Federal inspectors have shut down another Alberta meatpacker only hours after Parliament enacted new legislation promising “stronger” enforcement of food safety. Royal Assent for the food safety bill came amid the closure of an Edmonton plant over a Listeria scare, a bacterium that Health Canada warns may “in serious cases” lead to brain infection and death.
Blacklock’s Reporter has received accreditation in the Canadian Parliamentary Press Gallery.
The company earlier served legal notice after gallery managers ruled Blacklock’s feature editor Holly Doan would not be accredited unless the online publisher named its partners and contributors, and submitted to questioning on contractual arrangements with writers.
The gallery membership was issued today.
Blacklock’s board voted a motion of gratitude.
“The name of Blacklock now rejoins the Ottawa Press Gallery roll for the first time since Tom Blacklock’s passing in 1934,” the board said in a statement.
“Thank you.” 
By Staff
More cash registers are falling silent this fall despite deep discounting by retailers and historic low interest rates. New federal figure show that, with the exception of two provinces, retail sales year-over-year grew by a dismal 0.4 percent.
A bill before Parliament that would compensate air travelers up to $1,000 for cancelled flights and other nuisances may have little practical benefit for consumers, analysts tell Blacklock’s.
The nation’s patent system is so slow it has become an “incentive” to leave Canada, an industry group has told MPs. The testimony came amid House committee hearings that have heard expert witnesses describe federal intellectual property management as costly, inefficient and dysfunctional.
A federal ban on a carcinogenic chemical additive in infants’ foam products comes decades after concerns were first raised by researchers. Random testing by Health Canada found the chemical in 7 of 40 children’s items, from pillows to toys.
VIA Rail says it is close to breaking even on its busiest central route where subsidies average $12 per 100 hundred miles, a fraction of subsidies needed on other services in the crown-owned passenger rail system.
Blacklock’s Reporter today served legal notice it will challenge a gag ruling that disqualifies the online publisher from the Ottawa Press Gallery unless management divulges proprietary information.
“If this precedent stands independent journalism is dead on Parliament Hill,” said Blacklock’s board. “No newspaper, radio or TV station would tolerate these arbitrary requirements, yet the gallery would ban an online publisher.”
The gallery disqualified Blacklock’s application for Hill press credentials unless the company disclosed details of its corporate structure, the names of all partners and contributors and terms of contracts with its writers.
“According to the Gallery’s Constitution, Blacklock’s is not required to provide confidential corporate information,” wrote Yavar Hameed, the company’s lawyer, who noted the gallery demands appeared to be “disproportionately targeting Blacklock’s.”
“In the event the Gallery or its president insists on probing the confidential information of Blacklock’s, my client will be obliged to take legal steps to challenge the Gallery’s treatment of Blacklock’s and/or seek redress for economic loss occasioned as a result of misfeasance by those responsible within the Board of the Gallery,” Hameed wrote.
On Nov. 5 Blacklock’s submitted an application to accredit features editor Holly Doan as a company representative on Parliament Hill. Accreditation is open to “bona fide journalists” and media that cover parliamentary news, according to the press gallery constitution dating from 1885.
“Holly Doan has been a gallery member dating from 1993, and Blacklock’s coverage can be verified by anyone with an internet connection,” the board said in a statement. “Our credentials are not difficult to determine.”
Yet the gallery immediately disqualified Blacklock’s unless the company disclosed its payroll and business arrangements.
“The Executive wishes to obtain additional information about Blacklock’s Reporter,” Chris Rands, gallery president, wrote in a Nov. 8 letter suspending the application; “What is Blacklock’s Reporter? Who are the other people involved? Are each of them working full-time with Blacklock’s or are they also covering Parliament Hill for other media organizations?…The questions above need to be addressed before any (new) memberships can be issued.”
Blacklock’s refused to divulge confidential information, noting the questions flouted bylaws that limit enquiries to applicants’ “bona fide” credentials.
“Rands has made the accreditation of Ms. Doan as an employee of Blacklock’s subject to a series of questions that are ultra vires or outside the scope of the constitution,” wrote Hameed.
Blacklock’s directors today noted in a statement the gallery previously granted “bona fide” accreditation to the ex-Soviet news agency Tass; the Beijing-based agency Xinhua; the People’s Daily of China; and Vietnam News Agency, the official organ of the Communist party of Hanoi.
“These are ‘bona fide’ but Blacklock’s is disqualified unless we name names,” said the board. “This begs judicial review.”
The online publisher will consider further action if the gag ruling is not lifted by Nov. 25.
By Staff
A Saskatchewan case has redefined deductible medical expenses after a tax court judge ruled a husband could legally deduct thousands in travel bills to see his ill wife, though Canada Revenue argued the visits were not medically necessary.
An acronym trademarked by a Canadian public relations group resembles a shorthand term for Korean Communists, though the volunteer agency says the similarity is purely coincidental.
A federal labour relations referee is gaining greater powers to expedite settlements in the first major revision to regulations since 2001. “This looks like a good-faith effort to modernize the rules,” said one labour lawyer; “I don’t see monkey business.”
Weight Watchers Canada is lobbying Parliament for “consideration” in the next budget that Blacklock’s sources indicate would include tax credits for diet programs and supplements. The government already offers a fitness tax credit for children’s hockey and other sports. Federal data show Canada is the fourth fattest nation on earth.
Nearly three quarters of federal guards on the Canada-US border speak English only, documents show. But managers in the transport industry call the unilingual trend an economic fact of life. “To ship across the border you must comprehend the national language of the United States – which is English,” said one trucking executive.
More than a quarter-million jobs grew from canola last year, the nation’s most valuable crop. New federal data show nationwide, food processing is now the country’s biggest manufacturing sector.
Builders are bypassing more than half a dozen federal laws and scores of regulations in planning a new bridge from Windsor, Ont. to Detroit, the busiest border crossing in the country.
