Blacklock's Reporter

A press ombudsman has dismissed a complaint against the National Post for ridiculing a woman’s name. Snide or derisive remarks about private citizen’s family names are “juvenile” but meet newspaper standards, ruled the National News Media Council: “This was an atrocious example of bad journalism.”

Fewer than 4 in 10 Canadians get a winter flu shot though influenza kills more people than car accidents, says a new federal report. The Public Health Agency of Canada blamed a CBC news story in part for low vaccination rates: ‘Recent media reports may be contributing.’

The Commons justice committee is expected to vote today on whether to investigate lobbying by SNC-Lavalin Group Inc. to avoid prosecution on corruption charges. The hearing follows the abrupt cabinet resignation of Jody Wilson-Raybould, former attorney general: “We must stand together.”

More than a quarter-million was spent last year on meals, hotel rooms and airline tickets by the National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls, according to accounts. The panel will finish its work six months past deadline: “We are not there to decide if this is a good expenditure or a bad expenditure.”

Health Canada faces a federal lawsuit over licensing of a bestselling weed-killer cited as “probably carcinogenic” by the World Health Organization. The advocacy group Safe Food Matters Inc. yesterday filed a Federal Court application to cancel the license: “We don’t know how pervasive it is.”

The last federally-owned marine service in the country failed to raise fees as mandated by cabinet, auditors reported yesterday. Subsidies for the Newfoundland & Labrador ferry service cost taxpayers the equivalent of $379 per passenger last year: “We found weaknesses.”

Auditors are citing the Department of Finance for sloppy security of confidential budget records. Fully 25 percent of staff fail to take basic steps like locking file cabinets to secure pre-budget data, says an internal audit: “The department is responsible for a significant amount of highly sensitive information.”

The Commons transport committee yesterday confirmed it will conduct hearings on bus passenger safety. It follows fatal accidents involving the Humboldt Broncos charter bus and Ottawa’s municipal OC Transpo operator, the public transit system with the worst safety record in the country: “We just want all the facts laid out.”

An Environment Canada office was so poisonous one employee searched ceiling tiles for hidden cameras, while a manager wore a bulletproof vest for fear of assassination. Accounts of dysfunction at the department’s Nanaimo, B.C. branch were detailed at a federal labour board hearing: ‘It was akin to water torture.’

Cases of drug overdose in federal prisons have nearly doubled since Parliament passed a Drug-Free Prisons Act, say penitentiary managers. The Correctional Service of Canada described drug abuse as a crisis: ‘It is closely tied to the opioid crisis in the community.’

The Canada Revenue Agency paid a pollster nearly $55,000 to confirm taxpayers expect call centre agents to pick up the phone. The research followed disclosures the Agency dropped 29 million calls a year: “We’re still going to see these crappy results coming out of CRA.”

The Department of Fisheries in Access To Information memos says it modified a 2018 audit of its own work before the report was published by Environment Commissioner Julie Gelfand. The Commissioner refused comment: “She’s declining the interview.”

Federal agencies have dismissed a complaint of misleading advertising by the first company to win a Canadian license to sell genetically-modified animal protein. AquaBounty Technologies Inc. claims its engineered salmon is 100 percent North American raised: “The fish are grown in Panama.”

Air Canada cannot ban cargo workers from wearing union ball caps, a federal arbitrator has ruled. The airline ordered the ban in a campaign to “refresh and rebrand” its image. Union paraphernalia in the workplace has been the subject of numerous labour rulings: ‘It is a legitimate, lawful activity.’