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.’
Parliament should change the way it monitors advertising to ensure taxpayers aren’t billed for partisan promotions, auditors have told the Commons public accounts committee. No legislation resulted from cabinet’s 2016 promise of a statutory ban on political ads disguised as federal announcements: “We’re running out of runway.”
The Federal Court of Appeal in a censored ruling has faulted senior government employees for improperly concealing public records as privileged legal documents. It follows the Privy Council Office’s refusal six years ago to release 27 pages of files regarding senators’ expenses: ‘A document does not become privileged simply because it gets into the hands of a lawyer.’
Former Conservative MP Dean Del Mastro, jailed in solitary confinement for breaching 2008 campaign spending limits, yesterday challenged Parliament to probe Elections Canada compliance agreements with SNC-Lavalin Group Inc. for similar offences. “They did everything they could to shame and embarrass me,” Del Mastro told reporters.
Transport Canada yesterday acknowledged travelers may face higher fees from the privatization of airport screening. Members of the Commons transport committee protested the move would see air passengers pay twice for security services: “They’ve already paid for them.”
Senator Lynn Beyak (Non-Affiliated, Ont.) yesterday was suspended six months without pay over complaints she posted racist mail on her website. Beyak called the penalty “right out of Orwell’s 1984”: “This type of penalty is totalitarian,” she said.
Realtors yesterday praised a budget measure to expand a Mulroney-era Home Buyers’ Plan allowing first-time owners to use RRSP savings for downpayments. About one quarter of buyers using retirement funds already reach the withdrawal limit, the Commons finance committee was told: “It was overdue.”
Members of the Senate budget committee yesterday demanded a colleague repay the $15,255 cost of an opinion poll billed to taxpayers. Staff approved the billing but acknowledged Senate rules on appropriate spending were arguable: “If it’s not over the line, it’s uncomfortably close.”
The Government Representative in the Senate yesterday said he had “no idea” why he is publicly named as advisor to a pro-China group. Senator Peter Harder (Ont.) earlier praised the People’s Republic for a “mostly commendable record of responsible international behaviour.”
