Employers subject to new private sector bilingualism rules “may choose to move,” the Budget Office said yesterday. Regulations mandating bilingualism in federally regulated workplaces will apply in select cities from Edmonton to Yarmouth: 'Thirty-seven percent of the banking sector in Ottawa knows French while only 5 percent in Winnipeg does.' READ MORE
A political appointee in the Department of Canadian Heritage helped Crown lawyers in Toronto prosecute multiple criminal cases, Access To Information show. The disclosure follows the Attorney General’s pledge that prosecutors must at all times “make a decision separate and apart from the political arm of government.” READ MORE
Parliament should pull millions in aid from Palestine after the territory’s rulers reneged on a key requirement for recognition of statehood, Opposition Leader Pierre Poilievre said yesterday. Palestine last year was the single largest recipient of Canadian foreign aid worth more than $217 million: "We should not be giving aid to a government that is breaking its promise." READ MORE
Indigenous reserves have become lawless and crime-infested, says a First Nations Lands Advisory Board report to the Senate. The Board said new policing powers are needed to save communities “facing an enforcement crisis.” READ MORE
Taxpayers are spending millions on Atlantic ferries without any legal requirement to do so, says a Department of Transport audit. Subsidies in past years have averaged the equivalent of nearly $400 per vehicle: "Challenges will be critical to sustaining service reliability in the years ahead." READ MORE
Industry Minister Mélanie Joly’s department in an internal memo claimed the “Buy Canadian” campaign would revive domestic factories even as federal managers wrote loopholes into the policy. Executives in a censored, three-page memo called support for employers here “the ultimate test of Buy Canadian.” READ MORE
An anti-Israel website has registered with the Office of the Foreign Influence Commissioner after accepting sponsored content from China. Registration is mandatory for any media “acting at the direction of, for the benefit of or in association with a foreign entity.” READ MORE
I can remember towns where you could walk across the border, go from a garage across the border where they shared services. I grew up in British Columbia and we’d go back and forth to Seattle. It was a daily occurrence, no problem. The border today is actually a fortified border. That whole security concept, the way in which all governments are operating today as a result of 9/11, is imperceptibly changing the way we do business. Ultimately it will affect the way we see ourselves.
