The nation’s largest union organization, the Canadian Labour Congress, proclaimed a “Corporate Tax Freedom Day” in condemnation of federal policies that cut corporate income tax rates to the lowest levels since the Second World War.
Canada is “missing” $145 billion worth of infrastructure due to declining rates of federal investment in public works, according to a national study.
The Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives calculated it would take up to $30 billion worth of new spending every year to meet the nation’s needs for better infrastructure.
“That’s a lot of new roads, bridges and buildings,” said Hugh Mackenzie, economist with the CCPA and author of Canada’s Infrastructure Gap: Where It Came From and Why It Will Cost So Much To Fix It.
Mackenzie calculated that public works spending as a proportion of the economy peaked at more than 3 percent of GDP in the 1950s, and fell into a forty-year decline from which it has yet to recover. The Fifties boom in public works included construction of the Trans-Canada Highway, and federal buildings in every provincial capital in the country.
“The federal government has the money, the provincial governments have the constitutional authority, and local governments have the responsibility for making the actual investments,” Mackenzie said.
The Federation of Canadian Municipalities has appealed for details of public works subsidies in next month’s federal budget. Cabinet has pledged to renew a multi-billion dollar Building Canada subsidy plan, set to expire in 2014, but has yet to detail terms and conditions.
“The federal government’s new long-term infrastructure plan is Canada’s opportunity to put our essential infrastructure back on solid ground,” said Karen Leibovici, federation president.
Engineering firms have also pressed for prompt release of any new subsidy plan.
“We have to look after our core facilities,” said John Gamble, president of the Association of Consulting Engineering Companies.
“Things have to happen now if we’re going to avoid a gap that will hurt our economy,” said Gamble. “It’s time we begin to ramp up for the future.”
No date has been finalized for the next federal budget. 
By Staff
Federal regulators are turning national parks into people-free zones in the name of “ecological integrity,” says the country’s largest youth organization. Scouts Canada said a generation of citizens has lost touch with the nation’s wilderness heritage due to Parks Canada policies.
A British Columbia man who helped sell a million dollars’ worth of crystals on eBay has received unfavourable feedback in Federal Tax Court. Wen Zhang, a Nanaimo taxi driver, was cited for hiding $69,466 worth of income from a family business after his dealings came under scrutiny in an eBay sweep by Canada Revenue.
Almost a decade after being hit with Pacific trade restrictions over mad cow disease, Canadian beef farmers will get a chance to sell more to Japan. The easing of regulations on exports could be worth $150,000,000 a year, industry said.
Canada is a C-grade performer on environmental issues, ranking 15 out of 17 developed countries in a Conference Board of Canada study. Only the United States and Australia were rated more hapless, with a D-grade: “It’s probably safe to say there has been a relatively steady decline.”
Parliament’s iconic Centre Block is at “critical risk of failure” and could face “catastrophic” damage in an earthquake, according to a secret government report. The analysis, obtained by Blacklock’s through Access to Information, details systemic problems with the 1922 structure that is home to the House of Commons and Senate: “The need for seismic reinforcement and the means by which it might be accomplished are unresolved.”
RCMP veterans attempting to unionize the force are trademarking a slogan of dissent to “motivate” fellow members, an organizer said. The group applied to trademark “Maintaining The Right,” a variation on an official police motto.
Two Ontario inventors have patented a self-cleaning solar panel for sub-Arctic use that removes snow without brush work. A prototype was tested in Sudbury, Ont., where average January snowfall is 64 centimetres: “Results were good.”
A national study cites “crippling” paperwork in Canadian agriculture, reporting almost universal complaints that red tape is worse today than three years ago. “As frustrating as all the paperwork is, it doesn’t all come from the government,” said one growers’ group.
A sceptics’ organization, Bad Science Watch, is trademarking its name in pursuit of “unbiased factual information” in the drafting of federal regulations. “We want to be evocative and speak to the activist nature of the organization,” said the chair of the group that has petitioned MPs for “good science policy.”
The government’s much-vaunted development of a biofuel-powered aircraft faces numerous challenges before it is commercially viable, reports an industry association. “They showed it can be done,” said an executive, but noted Canada currently has no plant capable of producing quantities of aviation-grade fuel.
On the edge of Saskatchewan’s Cypress Hills is the town of Eastend, population 471. It has four churches, a Kinsmen Club and Scotty, Canada’s largest Tyrannosaurus Rex. “It’s in the twilight zone,” writes Candace Savage, “where the plains of northern Montana meet and morph into the prairies of southern Saskatchewan.” It is also a crime scene.
Canadian media giants including newspaper corporations with billion-dollar revenues, have received six-figure government grants designed to help rural weeklies “overcome market disadvantages,” records show. “The editorial department doesn’t even know we apply for these grants,” said the CEO of one corporation that received $565,988 in taxpayers’ aid.
The odd journey of the Altona, a Pacific container ship moored for months off the British Columbia coast after surviving storms, bankruptcy and contamination by a uranium spill, has finally ended in Federal Court.
