Blacklock's Reporter

The Canada Revenue Agency asked accountants if they’d report small businesses that don’t pay their taxes, records show. “Very few were interested,” said in-house research: “Some felt it would be unlikely that Canadians would report on one another.”

The Department of Finance hired a friend of Minister Chrystia Freeland as a senior advisor, records show. Freeland said she played no role in the appointment: ‘I want to avoid any appearance of preferential treatment or any opportunity to further the private interest of a friend.’

The Supreme Court yesterday agreed to hear airlines’ challenge of passenger compensation rules on international flights. A lower court dismissed airlines’ claim that Canadian regulators had no jurisdiction on flights that originated or ended outside the country: “Canada requires an effective air passenger rights regime.”

Canada must double or triple its electricity output to meet 2050 climate targets, says a Newfoundland and Labrador submission to the Senate energy committee. Meeting targets is “likely not possible” without more federal subsidies, it said: “That is the equivalent of four Churchill Falls.”

Federal subsidies for electric car makers yesterday reached $32 billion, twice the annual output of the entire Canadian auto sector. “It’s pretty remarkable,” Industry Minister François-Philippe Champagne said in awarding another subsidy to Ford Motor Company: “I think it is a big accomplishment.”

Canadians must focus on “high value guests” in tourism, says a federal agency. Wealthy foreigners are “naturally curious,” “seek culture” and spend more than working people, it said: “In other words, value and values over volume.”

A review of Covid contracts approved by the Department of Health showed more than a tenth failed to follow the rules, a federal investigation said yesterday. The department issued 17,000 contracts. Only 40 were checked at random: “Health Canada cannot demonstrate it followed the proper procurement protocols and that its practices were fair, open and transparent.”

Forty percent of Canadian teenagers eat restaurant food at least twice a week, Statistics Canada said yesterday. New data precedes a Third Reading vote in the Commons on a private Liberal bill to ban junk food advertising to children: “We would like it to be done as quickly as possible.”

The advocacy group Canadian Anti-Hate Network faces a $50,000 federal lawsuit over a Freedom Convoy photo posted on its website. The Network in a Federal Court claim is accused of breaching the Copyright Act by using the image without payment or permission: “The Canadian Anti-Hate Network misrepresented to the Hill Times that the photograph was a screenshot from a video.”

Two thirds of low income parents eligible for federal dental care grants say they have no insurance, according to in-house research by the Department of Health. Most never went for annual checkups, wrote researchers: “There are a wide range of issues which act as barriers.”

A member of cabinet, Citizens’ Services Minister Terry Beech, paid for Facebook ads in the past month even after cabinet announced it was boycotting Facebook, records show. Beech was one of five Liberal MPs to break the boycott: “Working hard for you.”

Cabinet has donated a small portion of its mammoth pandemic ventilator stockpile to Ukrainian war victims. The Department of Public Works spent more than $700 million on Covid-era rush orders for ventilators that were never used: “I do have the Canadian taxpayers’ interests at heart when I am doing my job.”

Only 40 percent of homeless people provided federal aid successfully became householders, say auditors. The majority left the $3.7 billion Reaching Home program: “What they want is a place, a home, without curfew and without a schedule.”

A federal agency, Export Development Canada, yesterday said it was unsure of recovering millions it loaned for aircraft engines at an insolvent Mexican carrier. The Parliamentary Budget Office has sought greater disclosure of loan losses by Crown banks like EDC: “Parliament doesn’t pay too much attention to them.”