Environment Minister Jonathan Wilkinson faces a Federal Court challenge after listing all “plastic manufactured items” as toxic. A coalition of oil and chemical companies filed its claim only six days after Wilkinson issued the order, calling it “unreasonable,” “political,” “flawed,” “wrong in law” and “based on conjecture, not evidence.”
Heritage Minister Steven Guilbeault’s YouTube regulation bill C-10 yesterday was rewritten by MPs to acknowledge “freedom of expression guaranteed to users of social media.” The Commons heritage committee deferred a vote to ban regulation of private users’ uploaded content altogether: “You can never be too careful.”
No federal law allows any government to mandate Covid-19 vaccine passports, Privacy Commissioner Daniel Therrien said yesterday. “So far we have not been presented with evidence of vaccine effectiveness to prevent transmission,” said Therrien: “It is an encroachment on civil liberties.”
The Department of Health yesterday said it will issue more rigorous safety guidelines to protect farmers handling a common pesticide sold since 1995. The department would not comment on risks of past exposure to imidacloprid: “A lack of evidence of risk is not the same as evidence of no risk.”
Cabinet must regulate Arctic shipping, the Transportation Safety Board said yesterday. The recommendation followed an investigation of the 2018 grounding of a passenger ship, the Akademik Ioffe: “Insurance costs will play a much bigger role than climate change.”
An estimated 58,000 small businesses have permanently closed with another 180,000 in peril, the Senate national finance committee was told yesterday. The 2008 recession saw 158,000 bankruptcy filings, by federal estimate. “The stress that business owners are under is incredible,” testified Dan Kelly, CEO of the Canadian Federation of Independent Business: “Those businesses were closed down in order to protect society.”
“Rights and freedoms can be limited,” Attorney General David Lametti yesterday told the Commons heritage committee. Lametti spoke in favour of first-ever federal regulation of legal internet content under Bill C-10 An Act To Amend The Broadcasting Act: “I am not here to give legal advice.”
Just because prices are up doesn’t mean there is inflation, former Bank of Canada governor Stephen Poloz yesterday told the Commons finance committee. “I hope you’re right,” said one MP. “I hope so too,” replied Poloz.
Parliament must get “dirty money” out of real estate, brokers yesterday told the Commons finance committee. Cabinet has proposed to create a searchable website listing by name all directors and “beneficial owners” of corporations doing business in Canada: “Realtors do not want to see a single dollar of dirty money.”
The Department of Finance yesterday said it will gauge expected losses in case disaster strikes in earthquake hot zones. Uninsured property damage would run into the billions: “Canada has two significant earthquake risk zones.”
A Covid Alert app downloaded by more than six million Canadians is being used for data collection, says a federal panel. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau had promised users’ privacy would be respected when the app was launched eleven months ago: “It’s something you can just download and forget about.”
Heritage Minister Stephen Guilbeault’s internet regulation bill would control the web “in ways reminiscent of actions taken by authoritarian governments,” two ex-CRTC commissioners and a former federal director of telecom policy said yesterday. Guilbeault on Monday gained enough votes from the Bloc Québécois to push Bill C-10 through the minority Parliament: “Canada is not immune to the growing trend of government intervention to curtail freedom.”
The Bank of Canada is tightening verification of claims for dormant accounts after approving millions in suspicious payments. Cabinet is amending the Bank Of Canada Act to require that people seeking unclaimed cash prove they owned the account in the first place: “We do not want the Bank to appear to be a dysfunctional bureaucracy.”
Ex-military in Canada typically earn an average $68,370 in their first year of return to civilian life, says the Department of Veterans Affairs. The figures follow repeated claims of widespread homelessness among ex-army, navy and air force personnel: “Few experienced low income.”
You can’t breed whales in captivity without a federal permit, Fisheries Minister Bernadette Jordan said yesterday. New regulations follow Parliament’s 2019 passage of a bill targeting just two facilities in Canada with whales and dolphins: “Go back to National Geographic.”
