The labour department says it will not name owners of eight factories that illegally hired migrant farmworkers. Staff claimed disclosure would breach the Access To Information Act, though more than a hundred other scofflaws are identified on a federal website: “The names of the employers cannot be provided.”
Canadian factories are getting pounded by 2018 Trump tariffs on steel and aluminum, says the chair of the Commons trade committee. A committee report urges that cabinet consider all “potential actions” to lift punishing cross-border duties: “Is there hurt out there? Yes there is.”
A Québec judge has dismissed a class action lawsuit against Subway over its sale of chicken sandwiches. The Court said a 2017 CBC Marketplace report that prompted the lawsuit was of little value: “There is no misrepresentation.”
The Conservative chair of the Senate transport committee yesterday invoked Chuck Berry and the Minnesota Vikings in ridiculing complaints over a turn of phrase he used in a speech at a public rally. Liberals described the language as too violent.
“Ridiculous,” said Senator David Tkachuk (Sask.): “I’m not going to apologize for a figure of speech. Everybody knows exactly what I meant.”
Tkachuk on February 19 spoke to a Parliament Hill rally of United We Roll protestors, a convoy of truckers, farmers and contractors that staged two days of demonstrations outside the Commons chamber. Protestors opposed Bill C-69 An Act To Enact The Impact Assessment Act that rewrites oil and gas permit regulations, and the 2018 Greenhouse Gas Pollution Pricing Act mandating a national carbon tax.
Senator Tkachuk in a YouTube excerpt of his speech stated: “I know you’ve rolled all the way here, and I’m going to ask you one more thing. I want you to roll over every Liberal left in the country, because when they’re gone, these bills are gone. Thank you very much. The very best of luck.”
Critics yesterday demanded Tkachuk apologize. “I’m a Liberal,” said Senator Dennis Dawson (Que.). “I have to be careful when I cross the street because they are around the Hill, and you encouraged them to roll over me.”
Senator Terry Mercer (N.S.), Deputy Leader of the Senate Liberal caucus, called the phrase unparliamentary. “I’m concerned some would interpret these remarks as advocating physical violence against the supporters of a particular party, including parliamentarians,” said Mercer.
“I was using a figure of speech playing on the United We Roll slogan, and referring to defeating every single Liberal in the next election which would kill the bill,” replied Senator Tkachuk. “Every trucker understood exactly what I said, but the Liberals seem to have a problem.”
“I’m sure when Chuck Berry said ‘Roll Over Beethoven’ he was not talking about rolling over the corpse of Beethoven,” said Tkachuk. “I’m sure when the Minnesota Vikings call their linemen the ‘Purple People Eaters’ they didn’t exactly mean that they were eating purple people. When the Orange Crush of the Denver Broncos were called the ‘Orange Crush’ no one believes they were really crushing oranges.”
Senator Frances Lankin (Independent-Ont.) said she considered the remark inappropriate “in these days of hate crimes and vehicular violence”: “You could apologize that people are taking it that way and make it clear we stand united in abhorring violence,” said Lankin.
Replied Senator Tkachuk: “If any feelings were hurt I hope you find a safe place, but I’ll tell you I want the same apology from all the rest of you the next time you call Conservatives racist, the next time you call us bigots and say we associate with those people, because the Liberal Party does it all the time.”
By Staff 
The Commons by a vote of 159 to 133 yesterday rejected a judicial inquiry into alleged political interference in the criminal prosecution of SNC-Lavalin Group Inc. The House fell silent as former attorney general Jody Wilson-Raybould vowed to “speak my truth” on why she quit cabinet, and whether the Prime Minister’s Office pressured her to seek an out-of-court settlement with the contractor: “Canadians want to know.”
Federal regulators plan an elaborate sting operation at banks to test lenders’ compliance with new consumer protection rules. The Financial Consumer Agency of Canada is hiring 200 “mystery shoppers” to pose as everyday customers: “Oh, we’ve got a great credit card for you.”
An estimated $114.7 million to care for illegal immigrants must be shared by all provinces, Border Security Minister Bill Blair yesterday told the Commons immigration committee. Blair acknowledged new funding is a fraction of costs carried by provinces and municipalities to date: “We’re not going to leave them on the street, in the snow.”
A cabinet bill to appoint a Commissioner of Indigenous Languages appears largely symbolic, Indigenous groups told the Commons heritage committee. Critics questioned a lack of committed funding and educational tools to preserve First Nations, Métis and Inuit dialects: “That makes me nervous.”
Cabinet yesterday introduced contentious new animal welfare regulations. Reforms to protect livestock and poultry in transport prompted tens of thousands of petitions from farmers and animal rights advocates alike: “Canadians don’t think animals should be mistreated in cages before they are killed for food.”
The Commons justice committee yesterday agreed to summon testimony from ex-attorney general Jody Wilson-Raybould in a widening corruption probe. The concession came as cabinet opposed a full judicial inquiry of dealings between the Prime Minister’s Office and a federal contractor: “You don’t think there’s something going on?”
Minister of Democrat Institutions Karina Gould yesterday suggested MP consider federal regulation of social media. “The government is taking this issue seriously,” Gould told the House affairs committee. “We’re looking at it from both a hard and soft angle.”
Canadian regulators enforce so many rules there is no national count of how many there are, the Commons industry committee was told yesterday. Federal agencies alone enforce some 30,000 rules, by official estimate: “Do you actually have an assessment of how many regulations we have in Canada?”
MPs yesterday expressed astonishment over the volume of defects in newly-renovated Parliament buildings. The Department of Public Works earlier told Blacklock’s records on deficiencies in construction, engineering, design and architecture of West Block and a new Senate chamber run to more than 100,000 pages: “There have been construction deficiencies.”
More than 1 in 5 employees at a beleaguered federal payroll agency say they’ve witnessed workplace bullying among co-workers. The Public Service Pay Centre in Miramichi, N.B. runs the failed Phoenix Pay System that’s garbled pay for 62 percent of employees: “This is not about blame whatsoever.”
The Commons justice committee will vote today on whether to quash or call testimony from a second official to resign over allegations of political interference in the criminal prosecution of SNC-Lavalin Group Inc. The Prime Minister’s principal secretary Gerald Butts abruptly resigned yesterday, six days after ex-Attorney General Jody Wilson-Raybould quit cabinet: “Life is full of uncertainties.”
