Chiefs of police are endorsing a private Senate bill to permit DNA sampling of people convicted of non-violent crimes like drunk driving. The measure might have averted one of the country’s most notorious wrongful convictions, they said: “You should know there are hundreds of unsolved murders in Canada.”
A telecom industry consultant who exposed Laith Marouf as an anti-Semite sponsored by the Department of Canadian Heritage says “too many people in Ottawa knew about this” and did nothing. Mark Goldberg in a submission to the Commons heritage committee said he repeatedly warned officialdom of Marouf’s conduct: “I do want to see some real accountability.”
The fate of helmetless curling rests with Alberta Court of King’s Bench. A judge has ordered a local school district and curling club to face civil trial for failing to meet a “required standard of care” by allowing children to hit the ice without a helmet: “The ice was slippery and could cause students to fall and become injured. That risk was obvious.”
Parliament should expropriate apartment buildings owned by landlords who “violate human rights,” says a Canadian Human Rights Commission report. Federal law should also ban private lending to landlords who “contravene human rights including the right to adequate housing,” it said.
Nearly a thousand CBC employees are paid $100,000 or more, according to Access To Information records obtained by the Canadian Taxpayers Federation. The number of six-figure staffers was up 117 percent in six years: “What value are taxpayers getting?”
The House affairs committee yesterday voted for a deeper investigation of alleged Chinese interference in federal elections. One Liberal MP dismissed the ongoing probe as a “Trump-like tactic to question election results.”
Most young Canadians are frightened of climate change and tell federal pollsters they feel sad and helpless. Almost three quarters of young adults surveyed, 74 percent, said they were “afraid of the impacts of climate change on their friends and loved ones’ lives.”
The federal bank superintendent is compiling 15 years’ worth of aggregated credit reports to plot “trends and vulnerabilities,” an official said. Superintendent Peter Routledge last year warned that rising interest rates and falling home prices posed a threat not seen in decades: “Financial institutions need to ensure they are prepared.”
A federal report warns casualties of climate change policy may include families that cannot afford higher fuel costs, oil and gas workers and Indigenous people. There was no evidence federal agencies were aware of the consequences, it said: “A sizeable workforce will need to transition out.”
Cabinet has awarded a retroactive 10.3 percent pay raise to CBC chief executive Hubert Lacroix though he left the Crown corporation five years ago. The Department of Canadian Heritage yesterday would not comment on the backdated pay raise, typically awarded to boost pension payments: “Unfortunately we cannot help you.”
Members of the Commons human resources committee seek CMHC records to determine if a director recused herself under a conflict of interest code. Director Janice Abbott of Vancouver is CEO of a building society that received millions in federal aid: “It would be difficult for me to comment specifically on that.”
The underground economy grew 50 percent in five years, Statistics Canada data show. The increase of billions in undeclared transactions followed a Canada Revenue Agency threat to begin fingerprinting tax evaders: “A significant number of Canadians are active in the underground economy without giving much thought to its consequences.”
An advocate who challenged bylaw enforcement against the homeless by the City of Victoria has lost her case in court. Municipal lawyers called it an “extraordinary” test of authority to clear parks of tent cities: “It could impact the City’s ability to enforce certain bylaws.”
Cabinet is demanding MPs take an oath of secrecy as a condition of seeing terms of its $5 billion contracts with vaccine manufacturers. Members of the Commons public accounts committee called it a dangerous precedent to limit scrutiny of federal spending: “It makes you ask, what’s next?”
A last legal challenge of cabinet’s use of emergency powers against the Freedom Convoy goes to Federal Court April 3. Lawyers for the Canadian Civil Liberties Association and Justice Centre for Constitutional Freedoms said they will press their claim that use of the Emergencies Act was unconstitutional: “That is the job of the courts.”
