer tells author Ryan O’Connor. “It was what needed to be done so you did it.” O’Connor’s First Green Wave chronicles the birth of environmental activism in Canada. It is a fresh account of Pollution Probe, a citizens’ committee that grew from the University of Toronto to include chapters from Halifax to Regina. Pollution Probe was never a mass movement; its membership peaked at some 1,500. The Kinsmen Club had 16,000. Yet its impact was far-reaching. READ MORE
The Battle of Vimy Ridge was “a wild show,” he wrote. He listed a half dozen close calls. A university friend was killed by a sniper while they were shaking hands. An enemy shell made a direct hit on the post he had just turned over to a new officer and “blew him to pieces.” Another shell landed six feet away and failed to explode: “If it had exploded we would be going yet.” Percy traded in his uniform and returned to Ottawa where he lived out his life serving God and the Presbyterian Church.
