A junior cabinet aide took a free winter junket from a Fortune 500 corporate consultant to spend a week sailing in Florida, according to filings. The special assistant to Public Works Minister Carla Qualtrough did not respond to multiple requests for an explanation: “I was invited by two friends.”
An MP has filed a federal lawsuit for disclosure of confidential terms of a Netflix investment agreement with the Department of Canadian Heritage. Cabinet has refused to release the contract under the Investment Canada Act: “Few details are available as the agreement is still subject to secrecy.”
Transport Canada is shelving a recommendation that it restrict new subdivisions within 300 metres of railway tracks following hundreds of casualties. The safety measure has been reviewed for fifteen years: “We need to do more work.”
The Commons has unanimously passed a jurors’ aid bill. The Conservative sponsor urged legislators to speed the bill to the Senate for approval with seven work weeks remaining before Parliament adjourns for a general election campaign: “How is it possible?”
The murder
of Jamal Khashoggi
should not affect the relationship
between the United States
and Saudi Arabia.
On the line,
thousands of jobs
in the American weapon industries
and
billions of dollars in trade deals, including:
laser-guided missiles,
programmable bomb systems,
self-propelled Howitzers.
No responsible government
would risk all that
for one person.
Not even for a journalist.
The tens of thousands of Yemeni children
who died of starvation
(caused by the Saudis)
and in airstrikes
(led by the Saudis)
are not a good reason
either.
Lost lives
are merely statistics,
to quote Stalin.
(Editor’s note: poet Shai Ben-Shalom, an Israeli-born biologist, examines current events in the Blacklock’s tradition each and every Sunday)
Parliamentary Budget Officer Yves Giroux yesterday said he expects a hundred requests to analyze parties’ election promises in the October 21 campaign. Taxpayers will see first-ever independent costing of party pledges under a bill passed by Parliament in 2018: “This represents a major change in the political landscape.”
One of the nation’s leading disability advocates says a federal accessibility bill appears “nebulous” and does little for the deaf. Cabinet hailed its legislation as a landmark attempt to remove barriers to accessibility: “You have to have something against which to measure yourself.”
Health Canada yesterday approved continued use by most farmers of three pesticides rated more lethal to bees than DDT. Regulators said limited restrictions on fruits and vegetables will be phased in by 2022 to save bees credited with billions in crop pollination: “This will stand.”
The Department of Veterans Affairs yesterday budgeted $1 million to plant trees honouring Canadian war dead. The spending follows a department audit that found long nursing home waiting lists for surviving WWII and Korean War veterans in their 80s and 90s: “Focus on care.”
An exasperated school bus driver who said he’d like to drop unruly boys off in the woods has been acquitted of uttering threats in Québec Provincial Court. Drivers typically work long hours for low pay, a Teamsters Union official earlier told the Commons transport committee: “They care about the children they are carrying.”
The Department of Finance in pre-budget surveys polled Canadians’ growing anger over gasoline prices. The department commissioned the research before its national carbon tax took effect April 1: “The costs would just be passed down to consumers.”
Federal staff confirmed more than 7,000 security breaches in the past two years involving classified or protected documents, records show. Fourteen cases involved political staff working for cabinet ministers. The largest number of breaches occurred in the office of then-Fisheries Minister Dominic LeBlanc: “No employees have lost their security clearance as a result.”
The Commons last night by a vote of 194 to 91 rejected a bill mandating disclosure of “grassroots communication” by foreign-funded lobbyists. The bill’s Conservative sponsor said the intent was to target U.S. environmental groups opposed to pipelines and other projects: “It goes far deeper.”
Most Canadians surveyed are still wary of the Senate despite changes to appointments, says research commissioned by a Senator. Nearly half of people surveyed, 46 percent, had a negative opinion: “If your image is bad, it can affect how you carry out your job.”
The British Columbia Court of Appeal has struck punitive damages against the Canada Revenue Agency for malicious prosecution of a Nanaimo restaurateur. The Court ruled just because the business owner was acquitted of tax evasion was no reason to doubt auditors sincerely believed they had “circumstantial evidence” of wrongdoing: “This does not mean that conviction is certain.”
