The Parliamentary Budget Office yesterday calculated a Conservative Party proposal to roll back 2018 tax increases on small business and sole proprietors would cost $532 million next year. Farmers, restaurateurs and others had protested the hikes: “It’s very unfair.”
The Conservative Party yesterday proposed a national inquiry into money laundering in real estate. It follows a 2018 recommendation from the Commons finance committee that Parliament consider sanctions against lawyers suspected of aiding corrupt clients: “Government has an important role to play.”
A Department of Foreign Affairs art project in Paris went $45,000 over budget after staff incorrectly measured a wall, according to Access To Information records. The department amended the contract three times: “Canada’s diplomacy, culture and values will shine.”
A former Liberal cabinet minister is challenging cabinet in Federal Court over a national broadcasting license given to Rogers Media Inc. Cabinet earlier dismissed appeals over the granting of a lucrative ethnic TV license: “The decision defies logic.”
Federal regulators will resist any “pressure” to force labeling of genetically engineered foods, says a cabinet memo. Staff in Access To Information records estimate nearly three-quarters of processed foods sold in Canada have engineered ingredients: “Labeling would create increased costs.”
A federal tribute to Indigenous “kindness of spirit” in a historical story is unverified, based on hearsay and contradicted by archival records, says an award-winning filmmaker. The claim reported as fact by the Department of Public Works and CBC is contrary to all documentary evidence regarding the Komagata Maru incident, said the researcher: “The evidence is extremely clear.”
The Department of Social Development is compiling race-based statistics on student loan defaulters. Private consultants will be hired to conduct the unusual survey “outside the realm” of federal research: “The purpose of the survey will be to enrich the information collected from other sources.”
Canada needs a wild pig strategy to combat feral animals that may number in the millions, say Access To Information records at the Department of Agriculture. Biologists blame escaped wild Russian boars: “It is a problem.”
Cabinet has dropped any plans for a national handgun ban. A Liberal-appointed senator said Parliament should introduce a buy-back program for owners of 839,000 licensed handguns nationwide: “I’m really hoping the next Parliament will take some action.”
I see her taking
her last breaths.
Body frail,
she gently grabs my hand
as I pat her.
“Cancer,” the vet said.
She has been with us
for fifteen years,
sitting by my side
when I had my morning coffee,
jumping on the table
to position herself
on the paper I was reading.
No more pulse.
On the news,
Bianca Andreescu
becomes the first Canadian
to reach the singles final
in the US Open.
In Zimbabwe,
Robert Mugabe
died at 95.
And from the Bahamas,
first pictures
show the devastation
left by Hurricane Dorian.
Communities razed,
piles of splintered wood
where houses used to stand.
More than 60,000
need food, water.
Official death toll
30 and rising.
(Editor’s note: poet Shai Ben-Shalom, an Israeli-born biologist, examines current events in the Blacklock’s tradition each and every Sunday)
Clowning in blackface at public events shows the depths of systemic racism in Canada, says the chair of the Senate human rights committee. “I didn’t sleep very well last night,” said Senator Wanda Thomas Bernard (Independent-N.S.), an African-Canadian and former professor at Dalhousie University’s School of Social Work. “It weighed heavily on my mind. I felt a sense of hopelessness.”
Consumers paid little attention to political protests over the billion-dollar Canada Food Guide, says in-house research by the Department of Agriculture. Shoppers surveyed in five cities said they look at price, not health claims, at the grocery store: “Few seek any specific attributes when shopping for food.”
The Parliamentary Budget Office yesterday said a Conservative Party hike in tax credits for pensioners would cost more than half a billion next year. The cost of the Age Tax Credit is already projected to top $4 billion for the first time in 2020: “Seniors will benefit.”
The Green Party yesterday proposed to repeal the GST on medical cannabis and lower legal prices for recreational marijuana. Cabinet had grossly overestimated cannabis tax revenues at up to $1 billion a year, according to Access To Information records: “We should be growing cannabis in open fields.”
The Canadian Medical Association yesterday appealed to cabinet for an emergency ban on marketing of vaping products. Cabinet partially regulated vaping in a bill one senator called a “leap of faith”.
