Privy Council President Bill Blair’s claim that federal spies withheld information on Chinese interference is false, the House affairs committee was told last night. The director of the Canadian Security Intelligence Service said he specifically sent a memo to warn Blair that foreign agents were targeting MPs: “The information was meant to be seen by the Minister.”
David Morrison, the Prime Minister’s former national security advisor, yesterday testified he read a secret 2021 memo on intimidation of MPs by Chinese agents but concluded there “was nothing in the note that spurred me to take action.” Morrison said he read the memo with the 2021 election underway: “You didn’t twig to the fact this could be an issue?”
The RCMP yesterday testified they relied on politicians and news reporters for leads on alleged election fraud by Chinese agents. “I wouldn’t be proud of that,” said Conservative MP Luc Berthold (Mégantic-L’Erable, Que.).
Parliament should consider an excess profits tax on grocers, the Commons agriculture committee said yesterday. Grocers testifying at committee hearings denied profiteering on food inflation: “The Government of Canada should consider introducing a windfall profits tax on large, price-setting corporations.”
Cabinet was never in a position to plant two billion trees without provincial help, Environment Commissioner Jerry DeMarco said yesterday. The Liberal Party announced the tree planting blitz as a 2019 election promise and has not met targets to date: “They have to be realistic with their programs.”
A gift of $200,000 is not enough to buy influence in the Government of Canada, former Trudeau Foundation CEO Morris Rosenberg testified yesterday. One MP on the Commons public accounts committee noted the figure is 117 times larger than the federal campaign contribution limit in Canada: ““I honestly don’t think $200,000 is very significant in the greater scheme of things.”
Canadians share “fairly negative views” about foreign aid with a quarter nationwide favouring funding cuts, says in-house research by the Department of Foreign Affairs. Spending on aid abroad costs $6.4 billion a year excluding extraordinary funding for pandemic relief or Ukraine’s war effort: “More than half of Canadians say a lot of international aid from Canada ends up in the pockets of corrupt politicians in the developing world.”
The Department of Health issued hundreds of “corrections” to subsidized news media, records show. Subsidized newsrooms are obliged to grant federal agencies a “rebuttal opportunity” as a condition of accepting federal aid: “Lots of people think there are factual errors in the newspaper that are just things they don’t like.”
The Commons industry committee last night approved a cabinet bill to mandate disclosure of ownership of federally registered corporations. Police acknowledged the bill would not include 85 percent of Canadian companies that are provincially registered: “Criminals will simply use a province that doesn’t have a registry.”
Erin O’Toole in his farewell address to Parliament yesterday urged MPs to avoid the “sinkhole of diversion and division.” O’Toole is resigning as a four-term MP (Durham, Ont.) after accepting blame for the Conservative Party’s 2021 election loss: “I am responsible for that.”
Eighty percent of Old Age Security pensioners earn more than $60,000 a year, new data show. Payouts include pensions to retirees with six-figure incomes, according to figures tabled in Parliament: “Many seniors receiving these payments aren’t struggling financially.”
Canadians rate cabinet’s climate program incompetent, unfair and lacking in transparency, says in-house Privy Council research. The Access To Information document did not identify Environment Minister Steven Guilbeault by name but found widespread distrust of his policies: “Few Canadians strongly agreed, and only a small minority somewhat agreed, that the federal government demonstrated competence, fairness, openness and care when it comes to climate change.”
Conservatives, New Democrats and Bloc Québécois MPs this week will discuss nominees to head a public inquiry into suspected election fraud by foreign agents, Opposition Leader Pierre Poilievre said yesterday. An independent judge must “get all the truth on the table” before the next campaign, he said: “We are working on that right now.”
The Public Health Agency of Canada in a 2022 memo said families must “assess everyone’s risk” before hugging small, unmasked children. The memo was released through Access To Information: “Hugs are safer if the child wears a mask.”
Freedom Convoy protesters were violent bigots who assaulted Asian people with spitting and shoving, says a New Democrat MP. The claims, contradicted by sworn testimony at a judicial inquiry, were raised by MP Alexandre Boulerice (Rosemont-La Petite Patrie, Que.) in Commons debate on a motion condemning anti-Asian racism: “People were spit on, people were shoved because they were of Asian descent.”
