Canada Revenue has lost a Tax Court judgment – the second in eight months – after being unable to prove it mailed a letter. A federal judge waived a deadline on a taxpayer hit with a five-figure reassessment after he claimed to have never received the tax notice: “What is the point?”
Atlantic fisheries are appealing for the same preferential treatment given Canadian farmers under the federal Temporary Foreign Worker Program. Processors and harvesters in P.E.I. said labour shortages have disrupted the industry, yet employers cannot draw the same benefits given to agriculture: “It’s lost economic opportunity”.
Privatization of Canada Post is “very likely” if the corporation doesn’t see returns on its crash program of service cuts and rate increases, warns a Conservative MP. The disclosure contradicts cabinet assurances the sale of the Crown corporation is not under consideration. It comes as postal management yesterday expanded the planned suspension of door-to-door mail delivery to two more provinces, British Columbia and Saskatchewan: “What have they got to hide?”
Health Canada is proposing new disclosure of food additives, according to Access to Information documents. The initiative follows an incident that saw a consumer hospitalized after eating a Kraft product KD Smart Vegetables Original and KD Smart Vegetables 3 Cheese with undisclosed traces of the dye tartrazine: “Health Canada recognizes that ‘colour’ does not provide the information that many Canadians would like to have”.
A scholarship fund created by Canada’s longest-serving foundation for blinded war veterans is surrendering its charter as a federal charity. The Sir Arthur Pearson Association of War Blinded said its surviving foundation members are unable to carry on: “It bothers me a great deal”.
Cellphone manufacturers would be forced to label their devices with health warnings under a private Conservative bill for introduction in the Commons. The sponsor said the bill addresses worries that radiofrequencies cause illness: “This would raise awareness”.
Canada Revenue Agency is launching a mammoth audit of the beer trade. Tax collectors yesterday filed application in Federal Court to obtain 8 years’ worth of sales records from the nation’s largest beer distributor: ‘No comment’.
CMHC is at a loss to explain how it sunk more than a quarter-million dollars into a bad loan secured with a fax and a driver’s license. Authorities would not comment on the case that saw a former bank teller qualify for insurance on property she didn’t own; in a town she didn’t live in; on reported income from a place she never worked: “We rely on the banks”.
An epic seven-year legal battle over political meddling in government contracting is headed to the Court of Appeals in Prince Edward Island. A group of contractors including Liberal organizers allege they were denied compensation due to political bias prohibited by provincial law: ‘What greater freedom can their be than the right to cast your ballot without fear?”
A million Canadians swept up by a far-reaching tax agreement may never know what use or abuse is made of their personal financial information, analysts tell Blacklock’s. The law will see banks report “relevant information” to Canada Revenue for sharing with the U.S.: ‘Don’t tell me it won’t be shared with God knows what’.
The Prime Minister’s Office says confidential research on postal privatization is strictly “routine” and not a prelude to selling the Crown’s 147-year mail monopoly. Authorities dismissed the memo stamped SECRET in which senior staff detailed “successful privatizations” of national postal services. Blacklock’s published the memo through Access to Information: “They are setting us up to fail”.
Research confirming a lack of standards in hard-to-read prescription drug labeling points to “unacceptable” practices, says the chair of the Senate science committee. A report by the University of Waterloo concluded few drug labels comply with guidelines on size, print and readability: “It is inexcusable”.
The federal Temporary Foreign Worker Program has been maligned and unfairly politicized, says Canada’s tech industry. The Information Technology Association of Canada said its member companies could not compete without foreign hires: “It’s really easy to politicize”.
Passage of a bill to weed out orphaned tax amendments will promote greater scrutiny and transparency, says its Conservative sponsor. The bill will see the Department of Finance yearly compile a backlog of tax measures proposed but never passed by Parliament: “It allows you to reflect on a tax measure”.
Atlantic Canada continues to see persistently high cancer rates, according to new federal figures. Cancer researchers contacted by Blacklock’s disagreed whether the data were the result of lifestyle or statistical oddities: “This is what you want to look at when comparing one jurisdiction over another”.
