Blacklock's Reporter

Bonuses for executives in Housing Minister Gregor Robertson’s department averaged almost $20,000 each last year despite a housing crisis, records show. The department in a memo said high bonuses proved housing was “a Government of Canada priority.”

The internet was a winner since “we don’t have to throw a lot of cash in at this to make it happen,” then-Industry Minister John Manley told a confidential 1995 cabinet meeting called to discuss the worldwide web, newly-declassified records show. Two ministers advocated censorship of content: “The private sector is going to pay for virtually all of it.”

A Crown ferry service promises to buy Canadian next time after leasing its last new vessel through a Chinese shipyard. Management said it had a “very clear direction” not to charter another Weihai ferry: “They would ideally be built in Canada or at the very least would maximize Canadian content.”

Most First Nations are in breach of a federal law and Federal Court ruling that mandate disclosure of financial records, new Department of Indigenous Services figures show. “The law is still in effect,” said Senator Clément Gignac (Que.), who expressed frustration with federal managers’ lack of enforcement: “Did you comply?”

A federal agency 104 years after Alexander Graham Bell’s death is faulting the inventor of the telephone for his views on genetics. Revisionism by the Historic Sites and Monuments Board followed a 2019 directive by then-Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to review some 2,200 designations for offending omissions: “In Canadian history colonialism, patriarchy and racism are examples of ideologies and structures that have profound legacies.”

Housing Minister Gregor Robertson’s department has quietly dropped its longstanding promise to target a minimum 500,000 housing starts annually as the minimum required to restore affordability. The department is no longer focused on “housing unit counts,” it said.

Industry Minister Mélanie Joly yesterday told reporters she will soon have “good news” on investment in Canada by multiple American companies but would not discuss details. Joly five months ago similarly claimed an unnamed automaker had secret plans to export Canadian-made cars to the Middle East, without result: “What I have done in the United States is attract investment.”

Attorney General Sean Fraser yesterday declined comment on Access To Information records showing a Liberal appointee directed government employees to help Crown prosecutors in ongoing criminal cases. Fraser earlier told MPs a justice system free of political taint was one of “the most beautiful things about the country.”

The Procurement Ombudsman yesterday faulted Rideau Hall for breaking federal rules in awarding a five-figure IT contract. Ombudsman Alexander Jeglic has repeatedly complained of irregularities that see insiders “using the system.”

Proposed changes to air passenger regulations are unfair to the public, says one of the nation’s largest travel operators. The proposal inserted in an omnibus budget bill would see compensation claims for poor service referred to adjudicators of the airlines’ choosing: “Where is the oversight?”

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.’

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.”

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.”

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.”