Wireless roaming charges represent a “tool” to protect telecom providers’ market share, charges the Competition Bureau. Industry Canada has promised to cap wholesale rates this year after accusing Big Telecom of gouging its competitors: ‘The phenomenon is called ‘bill shock'”.
MPs last night narrowly voted to abandon 147 years of tradition and permit Canadians to submit paperless petitions to Parliament. In a 142-140 vote the Commons adopted a New Democrat motion on electronic petitioning: “It’s embarrassing that we don’t have this”.
Parliament’s Budget Office will scrutinize Canada Post claims of benefits from its plan to hike rates 35% and kill home delivery for five million householders. MP David McGuinty requested the review of the Crown agency’s fiscal data: “We will get to the bottom of that”.
A Health Canada review of pesticides favoured by farmers but rated fatal for bees will not be completed for years. The department’s Pest Management Regulatory Agency says it will take till 2018 to re-evaluate neonicotinoid chemicals used by growers: “Is a moratorium warranted?”
Canadians require more oversight of fast-growing federal bureaucracies implicated in surveillance of environmental groups and others, warns Canada’s privacy commissioner. Authorities urged new safeguards amid an “accountability gap” on privacy rights.
Canada saw fewer freight train derailments and leaks of hazardous cargo in the years before the Lac-Mégantic disaster, records show. Transport Canada data show the number of train wrecks declined 40% in the period from 2006 to 2012.
A new study on income splitting concludes benefits favor high-income earners. The finding by the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives echoes earlier research by the C.D. Howe Institute: “To gain a substantial benefit you need to be in the top.”
Bell Canada is under review by another federal agency over its “data grab” of customers’ internet activities for marketing campaigns.
Consumer advocates petitioned the CRTC to halt the practice as a violation of federal law. The Office of the Privacy Commissioner earlier opened its own probe of the practice that sees Bell monitor its customers’ web activities and word searches for targeted advertising: “Whoever wins this one will set a precedent”.
The surest way to increase railway safety is more inspections by Transport Canada, says the Teamsters Canada Rail Conference representing engineers and conductors. The union said the current system is failing: “They have no power to do anything”.
One of the nation’s largest air bases reports hundreds of bird strikes involving military aircraft. CFB Comox, B.C. is going to lengths to avert collisions with flocks of gulls and other birds: “Wildlife management is about out-smarting the wildlife”.
The government’s largest copyright complaint has expanded with another lawsuit against a federal agency. A Calgary firm, Geophysical Service Incorporated, accuses Natural Resources Canada and others of doling out its copyright maps to competitors: “We would not comment while it is before the courts”.
Environment Canada is easing bag limits on the country’s namesake geese cursed by farmers and groundskeepers alike. The agency will also review hunting regulations every two years instead of one to save money: “Environment Canada is a pale shadow of its former self”.
A developer stung by an unusual court order for suing his own lawyers over and over again has lost a bid for one final appeal. The Supreme Court upheld a declaration the executive cannot sue his former attorneys at will: “The fact that he’s alleging conspiracy is not determinative”.
Passport Canada has been rebuked for acting as police, prosecutor and judge in the case of a citizen stripped of his travel documents without cause. Federal Court sharply criticized the Crown agency for imposing a five-year passport ban on a Toronto man never charged with any crime: “The director did not have the authority”.
The CRTC will spend at least $362,000 a year monitoring which TV and radio programs Canadians follow, or just happen to overhear. The regulator is contracting BBM Canada for research using meters that monitor every broadcast: ‘They want to know how Canadians are consuming media’.
