Federal bank regulators are hiring coaches to help answer rapid-fire questions at parliamentary committee hearings. The key is to appear “in comfort and with confidence” when answering queries in mere seconds, said the Office of the Superintendent of Financial Institutions: “The objective of the coaching sessions is to upgrade and sharpen Office employees’ parliamentary appearance skills.”
The movie starts
shortly after takeoff.
By the time we cross
the Caribbean Sea,
Tom Cruise changes identity,
intercepts an armoured convoy in Paris,
flown a burning helicopter
into a mid-air collision over Kashmir
and saves the world
from a nuclear disaster.
The young couple
seated behind me
still haven’t figured out
how to calm their baby.
(Editor’s note: poet Shai Ben-Shalom, an Israeli-born biologist, writes for Blacklock’s each and every Sunday)
Civil liberties groups yesterday launched legal and letter-writing campaigns against an Emergencies Act crackdown on truckers protesting outside Parliament. The Freedom Convoy blockade was admittedly disruptive but nothing close to a national emergency, lawyers said: “It is wrong. It is unconstitutional. It is undemocratic.”
Cabinet has approved the freezing of an undisclosed number of bank accounts belonging to Freedom Convoy truckers, Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland said yesterday. “Accounts have been frozen and more accounts will be frozen,” Freeland told reporters: “Consequences are real and they will bite.”
Canadian parents are wary of vaccinating kindergartners and resent being made to “feel guilty” by federal regulators, says in-house research by the Privy Council Office. Vaccination rates for young children are the lowest of any age group: ‘They objected to what they saw as an attempt to make them feel guilty and worried about the well-being of their children.’
The record number of uncounted mail-in ballots in the last election was “unfortunate,” Chief Electoral Officer Stéphane Perrault said yesterday. Elections Canada will track thousands of ballot kits reported as unused, he said: “These are people who wanted to cast a ballot but we were not able to count them.”
A telecom executive yesterday told the Commons ethics committee individual cellphone users’ personal data was never given to federal agents. The Public Health Agency compiled data on millions of cellphone users in the name of monitoring compliance with lockdown orders: “Telus did not share any personal information with the government, not one iota.”
Cabinet last evening at 6:29 pm Eastern tabled a Commons motion seeking “confirmation of a declaration of emergency” over the Freedom Convoy truckers blockade now in its 21st day outside Parliament. MPs today will open debate on the motion to grant police extraordinary powers to punish truckers protesting vaccine mandates: “Do you think you need to use force to get rid of the protesters?”
The Commons yesterday erupted in angry protest after Prime Minister Justin Trudeau accused a Jewish MP of standing “with people who wave swastikas.” Conservative MP Melissa Lantsman (Thornhill, Ont.), representing the Commons’ most Jewish riding, called the incident a disgrace: “I have never been made to feel less except for today.”
New Democrat leader Jagmeet Singh yesterday said his 25-member caucus will cast votes needed by cabinet to force an end to a Freedom Convoy blockade outside Parliament. Bloc Québécois MPs heckled Singh to “think carefully” before voting for the Emergencies Act: “Are you concerned the powers being used against the protesters from the convoy could one day be used against protesters on the left?”
Cabinet will not issue any medals in observance of the Queen’s platinum jubilee, the Department of Canadian Heritage said yesterday. No reason was given. Elizabeth this June becomes the world’s longest reigning monarch of the past 300 years: “What are we ashamed of? Is it that striking a medal is old-fashioned?”
The Department of Health is late with a mandatory review of the impact of legal cannabis. Canada became only the second country in the world after Uruguay to legalize recreational marijuana in 2018: “Cannabis has become more normalized.”
Police may break up any public gathering deemed an “illegal assembly” under an Emergencies Act order signed by cabinet. Public Safety Minister Marco Mendicino yesterday said extraordinary measures were needed to contain a “very small organized group” of Freedom Convoy truckers he claimed wanted to topple the federal government: “People who live in Ottawa do not feel safe right now.”
Commons Speaker Anthony Rota offered reporters armed guards at taxpayers’ expense after the Parliamentary Press Gallery complained it was troubled by Freedom Convoy truck drivers. Parliament Hill guards armed with federal-issue handguns were available to keep reporters safe, said Rota: “I have followed up with the Sergeant-at-Arms.”
The National War Memorial has attracted numerous vandals in the past five years, the Commons veterans affairs committee was told last night. A police investigation remains underway for a mystery woman in a parka who jumped on the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier: “It’s very emotional to see.”
