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.”
A federal agency spent more than $300,000 to pave three short lanes and a parking lot at the Prime Minister’s temporary home, according to Access To Information records. The National Capital Commission explained the cost was less than the $475,000 it originally budgeted: “Media interest may be generated.”
The Treasury Board has agreed to compensate federal employees for stress, interest payments on unpaid debts and sick leave attributed to the garbled Phoenix Pay System. The Board yesterday said it could not estimate the cost, though cabinet’s March 19 budget set aside another $523.3 million for “addressing payroll errors”.
A federal judge has ordered the Canadian Human Rights Commission to investigate alleged racial profiling by the Toronto Dominion Bank. The order follows an incident in which a Black depositor was refused a $5,000 withdrawal from her savings account: “People of colour share these experiences daily in banking institutions in Canada.”
A locomotive engineer falsely blamed for the fiery Lac-Mégantic wreck will receive nearly a quarter-million dollars for wrongful dismissal, a federal board has ruled. Forty-seven people died in the derailment: ‘It is an appropriate remedy in exceptional circumstances.’
Hudson’s Bay Co. yesterday agreed to pay federal investigators $4.5 million in an out-of-court settlement over alleged breach of the Competition Act. A similar probe of Sears Canada was abandoned when the retailer went bankrupt in 2017: “It sends a strong message.”
Taxpayers are on the hook for millions in new home equity loans if house prices fall, CMHC yesterday told the Senate national finance committee. Loans for first-time homebuyers will cost $14.7 million this year and $1.25 billion over the life of the program: “There is inherent risk in the program to the extent prices go down.”
A Newfoundland & Labrador judge has acquitted a woman of driving with open cannabis in the car. Legislators questioned the scope of Canadians’ rights when Parliament legalizing public possession of cannabis in 2018: ‘She had no way of knowing a passenger had cannabis in his parka.’
Claims of prompt call centre service by the Department of Veterans Affairs cannot be verified, auditors yesterday reported. The department claimed to answer 80 percent of calls within two minutes but would not let auditors examine actual records: “We wanted to verify the results.”
The Commons fisheries committee yesterday proposed sweeping reforms to what it depicted as a system of sharecropping in the commercial Pacific fishery. “It looks like we’ve created a modern-day feudal system,” said Liberal MP Ken Hardie (Fleetwood-Port Kells, B.C.).
Cabinet yesterday introduced legislation for first-ever independent oversight of the Canada Border Services Agency. Public Safety Minister Ralph Goodale acknowledged it’s the only police force in the country that is not monitored by a civilian board: ‘It is essential to ensuring the public’s confidence.’
Auditors yesterday said a federal ban on partisan government advertising appeared arbitrary and haphazard. Cabinet in 2016 promised to abolish partisan marketing at taxpayers’ expense: ‘A politically-sensitive campaign such as a climate change could avoid external review.’
