Claims of prompt call centre service by the Department of Veterans Affairs cannot be verified, auditors yesterday reported. The department claimed to answer 80 percent of calls within two minutes but would not let auditors examine actual records: “We wanted to verify the results.”
The Commons fisheries committee yesterday proposed sweeping reforms to what it depicted as a system of sharecropping in the commercial Pacific fishery. “It looks like we’ve created a modern-day feudal system,” said Liberal MP Ken Hardie (Fleetwood-Port Kells, B.C.).
Cabinet yesterday introduced legislation for first-ever independent oversight of the Canada Border Services Agency. Public Safety Minister Ralph Goodale acknowledged it’s the only police force in the country that is not monitored by a civilian board: ‘It is essential to ensuring the public’s confidence.’
Auditors yesterday said a federal ban on partisan government advertising appeared arbitrary and haphazard. Cabinet in 2016 promised to abolish partisan marketing at taxpayers’ expense: ‘A politically-sensitive campaign such as a climate change could avoid external review.’
Cabinet in an Inquiry Of Ministry tabled in the Commons says it does not have an actual list of agreeable journalists it assigns to write Liberal-friendly commentaries. “No such lists exists,” wrote staff: “Is that a common practice?”
Federal departments and agencies should fix quotas for hiring medically-released veterans, the Commons committee on government operations was told yesterday. Veterans and advocates complain of poor compliance with a 2015 Act that promised priority hiring for ex-soldiers, sailors and air crew: “How effective is the Act?”
The Correctional Service of Canada has failed a federal audit of prison food. Auditors complained of needless waste in the prison system’s $54.6 million-a year food budget: “No one is reviewing the reports.”
A federal judge has dismissed a complaint of discrimination against VIA Rail for failing the only woman to attend a locomotive engineer training course. The woman claimed VIA falsified her test scores after she refused a date with her instructor: “She was not successful in any aspect of the program.”
A parliamentary group was “positively received” on a $35,009 junket to China despite the arbitrary arrest of Canadians in the People’s Republic, says a report. Legislators and their Communist Party hosts expressed mutual admiration for Chinese history, wrote staff: ‘Norman Bethune was repeatedly discussed.’
The Crown agency managing the taxpayer-owned Trans Mountain Pipeline warns of risks over the “cost of the project” with continued construction delays. A subsidiary of the Canada Development Investment Corporation has borrowed $5.2 billion to date for the venture: “You promised.”
The Auditor General tomorrow will release a review of government advertising, the first since cabinet promised to outlaw partisan self-promotion. No bill was ever introduced. Cabinet in 2016 promised “future legislation” to abolish self-serving ads at public expense: “We want to make it absolutely clear.”
Cabinet expects the Supreme Court will have the final word on the legality of its national carbon tax. The first constitutional challenge of the tax in the Saskatchewan Court of Appeal fell on a split 3 to 2 ruling: “The Supreme Court will hear it, I’m sure.”
A federal judge has thrown out a lawsuit against MP Maxime Bernier’s People’s Party of Canada. A British Columbia businessman claimed to invent the Party’s name in 2015 but never registered it until the very day Bernier launched the official Party: “This is not a coincidence.”
Environment Canada says it still isn’t sure how it will pay $155 million in promised carbon tax rebates to small business this year. The rebates were promised last October 23: “It’s all stick and no carrot.”
Federal agencies including the RCMP since January 2 have awarded millions in new contracts to SNC-Lavalin Group Inc. even as government officials resigned over allegations of favouritism for the company. The Department of Public Works yesterday said the contracts were strictly routine though the firm faces trial on bribery and fraud charges: “SNC-Lavalin should be suspended.”
