Adjusting interest rates is “not my job,” Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland said yesterday. Her remarks followed another increase in the Bank of Canada rate to the highest level since 2008: “What is the trigger point for when you decide to do something?”
Two more cannabis companies have filed for creditor protection amid a crash in the federally-licensed marijuana market. A total 34 wholesalers and retailers have become insolvent since 2020: ‘The current cannabis market downturn has made it impossible.’
A five-year Canada Revenue Agency campaign to promote tax filing by phone was not successful, says a federal report. Less than one percent of tax filers submit returns by telephone. Cost of the program was not disclosed: “Many are not interested.”
Cabinet gained nothing by waiving sanctions against Russia, the Commons foreign affairs committee was told yesterday. Executives with the Ukrainian Canadian Congress asked MPs to press for a reversal of a July 9 waiver that permitted the return to Germany of a natural gas turbine for use by Gazprom, Russia’s state-run gas company: “I don’t want to know where that ends.”
An Indigenous foreman taunted by municipal co-workers as “Crazy Horse” has won a $30,000 human rights award. Damages for the Edmonton Transit employee are among the highest awarded in similar cases: “The consent award is proper.”
Dr. Theresa Tam, chief public health officer, grossly underestimated Covid infection rates in Public Health Agency planning, data from Statistics Canada showed yesterday. Tam managed Canada’s Covid response on assumptions “less than ten percent” of people would get infected: “This figure understates the true number.”
Cabinet had a “moral duty” to rescue Afghan allies trapped behind Taliban lines, Canadians told in-house researchers with the Department of Immigration. Federal focus groups found the public upset that translators and other friends of the Canadian Armed Forces were left behind: “We have a responsibility to the Afghans who helped us.”
Federal spending on election-year public opinion research jumped 17 percent, says a Department of Public Works report. Executives commissioned polls at the rate of three a week in 2021: “Ensure Canadians get the best value when such research is deemed necessary.”
A 106-year era in veterans’ care has ended in Québec Superior Court. A judge formally closed a successful class action case to compensate patients of the last federally-run hospital for soldiers, sailors and air crew: ‘The bills have been paid.’
Nudists have gathered enough signatures to certify a Commons petition protesting a federal ban on public nakedness. Advocates called it an environmentally friendly proposal: “Clothing and the process of washing it is known to cause significant water pollution.”
Attorney General David Lametti used emergency powers against the Freedom Convoy on fears protesters would block railways, according to Department of Justice records. Briefing notes did not explain why cabinet allowed 2020 First Nations blockades of railways without invoking the Emergencies Act: “The result of a railway blockade would be significant.”
A cabinet advisor appointed to help manage $595 million in media subsidies says racist Canadians share an “omnipresent belief in white supremacy.” Professor Karim Karim made the remarks at a federally-funded workshop by the Community Media Advocacy Centre, the same group subsequently stripped of funding for anti-Semitism: “Media workers continue unconsciously to reproduce racial hierarchies and portrayals.”
Heritage Minister Pablo Rodriguez will not speak to reporters on why his department paid $133,822 for media workshops led by an anti-Semite who said Jews deserve a “bullet to the head.” Rodriguez did not reply to interview requests though he previously boasted he liked tough questions: “We sometimes do not want to answer, but it is our job.”
Canadians think of electric vehicles as town cars unfit for long commuting or highway driving says in-house federal research. Drivers expressed skepticism over cabinet’s target of abolishing gas and diesel-powered vehicles by 2050: ‘A common worry was running out of power in a remote area.’
Canadian insurers paid out fewer death benefits in the first year of the pandemic than they did in 2019, new data show. Insurers said the unexpected finding was due to an anomaly in methods used to compile statistics: “Covid-19 numbers seem low.”
