A fake travel agent has been sentenced to ten weeks in jail for peddling holiday cruises as a purported fundraiser for combat veterans. An Ontario Provincial Court judge depicted the woman as a habitual liar: “She sold these trips to anyone who would pay money.”
The Department of Environment in a confidential 2017 briefing note planned future increases in the carbon tax, but withheld the fact from voters. Then-Environment Minister Catherine McKenna publicly denied any tax hike was considered: “This is not some sort of election trickery.”
SNC-Lavalin Group Inc. must be blacklisted as a federal contractor after pleading guilty to fraud, says an MP. The engineering firm received more than $19 million in federal contracts in the past year as it awaited trial: “We look like a banana republic.”
Canadian Pacific Railway Co. goes to trial in Federal Court in January to press a claim it doesn’t have to pay income tax. The long-running dispute turns on a 138-year old contract signed by the company and a Minister of Railways who died in 1915: “The underlying litigation dates back to the formation of Canada.”
Newcomers to Canada cannot claim citizenship if they don’t take the oath, the Federal Court has ruled. The judgment came on appeal by a Saudi businessman who passed his citizenship test, received his papers and was only two days from swearing the oath when the Department of Immigration uncovered a problem: “Becoming a Canadian citizen is a privilege.”
There are few environmental benefits to show for a quarter billion dollars spent on green technology subsidies, say federal auditors. More taxpayer aid is needed, concluded a Department of Natural Resources report: “Demand for clean energy is not sufficient.”
A federal agency has spent more than $100 million in the Chinese coal industry even as cabinet’s climate change plan proposes to eliminate Canadian coal-fired power plants. The Canada Pension Plan Investment Board yesterday did not comment: “The whole world needs to phase out coal.”
Workplace bans on kilts are not discriminatory, says a human rights tribunal. The judgment came on appeal by a Scottish-Canadian transit bus driver censured for wearing a kilt on casual Friday: “Wearing a kilt is not intimately connected to his Scottish ancestry.”
Finance Minister Bill Morneau yesterday would not commit to rewriting terms of a 1967 program intended to compensate provinces for catastrophic revenue shocks. “We are not at the stage where we have a conclusion,” Morneau told reporters.
Canadians could “learn” from China, say three senators and an ex-New Democrat MP. The parliamentary friendship group met overseas with Communist Party officials even as police used tear gas against pro-democracy protestors in Hong Kong: “Both countries have a long relationship that has been productive in many respects.”
A majority of teenage marijuana users, 51 percent, tell the Department of Health they “have cannabis in or around the home” since Parliament legalized marijuana. Federal research showed the typical Canadian now considers marijuana more socially acceptable than tobacco: “Can cannabis smoke be harmful?”
A federal agency has been found guilty of breaching air pollution regulations even as MPs prepared to declare a climate emergency. British Columbia’s Prince Rupert Port Authority started a slow-burning garbage fire so toxic, nearby residents complained of sore throats, burning eyes and asthma attacks: “Climate change is increasingly a climate emergency.”
The federal deficit is 34 percent higher than disclosed prior to the election, Finance Minister Bill Morneau said yesterday. This year’s deficit will be the highest since 2013 and will rise again in 2020: “Nobody said it was going to be easy.”
Parliament will police what Canadians put on Facebook, YouTube and Twitter, reversing a decades-old policy against internet regulation. Cabinet in a document said content must be controlled in the name of public safety: ‘This is deeply disturbing.’
Cabinet is expanding rebates for electric car buyers though it has no data on whether existing $300 million subsidies have met climate change targets. Rebates will now be offered to buyers of used zero-emission vehicles: “Why do we need this?”
