A Liberal-appointed senator yesterday said he received so many abusive calls over his opposition to a Liberal bill that he told staff to stop answering the phone. “Canada is becoming a country of extremes,” said Senator Paul Prosper (N.S.): “Gone is the ability to have moderate social discourse.”
The Senate yesterday passed cabinet’s “nation building” bill under deadline imposed by Prime Minister Mark Carney. “I will trust,” said one senator.
A federal labour board has overturned the firing of a Service Canada clerk caught snooping through Employment Insurance claims. Evidence in the case showed it “was the office culture” to poke through private records: “In some quirky way, she believed she was being efficient because it only took two to three minutes.”
The Senate yesterday observed a seniority record with election of Senator Fabian Manning (Nfld. & Labrador) as chair of the fisheries committee for 14 consecutive years. “I never fished in my life,” joked Manning.
Fewer than 40 percent of federal transactions were actively tracked and monitored during the pandemic, the Treasury Board has disclosed. The figures follow warnings of waste and fraud in hurried contracting worth billions: “We can have the best laws in the world, but if nobody is ensuring oversight of the process, that’s where we wind up in problems of waste, of potential fraud.”
Liberal appointee Senator Yuen Pau Woo (B.C.) yesterday served notice of a motion to “examine the risks to Canada and Canadians of complicity” in alleged war crimes committed by Jews. Woo was among 11 Liberal appointees, a tenth of the Senate, to signed petitions accusing Israel of genocide: “We urge senators to do more.”
Senator Patrick Brazeau (Que.), 50, yesterday fainted on the Chamber floor, prompting an immediate suspension of Senate business. A medical doctor rushed to Brazeau’s aid as senators cried out: “Oh!”
Creation of a first-ever Canadian Financial Crimes Agency is now speculative though it was a 2021 Liberal Party campaign promise, a cabinet spokesperson said yesterday. The Party had pledged the new agency would coordinate white-collar crime units of the RCMP, Canada Revenue Agency and others: “When and where?”
No new sacrifice is expected of taxpayers under cabinet’s plan to increase defence spending sevenfold, Prime Minister Mark Carney said yesterday. Defence spending that totaled $34.6 billion last year is targeted to surpass $200 billion annually by 2035: “Can you outline what sacrifices you are expecting Canadians to make?”
A Crown bank, the Business Development Bank, yesterday invoked “solicitor-client privilege” in censoring all records regarding executive donations to the Liberal Party. Transport Minister Chrystia Freeland would not comment on whether she appointed the Bank’s chair as financial agent for her failed Liberal leadership campaign: “The records have been redacted.”
A federal program that doubled grants for women in trades was gamed by men who self-identified as female on application forms, says a Department of Employment report. Auditors did not estimate the scope of the problem: “Applications were approved based solely on the apprentice self-identifying as ‘female.'”
A federal labour board has upheld the dismissal of a Employment Insurance call centre worker censured for political comments in the workplace. Records showed the woman expressed resentment over Parliament Hill protests like Black Lives Matter, asking: “When will there be a day to remember white people?”
One of last of the smart meter scofflaws has been ordered by Québec Superior Court to permit utility crews to replace her old analog electricity meter. Smart meter mandates provoked years of litigation in provinces where they were enforced: “Out of 4,000,000 meters currently in service in Québec there are only five analog meters left.”
The Department of Fisheries will spend $110,000 on whale rescue training for staff. Federal employees had a duty to assist sea creatures in distress, it said: ‘This includes entanglements, strandings dead and live, ship strikes and other threats.’
A federal report suggests a buy-back of “assault style” firearms to be enforced from October 30 by Public Safety Minister Gary Anandasangaree’s department will be a costly failure. Few gun owners trust the government, it said: “As such the program faces a risk of non-compliance.”
