Annual pensions for retired MPs averaged $81,140 last year, according to new Treasury Board figures. Payments indexed to inflation went up 11.4 percent compounded in the past two years: “Pensions under the plan are indexed annually to cover increases in the cost of living.”
Federal hiring is so convoluted that jobseekers wait months after filling out “repetitive and time-consuming questionnaires,” says a Public Service Commission report. Even managers in charge of hiring complained paperwork was “burdensome.”
Federal compensation for Covid vaccine-related deaths and injuries has nearly tripled in two years, new figures showed yesterday. Managers of a Vaccine Injury Support Program had withheld scheduled reporting of payments for an undisclosed reason: ‘It is still a drug and there are potential risks even if they’re rare.’
A labour board has dismissed allegations by a former Teamsters business agent that his union failed to properly disclose use of members’ dues for “non-core” activities like political campaigns. Cabinet 10 years ago revoked an Act of Parliament that would have forced all unions to publish confidential financial records: “I’ve often wondered whether or not Bill C-377 would have passed if we had a secret ballot.”
Cabinet’s $393,000-a year science advisor Dr. Mona Nemer in a draft memo proposed to examine the feasibility of contacting alien civilizations. Nemer assigned seven employees to her Sky Canada Project at an undisclosed cost: “There are the problems of distances and timing. Two civilizations might not exist at the same time.”
An internal ArriveCan investigators’ report long sought by MPs has been sealed by Federal Court order. A judge blocked distribution of the findings at the request of Cameron MacDonald, a former Canada Border Services Agency director briefly suspended over the $63 million program: “The allegations each side makes against the other are most serious.”
The cost of keeping an inmate in federal prison averages $436 a day, a new record, according to Correctional Service figures. Inmates at women’s prisons were the most expensive at an average $779 per day: “The Correctional Service of Canada is among the highest resourced correctional systems in the world.”
Québec residents surveyed in a federal focus group say they’ve never heard of the Order of Canada. The civil honour has been awarded nearly 8,000 times since it was introduced 58 years ago: “None had any specific candidates in mind.”
A landmark human rights complaint involving schoolchildren with Down Syndrome was stalled 13 years by the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal, records show. The Tribunal said it was overworked: “Future delay will have far more of a negative impact in this case.”
The Department of Immigration in a briefing note admits it never sought “comprehensive security screening” of suspected Egyptian terrorists arrested a year ago for plotting an attack on Toronto. Then-Immigration Minister Marc Miller at the time defended his department’s handling of the case: “What the hell is going on?”
Canadians in Privy Council focus groups questioned cabinet’s rationale for record high immigration quotas. A pollsters’ report on the findings was delivered only weeks before then-Liberal leadership candidate Mark Carney announced “the system isn’t working.”
The Commons transport committee yesterday voted to investigate taxpayers’ financing of shipyard jobs in China. Members approved a motion by Conservative MP Dan Albas (Okanagan Lake West-South Kelowna, B.C.) to find who approved the use of “scarce public taxpayer dollars” to benefit a Chinese state-run company: “Remember the government that said ‘elbows up,’ ‘Canada strong,’ ‘we can build it together’?”
Blacklock’s legal challenge of theft of its work by federal managers is a test of passwords used by all publishers in Canada, says a secret memo to Heritage Minister Steven Guilbeault. A pending appeal in Blacklock’s Reporter v. Canada was being monitored closely, said the memo disclosed yesterday through Access To Information.
“This decision may create uncertainty among rights holders and users,” said the April 3 departmental memo Copyright Issues Raised In Blacklock’s Reporter v. Canada. “Officials are monitoring,” it added.
Blacklock’s is challenging a 2024 Federal Court ruling that government offices could lawfully share passwords to its paywalled stories without payment or permission. The decision came in the case of a Parks Canada manager Genevieve Patenaude who bought a $148 Blacklock’s password, the rate charged at the time, and despite repeated warnings shared it with any co-worker who asked, at least nine people, “if you ever need to access any Blacklock’s article.”
The Federal Court ruled while Patenaude made a “mistake,” Parks Canada had an “immediate interest in the articles for business related reasons” without paying the same fees it gave other licensees. The agency and the Department of Environment at the time budgeted more than $282,000 a year to read other media. Blacklock’s argued the password sharing was simple theft that violated the Copyright Act and undermined the commercial viability of unsubsidized media. A hearing on the appeal is scheduled for October 6.
The outcome has obvious implications for paywalled publishers from newspapers to video game distributors, said the Department of Canadian Heritage memo. “Rights holders have repeatedly expressed concerns over what they see as the expanding doctrine of fair dealing and erosion of their exclusive rights,” it said.
“The use of passwords to limit access to copyright protected content is a common business practice among online platforms including news sites, streaming services and video game digital distribution services,” said the memo. “Rights holders may be concerned that passwords and paywalls are no longer seen as effective technological protection measures.”
“Discourse that emerged after the decision has raised questions from copyright stakeholders about the strength of technological protection measures under Canada’s Copyright Act,” said the memo. “The decision is currently being appealed by Blacklock’s Reporter. Officials are monitoring the appeal process.”
“Abuse Of State Power”
Howard Law, former Unifor director of media, in a May 1 commentary Miles To Go: The Media Policy Work Of The 45th Parliament called government password-sharing “ill-considered” and counterintuitive. “It simply does not match up against the common sense reality of running a paywalled news business,” he wrote.
“The fact that Blacklock’s is editorially a thorn in the side of the government is the bad energy behind all of this,” wrote Law. “It’s a vindictive abuse of state power.”
Hugh Stephens, vice chair of the Canadian Committee on Pacific Economic Cooperation, last August 20 called the ruling a “license for piracy” that undermined all publishers. “Newspapers like the Globe & Mail and National Post, specialized journals like Blacklock’s, recreational publications like The Walrus or Maclean’s or various other online publications should be able to stand on their own feet and earn revenue from the valuable content they provide,” he wrote
“If that content is not worth paying for in the eyes of consumers, why produce it?” asked Stephens. “But a business model that is based primarily on getting paid by consumers for the content they consume is not viable if media products are free for the taking.”
Peter Menzies, former Calgary Herald publisher, last September 6 in a Globe & Mail commentary described government password-sharing as bizarre. “It should be obvious it is bizarre for Mr. Trudeau’s government to be going to the barricades to defend what it interprets as copyright user rights in a manner that could undermine an industry it has attempted to sustain,” he wrote.
Barry Sookman, senior counsel with McCarthy Tétrault LLP of Toronto, in a commentary last August 7 said the lower court ruling would harm all publishers. “The Blacklock’s Reporter court decision could leave online news services scratching their corporate heads asking whether after this decision they have any legal protection against subscribers, and especially Government of Canada subscribers, disavowing online subscription terms,” said his Critical Commentary Of The Blacklock’s Reporter-Parks Canada Decision.
By Staff 
The Northwest Mounted Police, once hailed for saving the West from U.S. annexation, were in fact paramilitary colonialists insensitive to Indigenous “political structures,” says a federal board. Parks Canada consultants who approved the revision included a cabinet appointee who deleted federal web pages celebrating the Mounted Police: “I feel very strongly.”
Main themes of the Liberal Party’s “elbows up” re-election campaign were tested in confidential federal focus groups months before the U.S. announced tariffs, documents show. Pollsters hired by the Privy Council found many Canadians were unsettled by Donald Trump and feared “mass layoffs” from tariffs.
