Cabinet is showing political courage by abolishing doorstep mail delivery, Public Works Minister Joel Lightbound said yesterday. Cuts to Canada Post services “probably should have gone forward” when first proposed by management in 2013, he said: “That is not too much to ask, to go and get your mail.”
A cabinet bill to restrict disruptive street protests outside synagogues will “curb the civil liberties of millions,” the legal director for the National Council of Canadian Muslims said yesterday. MPs on the Commons justice committee questioned counsel Nusaiba Al Azem on criminal limits to anti-Semitism: “Do you think it should be legal to fly a Hamas flag on a Canadian street?”
The Opposition is questioning Veterans Affairs Minister Jill McKnight’s fitness after she sat blankly under routine questioning at a committee hearing. Asked for details of a signature program in her own department, McKnight sat speechless until she was pointed to scripted remarks in a briefing binder: “Do you know?”
Cabinet is considering “structural reforms” at the post office in addition to sweeping service cuts announced September 25, says Public Works Minister Joel Lightbound. The Minister in a letter to MPs said a Charter that includes minimum service guarantees is under review: “We cannot go on, you know.”
Canada should mandate security checks on Israeli visitors for evidence of complicity in war crimes, says Liberal MP Sameer Zuberi (Pierrefonds-Dollard, Que.). The former parliamentary secretary for diversity yesterday did not reply to questions regarding his proposal at the Commons immigration committee: “Are you presently satisfied that the safety and security of Canadians is intact?”
The Canada Border Services Agency responsible for enforcement of gun laws has “gaps” in management of its own firearms, says an internal audit. “We found no evidence of formal regional oversight activities related to the safeguarding and inventory tracking of firearms and ammunition across the Agency,” wrote auditors.
The Canadian Medical Association yesterday endorsed a Senate bill for mandatory health warnings on liquor, beer and wine. Alcohol-related deaths average 17,000 a year, according to the Department of Health: “As physicians, we witness the effects of alcohol use on our patients every day.”
The Commons public accounts committee yesterday called Canada Revenue Agency managers for questioning over disclosures they spent $190 million on dysfunctional call centres. Auditors for the second time in eight years faulted the Agency’s 1-800 operations as slow and inept: “Why should Canadians tolerate this?”
Auditors yesterday faulted the Department of National Defence for creating its own housing crisis with long waiting lists and dilapidated structures unfit for military families. Defence Minister David McGuinty promised improvements: “Toilets weren’t working, or there was structural damage to the exterior walls of the building, the kind of conditions you and I wouldn’t want to live in.”
The immigration department does not know how many foreigners are in Canada illegally, Deputy Minister Harpreet Kochhar yesterday told MPs. Managers in a report last April 24 said the number was as high as 500,000: “We would not have any estimation of those.”
Cabinet is prepared to rewrite a security bill critics call a threat to civil liberties, says Public Safety Minister Gary Anandasangaree. He acknowledged shortcomings in Bill C-2: “I will admit C-2 probably didn’t have that balance but my commitment is a revised version of it.”
Senate Liberal appointee Andrew Cardozo (Ont.) yesterday challenged CBC management to justify anti-Conservative bias by some newsroom employees. Network executives testifying at the Senate transport and communications committee denied political score-settling under the pretext of fact checking: “The notion that we are politically oriented is really against everything that we believe.”
MPs yesterday asked cabinet to undertake a sweeping investigation of costly real estate holdings by the Department of Foreign Affairs. it followed the purchase of an $8.8 million Manhattan penthouse for Tom Clark, Canada’s $232,000-a year Consul in New York: “He wanted to live like a king.”
The Commons government operations committee yesterday voted to compel disclosure of cabinet’s subsidy agreements with Stellantis. MPs have sought confidential terms since 2022 when cabinet committed ongoing subsidies totaling $15 billion for battery plants in Windsor and Brampton, Ont.: “Were there any assurances in that deal that jobs would stay in Canada?”
Cabinet does not expect to meet its housing targets until 2035 at the earliest, Housing Minister Gregor Robertson said yesterday. The admission came under questioning at the Commons finance committee: “We can only work with the facts we have in front of us.”
