Federal regulators, farmers and Canada’s honey industry are keeping a close watch on bee counts in coming weeks following alarming pesticide-related deaths in 2012. Apiarists in two provinces advocate a ban on the farm chemicals: “It accumulates in the soil, it accumulates in the hives, it accumulates in water.”
Poet Shai Ben-Shalom, an Israeli-born biologist, examines current events in the Blacklock’s tradition: “Take this poem, wrap it around your fist, smash it in the face of the bully..”
In a figurative case of a man with two hats, the Supreme Court has dismissed an appeal by a businessman who claimed for tax purposes he was not an employee of a company he owned. The Ottawa man explained he could not be an employee since nobody told him what to do: “The question of who controlled whom has no answer.”
The RCMP will compile the biggest fingerprint database in Canadian history – more than a million files worth, including children and the elderly – in the name of protecting the “integrity” of the immigration system, documents show. The Department of Immigration detailed for the first time in regulations the vast scope of its program to keep files on foreigners.
MPs examining fine print in the budget will give speedy approval to a provision granting taxpayers more leeway in taking Canada Revenue to court. “My sense is this is not contentious,” said MP James Rajotte, chair of the Commons finance committee. MPs will also examine the repeal of tax credits for safety deposit box fees, and a measure to charge GST on insurance medicals.
Parks Canada is raising select fees up to 39 percent on its antique canal system this year despite an announced freeze on one charge most familiar to boaters. The federal government operates a system of nine canals in three provinces. Figures show boaters pay only a tenth of the $45 million cost of operating the waterways.
Canada Revenue Agency has been cited as “absurd” and “illogical” by a federal judge in a tax dispute with one of the country’s largest colleges. The judge ruled the Agency failed to think clearly when it charged interest on unpaid taxes the college never owed in the first place: “It seems absurd.”
Fisheries Minister Keith Ashfield is being sued over a license his department issued to a British Columbia salmon farm. The Federal Court case is the latest point of conflict in the aquaculture industry.
The Department of National Defence is charging taxpayers the equivalent of nearly $14 a copy to publish an official government newspaper most Canadians have never read. The Canadian Military Journal costs almost half a million dollars a year to serve 8,500 subscribers, according to accounts.
More than half a million Canadians will become first-time donors to charity this year under a “super” tax credit, according to new Department of Finance forecasts. Officials projected 590,000 tax-filers, including 220,000 couples, will make a charitable contribution under the signature credit detailed in the 2013 budget.
Keyword searches used by government departments to see what Canadians are saying about them reveal an odd assortment of themes. The Prime Minister’s Privy Council Office monitored articles on children’s letters to the North Pole, while the Department of Finance expressed an interest in media mentions of “too big to fail.”
Agriculture Minister Gerry Ritz is refusing comment on cuts to scientific research and other services amid protests from national farm groups. Ritz declined Blacklock’s repeated interview requests as layoff notices were sent to 350 senior staff, including biologists, engineers and research managers.
After eleven years of review and five national conferences, Health Canada is following the lead of Malta in regulating consumer protection of drug ingredients. “Canada is not particularly good at this,” said Dr. Sholom Glouberman, president of the Patients’ Association of Canada.
One of the biggest landlords in the country, Public Works Canada, should require its buildings to carry efficiency labels to “set standards for energy use,” says a national consultant. A Commons committee has been told Canada “is no longer the leader” in efficiency, with buildings that consume three times as much energy as those in Europe.
Canada assumes the chairmanship of the Arctic Council amid little-noticed passage of a federal bill that “tips the balance” in favour of mining and energy companies in the North, says an Inuit group. More than $38 billion in new mining projects are awaiting federal approval in the north, by official estimate.
