Blacklock's Reporter

Political aides yesterday flew an Indigenous “survivors’ flag” at Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s office in solemn observance of National Day for Truth and Reconciliation. Trudeau was holidaying at the seaside town of Tofino, B.C. at the time, Global News confirmed: ‘It would be an insult if this were to become yet another paid day at the cottage.’

Academics and human rights advocates say an internet censorship bill proposed by Heritage Minister Steven Guilbeault is “aggressive,” “punitive” and “disturbing.” The bill to be introduced after lapsing in the last Parliament would penalize bloggers, Facebook users and internet publishers for legal content deemed harmful: ‘The proposals fail to account for the importance of protecting political dissent.’

The Department of Immigration in an internal email said it was looking to provide free accommodation for some 1,000 illegal immigrants and asylum seekers as a pandemic precaution. Costs were not detailed: “How many illegal migrants have entered Canada since the start of the pandemic?”

Dueling medical experts in an Ontario Superior Court case could not agree on how Covid is spread after eighteen months of evidence. “It is enough to note they are different,” wrote the Court: “We are not required to have to choose the opinion of one over the other.”

Tax Court has rejected claims for an eight-figure charitable credit by the estate of a millionaire philanthropist. Evidence showed Edmond Odette’s heirs arranged a $17.7 million credit on an IOU: “The plan failed.”

Political aides in the Prime Minister’s Office instructed staff to “work in some compassionate lines about caring” in public statements on mask shortages at nursing homes, according to internal emails. Most Covid victims in Canada were over 80: “It feels weird that there’s nothing we can do.”

The Toronto-Dominion Bank withheld promised fee discounts from half a million seniors in Canada, according to a federal investigation. The Bank yesterday was fined $400,000 for breach of the Bank Act but saved $31 million by withholding seniors’ rebates: “TD does not dispute these totals.”

Cabinet faces up to $15 billion in costs after a federal judge yesterday upheld claims of systemic underfunding of First Nations child welfare programs. Federal lawyers had fought the case since 2007: “No one can seriously doubt First Nations people are among the most disadvantaged.”

Attorney General David Lametti’s department commissioned in-house research on racial profiling by traffic police in the aftermath of the George Floyd case. The $147,463 study found Canadian drivers pulled over admitted their own wrongdoing and saw no evidence of bias: “They did not perceive they were being targeted in any way.”

A $157,000-a year justice of the peace has lost her job after publishing a newspaper commentary. “The misconduct was very serious,” the Ontario Superior Court ruled in dismissing a claim of free speech: “She defended it as accurate and truthful.”

A single complaint from a passerby prompted the Department of Public Works to budget more than $103,000 to restore a sculpture outside the post office in Stouffville, Ont., according to Access To Information records. The fading artwork nicknamed “the lemon” by local ratepayers was in a cabinet minister’s riding: “This is embarrassing.”

Most Canadians expect to carry the impact of pandemic debts into retirement, the Canadian Institute of Actuaries said yesterday. Researchers found the financial fallout from Covid was so bleak more than one in ten Canadians, 14 percent, said they “do not expect to ever retire.”

A frustrated contractor told the Department of Public Works it was “killing our doctors and nurses” by rationing pandemic masks from the outbreak of Covid, according to internal emails. Shortages caused by mismanagement of a national stockpile were “beyond embarrassing,” said a Canadian distributor: “It’s approaching negligence.”

Immigrants and visible minorities have more pride in Canada’s treatment of ethnic groups than white people, Statistics Canada said yesterday. The agency said most Black, Asian and Arab-Canadians were prouder of the nation’s achievements than whites: “Immigrant respondents, 63 percent, were more likely than Canadian-born respondents (43 percent) to be proud of Canada’s treatment of all groups in society.”