Blacklock's Reporter

Poet W.N. Branson writes: "The geese flee south in the moonlight, a weird eerie sight. Silent dark shadows gliding in that putrefying light. The report of a rifle: a shock, a flash..." READ MORE

“It is sometimes very hard to tell the difference between history and the smell of skunk,” wrote English author Rebecca West. This is enough to make you wary of history that smells like violets. Winston Churchill & Mackenzie King casts these “two elderly statesmen” as wartime peers out to save democracy. Author Terry Reardon is struck by parallels. Both were Sagittarians born in 1874, both had blue eyes and “large egos,” both stood 5’6”. In chronicling their fifty-year acquaintance Reardon sees two dynamos of the Second World War. Well, not exactly. Churchill’s own Foreign Office in 1940 described King as “lukewarm about any war measure which he cannot show to redound to Canada’s own advantage.” READ MORE

Cabinet will add $182.4 billion in new borrowing over the next three years under a budget plan tabled yesterday. Finance Minister François-Philippe Champagne justified ongoing deficit spending as reasonable: "I stand by our projections." READ MORE

The head of a federal anti-money laundering agency that failed an October 29 audit yesterday declared auditors were all wrong. “I do not agree,” Stéphane Sirard, interim CEO of the Financial Transactions and Reports Analysis Centre, told the Commons public accounts committee: "That is deeply disturbing." READ MORE

Cabinet will grant permanent residency to nearly a quarter million foreigners in Canada on temporary permits, according to a budget document yesterday. The Department of Finance did not specify whether it would include amnesty for illegal immigrants subject to deportation: "Up to 200,000 temporary residents already in Canada would have the opportunity to become permanent residents." READ MORE

Cabinet-approved media will gain another $539 million in federal subsidies including extension of pandemic payroll bonuses that were to expire in seven weeks, plus $300 million more for the CBC. Measures detailed in yesterday’s budget followed “terrific” praise from the chief lobbyist for paid publishers: "The Government of Canada, I have to say, has been terrific." READ MORE

Cabinet must enforce its national ban on imported slave goods including Chinese auto parts, says the Commons industry committee. MPs specifically targeted Prime Minister Mark Carney’s decision to grant Chinese electric auto makers an unprecedented five-year import quota of 278,989 vehicles: "Do you believe there is forced labour in China?" READ MORE