Cabinet has proposed 11th hour amendments to the Fisheries Act to allow more exemptions to habitat protection. The changes introduced in the Senate fisheries committee follow lobbying by farmers and industry: “The government is balancing the needs.”
Health Canada faces a federal lawsuit over its long phase-out of a pesticide rated lethal to bees. Four environmental groups in a Federal Court application allege regulators breached their own Act: ‘The effect is the environment is exposed to unacceptable risk for years.’
Federal agencies will publish an A-list of newspapers and websites deemed reliable under a multi-million dollar subsidy program, the Department of Finance yesterday told the Senate national finance committee. Subsidies to federally-approved news media invite government meddling in a free press, cautioned one senator.
“The rules themselves allow for the publication of a list of qualifying journalism organizations,” said Trevor McGowan, director general of tax legislation: “It would allow for, say, the Canada Revenue Agency to have a list saying here are the organizations that qualify for the digital tax credits. You could go to that list.”
Bill C-97 the Budget Implementation Act proposes a 15 percent tax credit to a maximum $75 for subscribers of websites operated by a “qualified Canadian journalism organization”. Criteria are not known. The tax credit is projected to cost $11 million in 2020. It expires in 2024.
The bill also amends the Income Tax Act to offer lucrative payroll subsidies for news organizations “primarily engaged in the production of original written news content”. A total $360 million would be paid over four years through a 25 percent payroll tax credit for publishers, the equivalent of a maximum $13,750 per newsroom employee, retroactive to January 1, 2019.
An unnamed cabinet-appointed group will decide which media qualify for subsidies. “The government will decide whether or not to change certain criteria,” said Maude Lavoie, Finance Canada director general of business tax programs.
Senator Raynell Andreychuk (Conservative-Sask.), chair of the foreign relations committee, yesterday described the subsidy program as troubling. “I’m very concerned that Canada has been one of the countries that that has staunchly talked about freedom of the press,” said Andreychuk. “We know how many journalists have lost their lives. So, we monitor and fight back and say democracy is the free press, an independent judiciary. And here we’re going to be setting up criteria by the government to get government funds.”
“Manipulation Of The Press”
“In the countries I’ve worked, survival for a lot of people to get their information meant they had to go to the government,” said Andreychuk. “And I’ve watched how original rules might have had good intentions, but we don’t know what’s going to happen down the line. Sometimes we look the other way and we wake up and find there is manipulation of the press.”
“I’m worried here you have criteria, you’ll have to jump those; selection committees appointed by the government – we’re intruding on the freedom of the press,” said Andreychuk. “It may not be our intention; it’s the survival of newspapers. But we’re going to be creating opportunities for others to come in, and we may not be really helping those we intended to in the first place.”
“To me it’s very dangerous ground, and it shouldn’t be through a tax credit,” said Andreychuk. “It should be wide open as a debate for Canadians, whether this is the way to support a freer press, a press that’s struggling against bloggers and the new internet systems, tweets and whatever else. I think it’s a bigger national debate than a question tucked into a tax bill.”
“We all want to encourage the survival of the press, whether it’s in a small town or elsewhere, but if we start down this road, with these criteria, with government setting that criteria and interpreting that criteria, I think we’re on the wrong road,” said Andreychuk.
“Those are very important and understandable concerns,” replied Pierre Leblanc, the finance department’s director general of personal income tax: “Your concern is certainly heard.”
The department suggested details of the program have been finalized by cabinet, but remain unannounced. “We’re not in a position to talk about specific news organizations,” said Director General Leblanc.
“What frightens me about some of these things is there are a lot of assumptions and you’re not willing to provide us with hard facts,” said Senator Nicole Eaton (Conservative-Ont.)
By Staff 
Attorney General David Lametti last night told the Commons he has not offered SNC-Lavalin Group Inc. any out-of-court settlement of fraud and bribery charges. Lametti said he discussed the company’s legal troubles with two aides to the Prime Minister, but “felt no pressure”.
The Canada Revenue Agency is grossly overstaffed, the Commons finance committee was told yesterday. The Agency has five times the number of agents per capita, and three times per actual taxpayer, than the U.S. Internal Revenue Service: “How is that possible?”
A Liberal senator yesterday asked Finance Minister Bill Morneau “why should I vote for you” over inadequate federal measures to curb tax avoidance. The Senate last November 27 passed a private Liberal bill compelling the Canada Revenue Agency to publish a yearly blacklist of tax cheats, including those with offshore accounts: “What are you waiting for?”
The RCMP in an internal audit acknowledge they’ve failed to meet equity hiring targets. Auditors blamed a decline in overall recruitment: “The pool is limited.”
The Senate last night unanimously passed a cabinet bill to remove accessibility barriers nationwide. A handful of amendments must still be ratified by the Commons before the bill becomes law: “We can get to work.”
An unidentified Canada Revenue Agency employee was cited for snooping through nearly 700 tax files, according to Access To Information records. A federal labour board in 2016 upheld firing as discipline for Agency staff who browse taxpayers’ private information: “Don’t put your careers on the line.”
Electric vehicles cost too much and are unreliable in winter conditions, says a Crown agency. The analysis by Defence Research & Development Canada contradicts a $5,000 federal rebate program to promote sales of electric passenger cars: “Hybrid vehicles would be difficult to justify on cost alone.”
Looters who prey on flood and fire victims would face harsher sentencing under a private Conservative bill yesterday introduced in the Commons. “This is a common sense change,” said the bill’s sponsor: “People were outraged.”
A dentist who fired an assistant for getting pregnant must pay $20,000 in damages, a human rights tribunal has ruled. The employer was also ordered to take an anti-discrimination course: “It was not legal to terminate someone based on pregnancy.”
The national carbon tax and new climate change regulations to be detailed in June will cost Canadian households about $1,395 a year by 2030, says an Alberta think tank. The Department of the Environment has not publicly estimated the impact on homeowners and commuters: “It is the first policy in the world that will cover such a wide array of fuels.”
A commercial landlord’s hasty scrawl on a scrap of paper is a legitimate contract, Québec Superior Court has ruled. The Court noted under the Québec Civil Code, contracts don’t have to be neatly typed, witnessed and notarized to be legally binding: “Mere proof of a verbal agreement is sufficient.”
The Green Party would use its influence in any future minority Parliament to regulate carbon emissions as a public health hazard, says its federal leader. The Greens since 2017 have made gains in four provincial legislatures and won their first federal byelection: ‘The federal government can regulate pollution that might kill you.’
