RCMP eat cheese by the tonne, according to accounts. The Depot, the Mounties’ Regina police academy, detailed a mammoth cheese order for recruits and staff: “I met with the chef and we’re looking at the numbers right now.”
Justice Canada says it is awaiting a provincial court ruling on the legality of Parliament’s first DNA anti-discrimination bill. Attorney General Jody Wilson-Raybould opposed the bill, claiming it is unconstitutional.
A Canadian brewer faces a trademark lawsuit over its use of a “B-side” label. Federal Court battles over beer trademarks are commonplace: “I am of the view that the ordinary beer drinker is sensitive to the names of beers and to what they know and like.”
Health Canada will not force food processors to cut the salt though it would save billions in medicare costs, according to Access To Information documents. The department said it wanted to “nudge” processors to meet voluntary targets in place for a decade: “Much of the effort to lower sodium intake must focus on the food supply.”
The Canada Revenue Agency has lost a multi-million dollar Tax Court appeal over narrow definitions of made-in-Canada ingredients under the Excise Act. A British Columbia winemaker argued its cider was still Canadian-made even if it included apple juice pressed from foreign-grown apples: “Vintners want to buy agricultural products at a low price.”
Ottawa’s green spaces
dotted with white clover, yellow dandelions.
The result of budget cuts and a
pesticide ban.
The City also struggles with
marijuana dispensaries.
Police close them down; they reopen
the next day.
Weed management
isn’t our strongest forte.
(Editor’s note: poet Shai Ben-Shalom, an Israeli-born biologist, examines current events in the Blacklock’s tradition each and every Sunday)
More than a third of Canadians, 37 percent, say they’re still wary of surrendering bank data to federal agencies for direct deposit of tax refunds and benefits. Authorities in 2016 abandoned a program for mandatory electronic transfer of cheques following public protest: “Why haven’t you enrolled in direct deposit?”
A New Brunswick judge has sentenced a petty thief to five years in federal prison for stealing $100 and a pack of Players cigarettes. The sentence will be appealed, said a lawyer for the convicted robber: ‘If more resources were given to the court system we would save millions.’
Canadian pharmacists have lost a legal challenge against a generic drug mandate. Druggists in Newfoundland & Labrador claimed the regulation was to blame for drug shortages: “It shows the system is broken.”
The Canada Border Services Agency says it will for the first time publish results of Red Cross inspections of detention centres. The Agency jails more than 6,000 people a year without independent oversight: “All of these reports in the past were strictly confidential.”
A federal judge for the second time in a week has cited Transport Canada for misapplying security checks. The Court ruled a department panel appeared to make up facts in revoking a staffer’s security clearance at Pearson International Airport: ‘It was not reasonable or fair.’
The Transportation Safety Board yesterday recommended federal regulations to compel the nation’s 46,000 commercial fishermen to wear life jackets. The proposal followed the latest investigation of fatal drownings at sea: “Fishermen often underestimate the risk.”
Canada Post reforms are stalled at cabinet. A federal response to recommendations for sweeping changes at the post office was originally promised in April: “There is no timeline.”
The Department of Fisheries says recreational boaters are to blame for the spread of invasive aquatic species. A small, enthusiastic number of Canada’s 1.5 million boaters put lakes at greatest risk, said research: “Predicting these rare events remains a core challenge.”
The Bank of Canada cannot explain why it billed taxpayers for memberships in a gun club. Access To Information records disclosed staff and “non-staff acquaintances” were welcome to shoot at a members-only gun range, so long as they followed essential rules: “Do not shoot at cans or bottles.”
