Covid vaccines are not 100 percent effective, says Dr. Theresa Tam, chief public health officer. “I was told I was such a downer when I was just trying to be realistic about communicating the fact it is not a magic solution,” said Tam.
Canada Post yesterday estimated of more than a thousand employees who’ve tested positive for Covid-19 fewer than two dozen contracted the illness at work. The post office has the largest civilian payroll in the federal public service, a total 68,000 including staff at subsidiaries: “Remarkable.”
Canadian energy exports to the U.S. are “bigger than any one project,” Environment Minister Jonathan Wilkinson said yesterday. Wilkinson spoke to climate change advocates on the expected U.S. cancellation of the $8 billion Keystone XL pipeline: “You have to be thoughtful.”
Former New Democrat MP Nathan Cullen (Skeena-Bulkley Valley, B.C.) was awarded a sole-sourced $41,000 federal contract to mediate an Indigenous pipeline dispute. Cullen has no Indigenous roots. “I grew up in Toronto,” he earlier told the Commons.
A federal agency that billed for junkets from Washington to Paris says it will cut air travel for the sake of climate change. The Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency charged more than $140,000 for flights in the year prior to pandemic travel bans: “Officials are required to travel regularly.”
The Department of Natural Resources is writing a marketing plan to boost its number of Facebook friends. Auditors disclosed department executives hold eleven meetings a week on communications and “storytelling.”
Legislators must press cabinet to roll pandemic relief programs into a permanent guaranteed income plan, members of an Anti-Poverty Caucus said yesterday. “We still have to aim for it in the budget,” said Senator Kim Pate (Ont.), a Liberal appointee: “We’re certainly well on our way.”
Cabinet has assigned fifty-three sedans and chauffeurs to federal executives not including cabinet members and the Governor General. Managers with cars and drivers include the deputy at the Department of Environment that proclaimed a climate crisis: “We need to work very quickly to address that.”
Elections Canada on Saturday named returning officers in all federal ridings nationwide. And cabinet in a Ministerial Mandate letter said it will speed a bill to enforce pandemic rules in a vote: “What happens when a province unfortunately goes through a very severe outbreak and has stay-in orders for its population?”
The Canada Revenue Agency says it will offer free credit protection to any 2021 tax filer who discovers they were victimized by identity thieves claiming $2,000 Canada Emergency Response Benefit cheques. The Agency to date has not disclosed the scope of fraud under the program that went 240 percent over budget: “Many Canadians had their identities stolen.”
Canadians should expect more intensive pandemic controls, says the Public Health Agency. Measures to date including lockdowns and curfews are insufficient, it said: “Do I absolutely need to go out today?”
Cabinet in a Ministerial Mandate letter proposes to “foster a vision for the Prairies.” The Liberal Party did not elect any candidates west of Winnipeg to the Rocky Mountains in the 2019 campaign: ‘It can get tough.’
The Department of Transport says it will “ensure” airlines refund billions in cash to customers whose prepaid flights were cancelled due to the pandemic. Federal regulators say they have logged more than 11,000 complaints from passengers who received vouchers as compensation: “Is the Government of Canada willing to back those tickets?”
The $675 million-a year Public Health Agency is hiring private contractors by the hour to manage its pandemic response. The plea for outside help follows the Prime Minister’s boast that Canada was “among the best prepared countries in the world” when Covid struck.
The Department of Health will spend more than $90,000 to encourage Canadians to eat more ‘culturally diverse’ foods. Staff awarded a contract to a Canada Food Guide consultant who complained too many white people run restaurants: “The wine industry is overwhelmingly white.”
