Builders yesterday cautioned the Commons finance committee to brace for a public outcry over little-known changes to the National Building Code. Regulations to take effect in 2022 would compel homeowners to meet new energy efficiency guidelines when repairing, renovating or selling existing property: “You have seen nothing in terms of pushback.”
Senators yesterday criticized the CRTC as a weak advocate for consumers. Canadians now pay an average of nearly $3,000 a year for telecom services, by official estimate: “I am convinced it is not serving the public interest.”
The Prime Minister’s Office has received nearly 10 times more letters and emails on the Atlantic seal hunt than any other topic, records show. The office was flooded with millions of protests as Parliament sped passage of bill to celebrate the annual hunt: “Activist groups from away and at home in Canada have dealt a significant blow.”
Canadian enforcement of piracy law is so dismal property owners must resort to costly civil litigation against importers of Chinese knock-offs, says an organizer with the Canadian Anti-Counterfeiting Network. The federal Public Prosecution Service has not pursued a new piracy case since 2014: “We instigate more civil actions than there have been criminal proceedings.”
Cabinet faces a third bill, the latest sponsored by a Liberal senator, proposing pension-friendly amendments to bankruptcy law. Legislators have proposed numerous reforms in the aftermath of Sears Canada’s bankruptcy: “There’s an openness to figure out what we can do.”
MPs yesterday passed a bill to ban food advertising to children. The legislation would give restaurants and food manufacturers two years to comply: “The definition of ‘healthy food’ was not nailed down.”
Criminal defence lawyers yesterday appealed to the Commons justice committee to rewrite a cabinet bill restricting jury selection practices. The bill to ban peremptory challenges follows the Attorney General’s complaint over the February 9 verdict in a Saskatchewan murder trial: “We would be doing a very big disservice in our justice system.”
Fundraisers yesterday appealed to a Senate charities committee for appointment of a stand-alone federal agency to regulate the sector. Charities complained their main point of contact is Canada Revenue Agency tax auditors: “We have an enforcer.”
A $1.69 per tonne levy on oil shipments by rail is insufficient to protect taxpayers from another Lac-Mégantic disaster, an MP said yesterday. Access To Information records show the compensation fund totaled $13.3 million in its first two years, and is now some $20 million – a fraction the cost of the $409 million Lac-Mégantic clean-up: “The railway fund pales in comparison.”
Saskatchewan’s information commissioner has faulted a municipality for a 600 percent overcharge in releasing public records under the Freedom Of Information Act. The federal cabinet abolished the user fees in 2016: “This is a gross overestimate.”
Access To Information records show a costly Canada 150 project funded by taxpayers drew a fraction of its promised target audience. Project Tessera was intended to have 1,000,000 Canadians fill out electronic questionnaires. Fewer than 25,000 participated online: “This number changes daily albeit incrementally.”
Federal research sees a “soft” market for electric cars even as cabinet promotes a $182.5 million plan to boost sales. Transport Canada is to detail its Zero Emission Vehicle Strategy by year’s end: ‘It’s too new to risk buying one.’
Transport Canada in a climate change directive says airlines from 2019 should begin tracking fuel use on international flights. Cabinet did not detail the impact on domestic flights of its national carbon tax, now challenged in the courts by two provinces: “This is totally unreasonable.”
A federal labour board has ruled employers should be careful but considerate in granting workers a snow day with pay. The decision came on a complaint from a Canada Revenue Agency employee who said he was snowed in from work: “The employer may not want to take every employee’s word for it.”
Management says
random acts of kindness
go a long way.
I check the list.
“Ask a colleague about their family”
Should I ask Frank,
whose son got expelled
for bullying?
Perhaps Margaret,
who’s going through a nasty divorce?
Or maybe Jason,
who hasn’t found love
and at 43 still lives with his parents?
“Buy a plant for a common area at work”
That one seems easy.
May wait for October 17
until it’s legal.
(Editor’s note: poet Shai Ben-Shalom, an Israeli-born biologist, examines current events in the Blacklock’s tradition each and every Sunday)
