Canada should beware of the impact of U.S. corporate tax cuts, an International Monetary Fund analyst has told the Senate banking, trade and commerce committee. An earlier Access To Information memo from the Department of Industry said matching U.S. cuts could cost Canada billions: “It could result in profit or production shifting away from Canada.”
The U.S. administration
is crafting its immigration policy.
Newcomers from Africa
are only welcome
if it’s good for the economy.
Which is why Africans
were brought to America
in the first place.
(Editor’s note: poet Shai Ben-Shalom, an Israeli-born biologist, examines current events in the Blacklock’s tradition each and every Sunday)
Natural Resources Minister Jim Carr vows Canada will recover every penny of U.S. duties imposed on softwood lumber shipments. “We will recover the duties that have been collected,” Carr yesterday told the Senate agriculture and forestry committee: “Don’t leave a nickel on the table.”
Library & Archives Canada has permanently sealed records donated by a Canadian lawyer allegedly linked by conspiracy theorists to the JFK assassination. The order appeared to breach a Federal Court ruling that archivists could not hide the files in perpetuity: “What is there to hide?”
Legislators yesterday expressed alarm over threats of high U.S. tariffs on Canadian steel and aluminum exports. Cabinet promised “appropriate measures”, but did not elaborate: “Let’s work together to fight foreign-dumped steel from places like China.”
Canada lacks enough trained enforcers to combat cybercrime, the Senate banking, trade and commerce committee was told yesterday. Hearings followed a 2017 Statistics Canada report that digital fraud and other offences have grown 58 percent since 2014: “Follow the money.”
Cabinet faces new controls on borrowing under a Liberal bill yesterday introduced in the Senate. It follows February 27 budget data that current federal debts are worth $1.066 trillion including borrowing by Crown corporations: “Hold the government to account for its management of the public purse.”
Canada Post has lost a bid to fire a manager who sent personal mail at the corporation’s expense. A federal judge upheld an adjudicator’s ruling that dismissal was too harsh.: “Not all dishonest conduct justifies the dismissal of an employee.”
Crown prosecutors say they are not prepared for the impact of legal marijuana. “We’re doing the best we can,” one prosecutor yesterday told the Senate legal and constitutional affairs committee: “Do we have enough on the ground for the coming into force of legalization? I don’t think we do.”
A Commons committee yesterday proposed granting a privacy ombudsman unprecedented new powers to pick and choose investigations, audit private companies, and impose five-figure fines for breaches of federal privacy law: “It’s important that I have these powers.”
Consumer advocates last night urged the Senate transport committee to quickly pass a federal passenger bill of rights. Canada is the only G7 country without statutory compensation owed travelers inconvenienced by flight delays, denial of boarding and lost luggage; “It is time we do better.”
The Commons health committee yesterday rewrote a tobacco bill to restrict advertising of vaping products. Amendments will send the bill back to the Senate for approval 17 months after it was introduced: ‘Clearly we don’t want to be promoting nicotine.’
A federal labour board has cited two female managers for concocting a workplace harassment complaint against a male employee. The unusual investigation comes as MPs study a cabinet bill mandating anti-harassment policies in all federally-regulated workplaces: “Have it your way.”
The Department of Finance cut its budget art spending more than 99 percent following criticism of six-figure imagery. Staff bought a single $575 stock photo of a family running through a field to illustrate its 2018 budget, Equality Growth: A Strong Middle Class.
“I cannot give you information on who the people are for privacy reasons,” said Terri Lynn Futcher, production manager for Kaspi Creative Inc. of Peterborough, Ont., the agency that licensed the photo through Getty Images. “I can tell you the photo was taken in Ontario; they are Canadian; and they are an actual family. They are a wonderful family and we shoot with them a lot.”
The finance department previously spent $176,339 on artwork for its 2016 budget, and $212,234 for the 2017 version. “Justin Trudeau’s election mantra was all about positivity, change and optimism for the future,” staff wrote in preparing the 2016 cover. “We want this budget cover to illustrate that feeling. In the past, budget covers looked staged and emotionless.”
Previous Conservative budgets depicted inexpensive stock photos. The department in 2016 hired a creative team to photograph models posing as a mother and daughter walking at the corner of Burrard and West Cordova Street in Vancouver. Blacklock’s earlier obtained details of budget art projects through Access To Information.
“We want them to look like an everyday family,” wrote the photo agency KBS Ltd. of Toronto; “On the 2016 cover we want to capture an aesthetic that is optimistic, bright and moving forward. Our subjects are looking away from the camera so our audience can feel as if they are part of the picture. Rather than simply being observers, the viewer is an active participant.”
The 2017 budget depicted four images of models including a photo of a young girl playing an air guitar intended to illustrate “fairness”, wrote staff. “Really like the air guitar; very dynamic shot, lots of potential,” wrote one employee with Finance Canada’s marketing division. “Love the little girl with the guitar. I think that’s our winner for the largest cover shot!” wrote another.
“I like the colour scheme,” wrote Natalie Rieger, senior marketing advisor for the finance department. “It’s fresh. I love where this is going.”
Other 2017 imagery included a photo of a woman in hiking boots posing with a cartoon laptop, intended to represent “innovation and skill”. An image of a boy holding a cartoon bridge illustrated infrastructure. The finance department had lengthy email exchanges with the Prime Minister’s Office on whether the model posing as the bridge boy should wear eyeglasses. “I vote glasses,” wrote an employee. “Put me on team hipster.”
A 2017 budget cover photo of a grey-haired man having his blood pressure checked was meant to symbolize “Strong Canada”, though one staffer described the senior’s facial expression as “quite unsettling”.
By Staff
The labour department will spend $39 million a year on surprise inspections of employers who hire migrant workers, say budget documents. The program follows a 2017 audit that found weak enforcement of the Temporary Foreign Worker Program: “We have to end this.”
