Pandemic wage subsidies will cost $83.6 billion by year’s end and are expected to surpass $100 billion this winter. The Department of Finance would not comment on the final cost: “It was like arriving at a house fire.”
Commercial airlines may cancel domestic flights with a simple sixty-day website notice under a regulatory waiver by the Canadian Transportation Agency. The Agency said the measure should come as no surprise for smaller airports hit with pandemic shutdowns: ‘Affected communities will not be taken by surprise.’
Parliament gave nearly half a billion in foreign aid to Ukraine without any overall plan to ensure money was spent wisely, says a Department of Foreign Affairs audit. The report concluded Canada “did not respond cohesively” to needs in the poorest parts of the country, but hired a gender equality advisor at its embassy in Kyiv: ‘Ukraine remains one of the poorest countries in Europe.’
Men-only boards of directors at Crown corporations would be abolished under a private bill introduced in the Commons. One federal agency to date has no women directors: “This is unacceptable.”
Excess capital
of Toronto-Dominion Bank
nearly 6 billion.
Bank of Montreal
3 billion.
Best year since 2013
for the country’s six largest banks.
“Great to have capital flexibility,”
says Royal Bank.
“We like the optionality of a higher capital level,”
says Scotiabank.
Meanwhile, Canada’s national debt
grows $600 per second,
inching towards a trillion.
(Editor’s note: poet Shai Ben-Shalom, an Israeli-born biologist, examines current events in the Blacklock’s tradition each and every Sunday)
Liberal MPs last night again filibustered a vote of the Commons ethics committee over disclosure of corporate sponsorship fees paid to the Prime Minister’s mother and family. “My God there’s got to be something juicy in those documents,” said New Democrat MP Charlie Angus (Timmins-James Bay, Ont.).
Liberal MPs last night spent 11 hours and 14 minutes blocking a vote to force disclosure of uncensored We Charity documents. The filibuster at the Commons finance committee is to resume today. “They always say you have to repeat things six or seven times for it actually to sort of stick in someone’s mind,” said Liberal MP Julie Dzerowicz (Davenport, Ont.).
Executive pay at a Crown bank should ‘raise eyebrows’ for taxpayers, MPs said yesterday. The Canada Infrastructure Bank last year paid more in “termination benefits” than it did in salaries for senior managers: “The Bank is pretty clearly a failed experiment.”
A federal environmental program paid out millions in grants without proof the subsidies had any impact. Auditors at the Department of Fisheries found more than a third of grant recipients failed to report on what they did with the money: “Reporting is inconsistent.”
The Supreme Court yesterday confirmed it will hear an appeal on whether unregulated free photocopying is legal under Canadian copyright law. Two lower courts ruled mass photocopying of books and articles for university course packs is improper: “Publishers indicate they have been damaged.”
The Bloc Québécois yesterday served notice of a motion to have Parliament create a permanent subsidy fund for newspapers like in France. Canadians publishers who successfully lobbied in 2019 for a half-billion bailout argued taxpayers’ aid should not become permanent: “We will have to save ourselves.”
The Senate will pay $528,000 to settle harassment claims by former employees of ex-senator Don Meredith (Ont.). A retired judge who recommended payment of damages called it a “unique and sad episode” in Senate history: “Almost all complainants described their work experience as ‘the worst thing that ever happened to me.'”
A British Columbia court has upheld a 47 percent loan interest rate as legal. A bill to lower the federal usury rate to 45 percent lapsed in the Senate two years ago: “Recognize it for what it is, a premium that the poorest pay when they borrow to meet their basic needs.”
Federal GST audits are more cost effective than cumbersome investigations of income tax cases, says a Canada Revenue Agency study. It follows complaints from business owners and accountants that auditors avoid “larger fish” in tracking tax avoidance: “You’re picking the low-hanging fruit.”
The federal oil and gas regulator spent nearly $60,000 to find few Canadians have heard of it. The Canada Energy Regulator has operated in Calgary since 1959 but changed its name last year: “Canadians either do not know the Board or misunderstand it.”
