The Competition Bureau has won a high court case over an anti-trust probe in the appliance trade. The Supreme Court of Canada dismissed an application by a supplier of water heaters who challenged a proposed $10 million penalty.
A European trade pact will cost Canadians higher pharmaceutical prices, warns an advocacy group. Critics said the treaty may delay the introduction of low-cost generic drugs: “There’s no give and take; we are giving.”
Consumers as “indirect purchasers” can join class-action lawsuits but only in certain circumstances, the Supreme Court of Canada has ruled. The judgment came in two cases – one involving soda pop sweetener, the other computer software: “The law is supposed to protect people.”
Canada should review administrative tribunals to punish patronage and incompetence, says a former Workers’ Compensation official. An Ottawa conference heard there is little effective oversight of scores of tribunals: “The push for reforms has been there for decades.”
Cabinet is waiving a fuel regulation that would see Maritimers pay more for home heating this winter. The order to take effect Nov. 6 is expected to save millions for consumers in Prince Edward Island and Nova Scotia, where most homes heat with oil.
The labour department is urging passage of a bill to speed decertification of unions in shipping, railways, broadcasting and other federally-regulated industries. The bill also repeals the card-check method used to form unions in the first place. The measure’s Alberta sponsor said federal action is needed to control unions’ “stranglehold on workers”: “I will not be intimidated by union bosses.”
Nearly 40 years after converting to Celsius temperature readings, Environment Canada has been hit with a blizzard of complaints over its unofficial use of the Fahrenheit scale.
Records show the department’s online forecasting – the most popular government website in Canada – was targeted by howling protest over dual use of C° and F°.
MP Scott Simms, a former TV weatherman, said the sensitivity of the issue was unsurprising.
“Canadians talk more about the weather than Americans,” said Simms, Liberal MP for Bonavista-Gander-Grand Falls-Windsor, Newfoundland & Labrador; “If it’s not hockey, it is weather. If weather prediction ever becomes an exact science, it will be a sad day.”
Simms worked ten years as a Weather Channel forecaster in Montréal and Mississauga, Ont. before becoming a parliamentarian: “I tell people it’s why I became a politician, to stop lying to them.”
Environment Canada this year revamped its website, weather.gc.ca. The site attracts 47 million visits a month with an estimated half-million page views, by official count.
However the department received 32 pages of emailed complaints from baffled users vexed by the mixed use of C° and F°. The website uses Celsius as a default setting, though management noted visitors might “inadvertently click” on the wrong symbol.
“How do I change it??????” one exasperated viewer wrote Environment Canada. “Please turn the weather information back into Celsius; I am forty-five and can no longer understand Fahrenheit,” another wrote.
The correspondence was released through Access to Information. Other visitors wrote:
All official weather forecasting was changed to Celsius on April 1, 1975 as mandated by the Metric Commission and Atmospheric Environment Service. It was then the nation’s biggest changeover in measurement standards since 1858, when Canada replaced English sterling with a decimal-based dollar currency.
“Most people are very familiar with the temperature in Celsius which is the standard way of expressing the temperature in Canada,” a department official told one software developer who requested guidance in devising a weather app. “However a portion of the older population is still more familiar with the temperature in Fahrenheit which is why we offer the option to convert.”
Environment Minister Leona Aglukkaq did not comment.
By Tom Korski 
Billions of dollars in public contracting must be opened to transatlantic bidders under a European trade pact, according to a cabinet summary of the treaty. The document failed to explain whether municipalities can be sued for non-compliance: “We want to see the entire text.”
Canada’s 2.7 million self-employed would face simplified tax requirements and improved benefits under a private bill introduced in the Commons. The measure proposes a national task force to assist independent workers, part-timers and contract employees: “It’s something I know quite well.”
The Canadian Food Inspection Agency is being sued by the nation’s largest egg producer over confidentiality of records. Burnbrae Farms Ltd. is asking a federal judge to take extraordinary measures to prevent food inspectors from releasing or even discussing its business in open court.
MPs last night voted 151 to 124 for Second Reading of amendments to the Public Service Labour Relations Act and Canada Labour Code. The vote came six days after the amendments were introduced under closure to limit debate: ‘It guts the right to collective bargaining.’
Canadian insurers are lamenting public indifference to earthquake perils, though the country has suffered only a handful of fatal quakes in the past 400 years. It follows a warning from regulators that a catastrophic seismic event would be a “significant threat” to many insurers.
A band of MPs is protesting an obscure procedural change they warn will limit the public’s ability to alter legislation in Commons committees. Three legislators petitioned committees to reject a government motion they said will gag opposition amendments to any bill: “We have a system that is rigged.”
A federal regulator reports a 28% increase in complaints against banks and other financial institutions, though fines for lawbreakers remain few and far between.
The Financial Consumer Agency received 5,634 complaints from the public last year compared to 4,410 the year before, according to accounts tabled in Parliament. Of 937 complaints deemed serious enough to raise questions of illegality, five resulted in actual fines – a conviction rate of 0.5 percent.
The agency refused to divulge the name of banks cited for breaches of consumer laws, citing privacy. “For reasons of confidentiality, the agency cannot provide additional or more specific details,” a spokeswoman said.
Most of the agency’s $13.26 million annual budget is paid by banks and financial institutions. Ursula Menke, the $266,000-a year commissioner of the agency, did not comment. Menke earlier told the Senate finance committee that “education” remained a key to sound consumer practices.
“There will always be a need to continue to educate,” Menke said.
The agency reported it typically takes 18 months to over two years to complete investigations of serious allegations involving breaches of federal law, regulations or codes of conduct.
“This raises many questions,” said MP Glenn Thibeault, New Democrat consumer affairs critic. “Who are they charging? Are the fines enough to deter institutions from doing it again?”
“When you start policing yourself and your investigations are confidential, how is the public supposed to know?” said Thibeault, MP for Sudbury, Ont.
The agency cited three specific fines:
The agency’s budget is funded 85 percent by banks, trusts and insurance companies, with a supplement of $2 million a year voted by Parliament.
By Staff
Canada Revenue Agency is being cited for “disturbing” privacy breaches involving thousands of files. Privacy Commissioner Jennifer Stoddart reported the tax department failed to guard citizens’ personal information stored by the government: “It was perplexing.”
