The Senate national finance committee yesterday approved a private Liberal bill compelling the Canada Revenue Agency to report on the value of unpaid taxes. The panel okayed the bill in eight minutes’ flat without debate: “What counts is really the long-term trend.”
Cabinet yesterday cautioned a tentative free trade pact with the U.S. is not finalized, and has not resolved tariff disputes that have cost Canadian industry billions. “A word of caution: we’re not at the finish line,” Prime Minister Justin Trudeau told reporters.
A retired Supreme Court justice last evening said federal agencies should stop hiring people who can’t speak French. Cabinet should also proclaim Ottawa an officially bilingual city, the Senate languages committee was told: “The Government of Canada is able to do that but I assume they don’t have the courage.”
Cabinet yesterday bypassed ex-military in appointing a former policeman to a senior $112,000-a year Senate post. The appointment, traditionally reserved for combat veterans, came despite two Senate committee reports and a 2015 Act of Parliament that claimed to promote the hiring of medically-discharged soldiers, sailors and air crew: “These are men and women who have served our country with distinction.”
Four in 10 federal employees say their workplace is mentally stressful, according to Treasury Board data. MPs described the finding as worrisome: “This rate is very high.”
MPs yesterday expressed all-party support for a motion declaring a Filipino History Month. The House has debated more than dozen similar community tributes amid grumbling in the Senate: “Is there a committee that sits down?”
A federal prison guard who celebrated Halloween by getting drunk at work and passing out in a toilet was demoted but not fired by the Correctional Service. The incident was detailed in a labour board hearing: “Since it was Halloween everyone was excited.”
Most federal employees think the public service is rife with cronyism, according to government research. Findings were based on 101,892 questionnaires compiled by the Public Service Commission: “To what extent do appointments for positions in your work units depend on who you know?”
Animal rights groups and environmentalists are to blame in part for high rates of anxiety among Canadian farmers, the Commons agriculture committee was told. “These anti-agriculture groups quite frankly are spreading lies,” said a University of Guelph researcher: “Farmers feel scrutinized.”
The Commons has passed a private Liberal bill to compare Canadian drinking water quality to world standards. MPs and environmental groups repeatedly faulted Health Canada for failing to test tap water for dozens of pollutants: “The United States is still more proactive.”
Bitcoiners face heavy paperwork under pending federal regulations. Access To Information records indicate distributors will be required to report transactions as small as one-third of a bitcoin: “There’s a balance between innovation and regulation.”
We are on a quest
to differentiate ourselves
from the Americans.
Bernier’s right-wing party
will lead the fight against
diversity,
pluralism,
multiculturalism.
The Canadian way.
Doug Ford
pushes Ontario’s sex-ed
an inch closer
to the Bible Belt.
The Canadian way.
And in a bid
to increase uniqueness
(for half-a-billion dollars)
our Chief of the Defence Staff
wants to outfit our troops
with U.S. uniforms.
The Canadian way.
Camouflaged.
(Editor’s note: poet Shai Ben-Shalom, an Israeli-born biologist, examines current events in the Blacklock’s tradition each and every Sunday)
Autonomous State features numerous eye-catching accessories and an astonishing fact. The accessories are the tragi-comic failures of Canada’s postwar car industry: the Nova Scotia-made Toyota Corolla, so bad even Atlantic dealers wouldn’t take delivery; or Studebaker, “Canada’s Own Car,” reduced to grinding out cruisers for its hometown Hamilton, Ont. police department before the factory closed in 1966. Or the Windsor-made Chrysler Cordoba, a 4,000-lb gas pig padded with “soft Corinthian leather.”
And the astonishing fact? Under a simple commercial treaty nicknamed the Auto Pact, Canada produced some 60 million vehicles – more cars than we would ever drive.
A member of the Senate banking committee yesterday described Finance Minister Bill Morneau as oblivious to key enforcement of anti-crime regulations. Morneau testified he couldn’t recall a staff report that two-thirds of Canadian banks failed to comply with money laundering rules: “I’m just not sure what it is you’re referring to.”
Cabinet on November 1 will introduce regulations that would see companies fined $100,000 for concealing any breach of individuals’ privacy, Industry Minister Navdeep Bains yesterday told reporters. The proposal follows a recommendation of the Commons privacy committee: “That’s a significant fine.”
