Parks Canada is budgeting $100,000 to select new colours for its trademark green signs as part of a ‘brand refresh’. Replacing thousands of signs would cost another $40 million. The agency yesterday complained too many Canadians only think of parks when they hear of Parks Canada: “The full potential of the brand is not maximized.”
Cabinet yesterday sped final approval of environmental assessment regulations just eight weeks after Parliament passed legislation. Environment Canada said it had to meet a deadline to enact new rules by summer’s end: “We listened to everyone.”
A physician defamed in comments posted on a website RateMDs.com has been awarded $100,000 in costs and damages. An Ontario Superior Court judge described the internet posts as “derogatory and degrading”.
Co-chairs of a charity that received $250,000 in federal election-year funding for civic literacy tweeted “joy” over the Conservatives’ defeat in the last campaign, and said opponents of the carbon tax were “happy to have their grandchildren fry”. The Department of Canadian Heritage approved the grant: “Pay attention to the groups Mr. Scheer is in cahoots with!”
Environment Minister Catherine McKenna in a constituency commentary says the 12¢-a litre carbon tax will create thousands of jobs. The claim was attributed to a study whose author yesterday said there are limits to carbon tax benefits: “It is complicated.”
The Federal Court of Appeal has upheld denial of Employment Insurance benefits to a receptionist fired for drinking off-duty. The woman was employed by a British Columbia First Nation with an alcohol ban: ‘It showed little tolerance.’
Dinners out with a spouse are not deductible, Tax Court has ruled. The judgment came in the case of a Halifax couple who claimed thousands in write-offs “eating by themselves” where they claimed to discuss a family business that never turned a profit: “My wife and I talked about the business so that it would be included for tax purposes.”
One in five taxpayers, 20 percent, tell the Canada Revenue Agency it’s worth the risk to cheat on yearly returns, says in-house research. The Agency rated 13 percent of tax filers as “outlaws”, especially residents in two regions of the country: “I don’t think of tax cheating as a real crime.”
One federal department spent millions a year on new computers while it sold or scrapped near-new equipment at the same time. Auditors at the Department of Fisheries also cited management for pointlessly storing thousands of old hard drives for years, even decades: “Errors were found to be significant.”
A federal judge yesterday approved payment of one of the largest legal bills in Canadian history, a total $62 million in an out-of-court settlement with former Indian Day School students. “This was always a risky case,” wrote Federal Court Justice Michael Phelan: ‘Risk should be rewarded.’
Privacy Commissioner Daniel Therrien is months late in completing a promised review of federal plans to scoop bank records on some 1.5 million Canadians. Therrien’s office would not explain why it missed a June 21 deadline to report to the public: “Do you think there’s a problem there?”
An Information Commissioner in the harshest verdict to date has cited a public agency for wholesale violations of Access To Information law. Nova Scotia Commissioner Catherine Tully faulted the province’s Department of Energy for overcharging fees, hiding records and stalling disclosure of documents for years at a time.
“It has been unbelievable,” said Paul Einarsson, chair of Geophysical Service Inc. of Calgary, the complainant in the case. “These people were only out to protect the government. The Commissioner’s language is descriptive of what was going on here. It is outrageous.”
Commissioner Tully in her Review Report 19-06 ruled the Department’s misconduct was so egregious it must repay the fees it charged, and reprocess the entire search for records it started five years ago. It was not for the Department to “make the applicant jump through further administrative hoops”, wrote Tully.
Geophysical Service had asked the Department for records regarding use of the company’s copyright underwater seismic maps sold to oil and gas companies. Einarsson said the firm discovered numerous federal and provincial agencies in Alberta, Ontario, Nova Scotia and Newfoundland & Labrador resold or gave away its data without payment or permission.
Geophysical’s request under the Nova Scotia Freedom Of Information And Protection Of Privacy Act was filed in 2015. Commissioner Cullen found the Department of Energy responded by overcharging the company 32 percent on search fees. “The Department’s math doesn’t add up,” she wrote.
The Commissioner also cited staff for concealing data as personal information when it was “clearly not”; improperly withholding 832 pages of records it deemed “no longer relevant” though most were “clearly relevant”; hiding documents “for no apparent reason under the law”; and delaying the release of files four-and-a-half years.
“In one case it simply restarted the clock for itself,” wrote the Commissioner: “This is without question a case where the Department has made so many errors and was so late in response to this applicant that one obvious remedy is that the Department refund any fees paid.”
“The Department took a number of steps that convinced the applicant the Department was actively hiding information and using the access to information process to thwart the applicant’s right to know,” said the report.
Geophysical’s Einarsson was charged $990 for his initial request for documents. Under the Act fees must reflect actual costs of retrieving records. “The Department did not keep track of the actual cost,” said the report.
Einarsson said he doubted the refund would serve as any deterrent to public agencies that flout Access To Information laws. “Money is not an issue for these people,” said Einarsson. “They are out to withhold information. That is the value they get out of it.”
“The Access To Information system is basically broken,” said Einarsson. “It is a joke.”
The Department of Energy has thirty days to file any appeal of the ruling with the Nova Scotia Supreme Court.
By Staff 
Canadian drivers are suspicious of robot cars, says in-house research by the Department of Transportation. Only 33 percent of motorists surveyed said they would be comfortable as a passenger in a fully automated vehicle: “My driving is good.”
A federally-regulated trucking company has been ordered to pay $7,000 in damages after a manager uttered a racial slur against an Indigenous driver. The incident was despicable, ruled the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal: “These types of racial insults are highly reprehensible.”
A public employee in Alberta has lost a bid to divert union dues to a local charity. The Alberta Labour Relations Board ruled there was no evidence the applicant was sincere: “They said I was vexatious and just trying to stir up trouble.”
