An anti-trust probe of hockey retailing has prompted a flurry of Federal Court hearings. Canadian Tire Ltd. is asking a federal judge for permission to attend questioning of its major suppliers as part of a year-long investigation of sports retailing: “Remaining competition is highly ineffective.”
Government MPs are opposing a bid to abandon 146 years of tradition by permitting Canadians to submit electronic petitions to Parliament. Members expressed unease with a New Democrat proposal to recognize internet petitions: “We should all tread very carefully with changes to our rules.”
Cabinet has failed to gauge the impact of unfair trade practices in promoting a “free” pact with Europe, say the nation’s milk and cheese producers. Dairy farmers and processors say Canada’s surrendered more market share than the U.S. or any E.U. nation: “We’re giving away some of our investment.”
Canadians may see simplified drug patent rules under a free trade pact with Europe, say the nation’s largest pharmaceutical associations. Generic and brand-name drug makers told Blacklock’s they anticipate the treaty will limit multiple lawsuits over patents: “The government has promised us…”
The Bank of Canada, responsible for monitoring the nation’s financial fitness, lost more than a million dollars a year operating a little-noticed Currency Museum, records show. The museum closed this year after running a $1.7 million annual budget with a staff of 24, including a $114,000-a year curator.
Big city mayors are appealing for renewal of $1.7 billion in yearly housing subsidies. The Federation of Canadian Municipalities is petitioning cabinet to maintain funds due to expire with the completion of federal programs over the next five years: “We need governments to step up.”
Passport Canada is providing names, ages, addresses and other confidential data of 25,000 passport owners to a pollster, Blacklock’s has learned.
The agency proposes to randomly select thousands of citizens’ personal information for a winter-long survey on customer satisfaction. Passport Canada refused an interview.
“This troubles me,” said MP John McCallum, Liberal citizenship critic; “I think it is a bit much for the government to give this information to a polling company.”
The Office of the Privacy Commissioner said it was unaware of the passport poll. In 2009 it cited the RCMP for passing thousands of names of registered gun owners to Ekos Research Associates Inc. for a similar client survey. The commissioner noted that polling was not unlawful, and Ekos was obliged to swear an oath of confidentiality. However the commissioner said authorities “could have done some things better” in assuring gun owners their privacy was protected.
Passport Canada’s marketing research follows a 38 percent increase in fees last July 1 to $120 for a standard passport. The agency proposes to “assess client satisfaction” through a $65,000 telephone survey of Canadians who received passports in the six months before the rate increase took effect.
Managers determined at least 25,000 passport holders must be contacted to find at least one-tenth who agree to a fifteen-minute interview.
“If I was called my first question would be, ‘How did you know I received a passport?’” said McCallum, MP for Markham-Unionville, Ont. “Why should they have that information about me? That would be my first reaction. It’s troubling that this information could be transferred to a polling company.”
Citizenship Minister Chris Alexander, the cabinet member responsible for the agency, was unavailable for comment.
Passport Canada said in a notice it would scan its files to find English- and French-speaking Canadians, male and female, aged 16 and over who received a passport between last January and June: “Citizenship & Immigration Canada will provide lists of names of clients.”
Managers noted they do not retain telephone numbers for passport holders, and that pollsters would be responsible for tracking down individuals’ contact information.
“Privacy protection is going to become a bigger and bigger issue as time goes by,” said McCallum, a former revenue minister. “With the power of technology, things that never used to be a challenge will be now.”
Passport Canada said in its notice that all Canadians who apply for travel documents implicitly agree to be contacted for “consultation about the serve they received”, but did not elaborate.
“It is anticipated to undertake surveys twice a year,” the agency said.
Passport fees were raised as a cost-recovery measure after authorities calculated they lost $4.59 on every passport issued.
Some 22 million passports are currently in circulation, by official estimate.
By Tom Korski 
A judge is condemning frequent Federal Court appeals by Canadians who are “just fishing” for reasons not to pay taxes. The rebuke came in a case of a billion-dollar corporation that appealed and appealed after being assessed back-taxes by Canada Revenue: “There must be a ‘show stopper’ or a ‘knockout punch'”.
Oversight of all federal food inspection by Health Canada should eliminate “potential conflict” in enforcement, says a scientist who investigated Canada’s largest beef recall: “The minister of health has no interest in whether the Canadian Cattlemen’s Association is doing well or not.”
The Department of Finance tried to dig up names of Canadian coffin-makers to justify a tax hike on caskets, newly-released documents show. The attempt came amid criticism of higher tariffs to be charged on goods from 72 countries and territories, including China-made coffins: “If there are no domestic producers, a tariff doesn’t make sense.”
Research on a work program for migrant labour suggests too many permits were approved too quickly. The number of applications okayed under the Temporary Foreign Worker Program more than doubled over two decades, from 86,000 to 213,000 last year: “This program could grow to be too large.”
Federal inspectors are pressing for updated safety regulations affecting hundreds of thousands of Canadian who travel by float plane. Rules call on crews to undergo more thorough emergency training and provide shoulder harnesses for all passengers.
A union representing 187,000 federal employees is appealing to cabinet to reconsider restrictions on right-to-strike provisions of federal law. The changes were inserted in a 309-page omnibus budget bill: “Extraordinary.”
Public Safety Canada is imposing a 42¢ tax on federal prisoners to pay for the Correctional Service’s telephone system.
Public Safety Minister Steven Blaney declined an interview on the compulsory fee to be charged all inmates whether or not they make a phone call.
“This government is interested in one thing – punishment, punishment, punishment,” said Liberal MP Wayne Easter, a former solicitor general.
Amendments to the Corrections and Conditional Release Regulations will see all inmates’ pay docked 8 percent every two weeks to pay the “administrative cost” of telephone privileges. Prisoners or their families currently pay for long-distance charges, while telecom companies pay to provide telephones.
“Little things like this matter,” said Easter, MP for Malpeque, P.E.I. “An inmate will now find it more difficult to stay connected with family or call legal counsel. Those things matter.”
The MP noted the Correctional Service has not raised inmates’ pay since 1981. Wages currently range from a basic allowance of $1 daily to $6.90 per day for work as janitors, kitchen helpers, groundskeepers and other prison labour.
“The cost of what inmates are supposed to buy for themselves – stamps, candy bars, phone calls – has increased since those pay scales were introduced,” said Correctional Investigator Howard Sapers, a federal ombudsman. “The amount of money inmates have to save for their release or send to their families has been significantly eroded.”
Telephone use is tightly restricted in the prison system. The Correctional Service reported all inmates must submit a “call list” of approved names, addresses and numbers of individuals they request to contact; and then must pre-pay a telephone card to make a call, typically from a centrally-located phone.
Sapers estimated five percent of inmates are foreign nationals: “The cost of an overseas call is $30. If you’re an inmate at the allowance level, one dollar a day, it means it will take a month to earn enough to call your family.”
Prison managers said the phone tax was intended to recover the $1.6 million annual cost of compiling inmates’ call lists and distributing phone cards.
“We get increasing complaints about the hardening of conditions of confinement – the actual experience of dong time,” Sapers said. “We see increased crowding, more use of force, more self-injury; we don’t see a growth in frivolous complaints.”
Sapers said most inmates are paid at in the range of $5.25 a day. More than 15,000 prisoners are in federal confinement, by Correctional Service estimate.
By Tom Korski
Regulators are targeting telemarketers who bypass call-display technology in a practice called “spoofing”. The CRTC said it will work with the U.S. and Britain in a first attempt at a coordinated crackdown: “There is a lot of cross-border, fly-by-night activity that goes on.”
