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.”
Cabinet yesterday resigned itself to a Court challenge of its bill on environmental impact assessments of energy projects. Environment Minister Catherine McKenna dismissed an Alberta claim the bill is unconstitutional: “It’s not just industry groups we listened to.”
The Liberal caucus yesterday tabled a motion to put the Commons on a four-day work week. A similar 2017 proposal to end Friday sittings prompted protests it would make cabinet 20 percent less accountable: “That is one less day on which the government has to stand and answer questions.”
Federal heritage programs to preserve the nation’s historic buildings are unsustainable, the Commons public accounts committee was told yesterday. Parks Canada failed three audits in 16 years for inadequate care of heritage properties: “We’re kidding ourselves here.”
The Senate social affairs committee yesterday voted to impose a deadline to remove accessibility barriers nationwide – by 2040. The twenty-one year deadline was better than none, said senators: “I really hope the government will accept this.”
The workings of illegal immigrant smuggling rings have been detailed in Federal Court. Evidence showed in one case, migrants paid from $1,000 to $15,000 for help in sneaking across the Canada-U.S. border: “It is implausible.”
NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman yesterday told a Commons subcommittee on sports-related concussions that fighting in the league is at a 54-year low and remains a “tiny, tiny part of the game”. Bettman dismissed an outright fight ban as unpopular: “It’s what the players tell us.”
A federal agency spent nearly $5 million on an asbestos museum after urging jobless Québec miners to consider tourism as a money-maker. The museum at Thetford Mines, Que. draws mixed reaction in TripAdvisor reviews: “Boring.”
The Commons last night voted 160 to 134 to kill a bill curbing predatory practices by credit card companies. The bill’s Conservative sponsor said few Canadians are aware of methods used by card issuers to hike interest collections: “I do not think that is fair.”
