Chasing waste in pandemic relief programs has cost taxpayers a third of a billion so far, record show. The Canada Revenue Agency assigned more than 2,000 employees to recovering billions in misspent subsidies: “I think we are doing a very good job.”
A defiant Conservative MP Raquel Dancho (Kildonan-St. Paul, Man.) yesterday was ejected from the Commons after protesting “underhanded” cabinet controls on everyday hunting and sporting guns. Dancho declined to apologize in a standoff with the Speaker: “We had enough of it and I called them out for lying which they did.”
Parliament must press for a vote on a proper inquiry of cabinet’s pandemic management, New Democrat MP Don Davies (Vancouver Kingsway) said yesterday. “Liberals would love to do a whitewash,” he said: “The government cannot investigate itself.”
New electric cars must be equipped with noisemakers under a cabinet order disclosed yesterday. Manufacturers complained they were never consulted on the proposal intended to save pedestrians from being run over by whisper-quiet electrics: “The issue is people who are walking along the street looking at their smartphones.”
The CRTC yesterday rejected a proposal from Telus Communications Inc. to charge customers who pay by credit card a 1.5 percent transaction fee. The order follows a 2015 Act of Parliament that banned telecom companies from charging a paper billing fee: “Unacceptable.”
The $231,000-a year Clerk of the Commons accused of sleeping at work and feeding inside information to the Liberal caucus is resigning. The Speaker yesterday thanked Charles Robert for “faithful and devoted service.”
Senators last night questioned one clause in a 172-page budget bill that would see Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland spend $2 billion on shares of a company that doesn’t exist. The company would draw private investment in green technology, said Freeland: “The green transition will cost a good deal, really a lot, and we need money.”
Police cited 4,883 children for breaching the Quarantine Act, new figures show. Youngsters warned by police were among 58,760 children caught up in quarantine enforcement: ‘It is in regard to minors being warned of fines if they broke quarantine.’
Public debt charges jumped about $2.3 billion overnight with the latest increase in the Bank of Canada prime interest rate. Debt costs are the fastest growing line item in the federal budget: “The party is now over.”
VIA Rail spread Facebook rumours the Freedom Convoy planned to “put blocks on the train tracks” to disrupt the economy, say internal records. The rumour upset cabinet aides until Canadian National Railway noted it appeared on a single Facebook post with six “likes.”
Cabinet is quietly finalizing terms of its own internal pandemic management review, Senator Marc Gold (Que.), Government Representative in the Senate, said yesterday. Opposition MPs have sought a judicial inquiry including investigations of Covid contracting: “Work is in fact already underway through internal reviews.”
Taxing home equity would be “your political funeral,” a real estate lobbyist yesterday told the Senate national finance committee. It followed testimony from a CMHC tax consultant who complained housing made widows rich in Vancouver: “Those who do suggest it would probably preside at your political funeral.”
Political aides knew to be false a cabinet claim the Freedom Convoy received suspicious foreign donations, internal records show. Rumours spread by the Prime Minister and others went uncorrected because the issue was “a hot potato,” wrote one press secretary: “We’ve tried to avoid questions about the foreign funding angle.”
Anxious depositors lit up credit union hotlines within hours of cabinet’s freeze on accounts held by Freedom Convoy sympathizers, records show. Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland acknowledged she was unsure of the reach of her own orders under the Emergencies Act: “What have the banks actually been doing?”
Revenue Minister Diane Lebouthillier yesterday dismissed an auditor’s warning taxpayers are unlikely to recover billions wasted on pandemic relief programs. At least $32 billion was paid to underserving claimants after the Canada Revenue Agency failed to make cursory background checks: ‘I want to tell them how proud I am.’
