Cabinet proposes to launch a Canadian version of the European Union’s Solidarity Corps, a youth volunteer program. It follows earlier federal programs promoting youth volunteerism that cost taxpayers millions: 'In Norway, the European Solidarity Corps offers opportunities for young people. The government is looking into the possibility of developing its own civic corps in Canada.' READ MORE
Prime Minister Mark Carney yesterday omitted all reference to Indian Residential School graves or genocide in observing National Day for Truth and Reconciliation. It followed the Senate's defeat of a motion endorsed by the Assembly of First Nations to criminalize “denialism.” READ MORE
Cabinet aides hired a former CBC Radio announcer to coach Annette Ryan prior to her appearance as Budget Officer at Commons committee hearings, records show. MPs on the government operations committee wanted a candidate other than Ryan, a former finance department executive who knew Mark Carney at Oxford in the 1990s: 'That person who is a former journalist peppered me with a few questions.' READ MORE
Cabinet must ensure quotas go “way, way, way down” in its updated Immigration Levels Plan due by month’s end, Conservative MP Michelle Rempel Garner (Calgary Nose Hill) said yesterday. The call was prompted by the Prime Minister’s remarks to New York journalists that “some controlled increase in the population” was a matter of timing. READ MORE
Cabinet is quietly concealing more records than ever, Information Commissioner Caroline Maynard has written the Senate. The warning followed a single clause in an omnibus budget bill, C-31: "My office was not consulted." READ MORE
Lumber and steel lobbyists yesterday cautioned senators there is no global substitute for the American market. Canadian automakers have similarly warned production will disappear if the tariff war continues: "Are you saying this is not going to compensate for what we are losing?" READ MORE
NHLer Alexander Ovechkin would be prohibited from playing in Canada as a Putin sympathizer under a Commons petition introduced yesterday. The petition was sponsored without comment by Liberal MP Yvan Baker (Etobicoke Centre, Ont.), chair of the Canada-Ukraine Friendship Group: "Individuals sanctioned by Canada may be rendered inadmissible to Canada." READ MORE
We only had the CBC. It was hard to take. That’s all we had. Honest to God, it was deadly. It was also dangerous, absolutely dangerous. You had a situation where the government perpetuated the CBC as a monopoly provider. This was television in Canada. Private TV was not just about making money. It was to liberate the country, to provide new, fresh ideas, to have a new and different perspective on the world. This was like a holy war. They lost.
