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.”
Blacklock’s Reporter pauses today to observe the 128th Labour Day in tribute to Canadian workers nationwide. We will be back tomorrow — The Editor
Prime Minister Arthur Meighen lived for years on tree-lined Cooper Street in Ottawa. He owned a rambling Georgian Revival-style home. Meighen raised a family, sent his three children to Ottawa public schools and crafted the most momentous legislation of his era. Today the house is gone, replaced with an ugly apartment block.
Meighen was a brilliant math scholar and lawyer, a six-term parliamentarian, the most influential solicitor general in Canadian history and twice prime minister, in 1921 and 1926. He bought the place at 21 Cooper in 1915. It had a magnificent view of the Rideau Canal yet Meighen lived so plainly he kept chickens in the backyard.
Here he crafted the bill that created Canadian National Railways. He wrote the country’s first conscription bill in 1917 and emergency legislation that ended the 1919 Winnipeg general strike. On hearing Meighen speak in the Commons, Wilfrid Laurier said: “Remarkable.”
He lived simply on Cooper Street. Meighen had an unaffected lifestyle. In 1921 a colleague noted the Prime Minister arrived at work having forgotten to shave. He wore suits till they were threadbare and “has not yet learned to put on his collar and tie properly or wear a hat that does not look like an undertaker’s,” a reporter wrote in 1935.
He was a farmer’s son and all his life had a farmer’s habits. In his youth in St. Marys, Ont., Meighen had sold twine door to door and remained a champion walker. The old man’s walks were “interminable,” his grandson Michael Meighen once told an interviewer.
As prime minister, Meighen walked 13 blocks to work at a military pace, then home for lunch – onion soup, two slices of brown bread, ice cream, coffee – then back to work, six days a week. Meighen had one vice, tobacco. He rolled his own cigarettes.
Most evenings he remained at home, working and smoking, and Cooper Street neighbours would stop by. “He lived in one of the plainest houses,” recalled one visitor, “with no celebrated fads, no celebrated pictures, not much music, but plenty of room for the juveniles.”
In time Meighen moved to Toronto and became a wealthy investment banker. He sold the place on Cooper Street in 1941, for $16,000. In 1957, long retired from politics, Meighen said: “I don’t regret my time in public life. I don’t have to make amends.”
He died in 1960. They demolished the place on Cooper Street in 1965. Today there is nothing to remind us of Meighen’s life in Ottawa.
By Andrew Elliott
Canadians widely oppose federal regulation of the internet says confidential in-house research by the Privy Council Office. Consumers, not cabinet, should determine what is fit to watch, wrote federal pollsters: “Most participants felt these decisions should primarily be left to the viewer.”
A federal advisory committee yesterday said Canadians may consider getting a Covid shot every 90 days. The Department of Health only weeks ago said a booster every nine months was sufficient: “The messaging has changed a little bit.”
The Public Health Agency of Canada has been censured for awarding a contract to the highest bidder. A lower priced supplier spotted the breach of regulations after the winning bidder mistakenly “replied all” in an email disclosing its price schedule: “At times like these Canadians must be assured their government is exercising responsible stewardship over public funds.”
Canada faces a persistent farm labour shortage despite hiring migrant workers, says a Department of Agriculture report. The findings follow a 2020 appeal by members of the Senate agriculture committee to have taxpayers pay bonuses to jobless Canadians to work in agriculture: “To put food on the table Canada needs to increase the hiring of its domestic workforce.”
Debt collectors will track accounts for years and never close a file even after a borrower’s death, according to industry practices detailed in the British Columbia Supreme Court. Commissions and billing practices were disclosed in a six-figure commercial dispute: “Collection may have to await distribution of a deceased or bankrupt debtor’s estate.”
Cabinet in confidential polling was told many Canadians supported the Freedom Convoy with a majority opposed to use of extraordinary police powers to end the protest, documents show. “Most felt this action represented significant over-reach,” pollsters told the Privy Council Office: “Participants were particularly unnerved by the reports of protesters and their supporters having their bank accounts frozen.”
Politics in Canada is toxic and bitter, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said yesterday. His remarks followed 2019 committee testimony by Trudeau’s Clerk of the Privy Council that “somebody’s going to be shot in this country.”
Department of Transport lawyers coached airlines on how to reject Canadians’ requests for vaccine waivers on religious grounds, according to Access To Information memos. Even passengers with legitimate claims were to be challenged every time they switched flights, wrote staff: “These types of exemptions are anticipated to be granted very rarely.”
The Privy Council Office spent $177,458 searching for Black and Indigenous appointees as deputy ministers, say Access To Information records. Corporate talent spotters found less than a handful of interested candidates: “The government expressed its priority to address systemic racism.”
Charging immigrants to take a citizenship test is not discriminatory, a federal judge has ruled. Lawyers had sought to certify a class action lawsuit claiming fees were unfair since other Canadians gained free citizenship by birth: “Canada is a country of immigrants.”
The Department of Immigration yesterday said it will book millions’ worth of hotel rooms to house Ukrainian refugees. Canada to date has approved 216,000 of 515,000 Ukrainian applications to come to Canada. Taxpayers will cover any room damage, it said: “The contractor must ensure additional room services or features typically available such as, but not limited to, in-room mini bars.”
A Montréal anti-Semite was able to “slip through the cracks” in successfully applying for taxpayers’ grants, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said yesterday. Cabinet to date has not explained why federal managers failed to conduct routine checks on the contractor: “It has to stop.”
