Blacklock's Reporter

Immigration Minister Marc Miller’s department will require that all citizenship applicants who lived in Canada more than 10 years be photographed and fingerprinted. Biometric screening is already mandatory for new arrivals in Canada including foreign students and visa applicants: “What we are looking to do is adopt biometric enrolment for citizenship.”

Cabinet is “doing really, really good compared to most other countries,” Public Works Minister Jean-Yves Duclos said yesterday. Duclos would not say if cabinet met its target of cutting billions in fees paid to private consultants: “You’re saying Canadians have never had it so good?”

The Senate last night by a 58 to 22 vote passed a GST holiday bill into law. The temporary $2.7 billion repeal of the federal sales tax on select goods takes effect Saturday: “Could you imagine the optics of not voting for this?”

Liberal MP Marco Mendicino (Eglinton-Lawrence, Ont.) yesterday faced formal demands that he be censured for contempt of Parliament. Mendicino was accused of deliberately lying as Minister of Public Safety regarding his 2022 use of the Emergencies Act against peaceful demonstrators on Parliament Hill: ‘Mendicino blatantly misled us.’

Executives at Canadian utilities appealed to senators for tougher Criminal Code penalties to stem an epidemic of copper theft. Managers testifying at the Senate transport and communication committee detailed brazen thefts treated as petty crimes: “This is the same charge leveled against someone caught stealing a bicycle.”

Cabinet has approved a 25 percent hike in stamp rates to take effect January 13. The increase was proposed by Canada Post prior to disruption of its busiest season of Christmas mailings by a Canadian Union of Postal Workers strike, now in its 27th day: “Canadians are fed up.”

There will be no recession in 2025, Bank of Canada Governor Tiff Macklem said yesterday. The Governor added Canadians can “decide what adjective they want” to describe rising unemployment, weaker growth and declining business investment: “We’re not expecting a recession.”

Parliament has given rare passage to a private bill amending the Bankruptcy And Insolvency Act. The farmers’ aid bill sponsored by Conservative MP Scot Davidson (York-Simcoe, Ont.) followed 40 years’ worth of petitions by fruit and vegetable growers: “This has been in the works for a very long time.”

MPs may call each other erratic or unhinged, Speaker Greg Fergus said yesterday. The new guidance on parliamentary language followed complaints that too many adjectives had been banned in Commons debate: “Is ‘erratic’ and ‘unhinged’ considered parliamentary language in this place?”

Liberal Senate appointee Kristopher Wells (Alta.) yesterday denied any interest in partisan politics despite being an outspoken critic of the Conservative Party and onetime Liberal donor. Wells declined comment when asked to justify his appointment after more than a million Albertans elected other Senate nominees: “Do you know who they are?”

A Toronto bank failed to report suspicious cash transactions including millions transferred in and out of accounts, federal regulators said yesterday. The Exchange Bank of Canada, owned by a Florida firm Currency Exchange International, is appealing its $2,457,750 fine: “The Bank did not report large cash transactions.”

The Commons last night passed a budget bill on deadline. However cabinet’s proposal for a GST holiday on Christmas goods faced unexpected protests from Liberal appointees in the Senate: “We definitely recognize we are facing challenges.”

Coleen Volk, the $551,000-a year CEO of Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation, yesterday said executive bonuses at the federal insurer are secret. Even criteria used to decide who gets how much are confidential and cannot be disclosed to MPs, she said: “We attract the best and the brightest.’