Postmasters have won a long legal battle over rural service cuts. A union fought the Saturday closure of a country post office in a Newfoundland & Labrador hamlet as a breach of contract. Canada Post may appeal the decision to the Supreme Court of Canada: “It has national implications.”
The Canadian Food Inspection Agency is forecasting nearly a $100 million cut in its annual budget by 2020. An Agency report also projects a 15 percent reduction in staff assigned to food safety programs including meat inspectors: “They’re building an inspection regime to fit a budget.”
Environment Canada is buying hundreds of electronic sensors to more accurately gauge heavier snowfall attributed to climate change. Wooden sticks are still a mainstay, said an official: “It’s of huge benefit to know this snow data.”
Cabinet will soon introduce first-ever surprise inspections of employers that hire migrant workers, says Labour Minister Patricia Hajdu. The initiative follows MPs’ complaints of weak enforcement of the Temporary Foreign Worker Program: “We will be moving forward very imminently.”
A carbon tax on farmers is unavoidable if cabinet is to meet its greenhouse gas emissions, says the Parliamentary Budget Office. Analysts told the Senate agriculture committee that farms account for 10 to 12 percent of carbon emissions nationwide: “Everybody has to bear the price.”
The government still collects more from an Air Travelers Security Charge than it spends on screening passengers, the Commons transport committee has been told. A Transport Canada manager said the fee, introduced in 2002, is under review: “This is something the government is looking at.”
A retroactive RCMP pay raise cost $60.1 million, according to budget data submitted to the Commons public safety committee. It was the Mounties’ first pay raise in three years: “We are seeing increasingly across the country, frankly, people leaving the force.”
Blacklock’s Reporter pauses for Remembrance observances with gratitude to all who honoured our country. Thank you for your service. Blacklock’s returns on Tuesday — The Editor.
The only sitting MP in the Commonwealth to win a Victoria Cross for bravery should be honoured with a statue on Parliament Hill, says a legislator. Cy Peck, a British Columbia salmon broker, died in 1956: “He was an amazing Canadian.”
A Conservative senator yesterday described a cabinet bill to exempt train crews from federal privacy law as “grossly intrusive”. The bill earlier passed the Commons by 25 votes: “Privacy has a place in the workplace.”
Federal regulators yesterday appealed to MPs to leave anti-spam legislation alone. The Commons industry committee cited overwhelming complaints the regulations are vague, and compliance is costly: “There is a difference between inadvertent errors and malicious activity.”
Pharmaceutical companies and farmers are to blame for indiscriminate use of antibiotics in food production, the Commons health committee was told yesterday. Health Canada has ruled out any European-style ban on antibiotics in livestock and poultry production: “How did we get to the place where we are now? Overuse.”
The Supreme Court yesterday dismissed an appeal by a Québec trucking company against federal fines for undue suffering to livestock. The Canadian Food Inspection Agency is currently updating animal welfare regulations for the first time in 40 years: “It’s very akin to human beings traveling.”
Nearly 10,000 phone booths went out of service nationwide last year, says new CRTC data. Telephone companies reported a 14 percent decline in the number of coin-operated phones: “It is sometimes used as a last resort.”
Few Canadians will work for a secretive federal spy agency, according to in-house research at the Communications Security Establishment. The agency is hiring, but found two-thirds of respondents aren’t interested: “I don’t want to work in Ottawa.”
