An angry, five-minute phone call has cost one small business $8,500 following a human rights complaint. A tribunal ruled discrimination is unacceptable even if it “did not involve the use of derogatory language or significant profanity.”
CMHC is accused of pressing housing co-operatives to cut aid for low income tenants in exchange for refinancing. The Canada Mortgage & Housing Corporation did not comment: “The fly in the ointment is the CMHC conditions.”
CRTC research says mainstream broadcasters continue to give poor treatment to one minority group. Federal focus groups said treatment of Indigenous Canadians is despairing, bleak and stereotypical: ‘For example, poor, alcoholic, and sniffing glue or gas.’
A federal adjudicator is accused of bias after laughing and joking with a complainant’s lawyer, and accepting a novelty gift she called “almost pornographic”. The Canadian Human Rights Tribunal member declined to withdraw from the case: “Colourlessness or absolute neutrality is not required in order to be impartial.”
Health Canada has again delayed full enactment of a consumer safety bill on prescription drugs. The department said it requires more time to write regulations, though Parliament passed the legislation in 2014: “It’s sickening.”
Transport Canada is enforcing new safety regulations on the nation’s commercial fishing fleet. Data show fishermen see a higher workplace-related death rate than firefighters or police officers: “We felt the department was more interested in paper safety than real safety.”
RCMP will spend $1 million on bulletproof doors at 24 Sussex Drive and other official residences. Police said the unusual precaution is part of immediate security upgrades: “We’re dealing in an era of global terrorism.”
The federal labour department yesterday tightened workplace safety regulations on asbestos 42 years after Health Canada identified the substance as toxic. Advocates said amendments to the Canada Labour Code were overdue: “The previous federal levels were 10 times too high.”
Canadian researchers say municipalities can save millions in climate change-related flood damage by doing nothing – to wetlands. A University of Waterloo study said loss of wetlands to agriculture and urban sprawl has exposed property owners to more severe flooding: “We still have pressure from developers.”
Cabinet yesterday said it will refund payments from residents of Fort McMurray, Alta. to replace thousands of federal documents burned in a spectacular 2016 wildfire. Charging evacuees was unfair, said the Treasury Board: “People often had to flee quickly.”
The Department of Justice for 11 years maintained a secretly-funded censorship committee, according to Access To Information records. Staff said the department provided “good cover” for the committee, mandated to censor media and intercept mail at a moment’s notice by cabinet order: “The broad policy aim was for 100 percent control of all communications.”
Environment Canada has won a six-year legal battle with one of the nation’s largest tire manufacturers over a toxic additive. The Federal Court of Appeal upheld a 2016 ruling against Goodyear Canada Inc. under the Environmental Protection Act: “The Court is reluctant to second-guess decisions of this nature.”
Canada Post has fired a manager who billed the Crown corporation to send personal mail. The longtime supervisor told an arbitration hearing he assumed free postage was a perk of the job: “Nobody told him he could not do what he was doing.”
Department of Fisheries data show the number of commercial sealing licenses in Atlantic Canada has declined 58 percent in the past decade. The regional seal hunt collapsed under a 2009 European Union ban on Canadian exports: ‘Critics have dealt a significant blow to this industry.’
The finance department in a series of confidential 2016 memos warned of costly “exposure to a housing crisis”. Federally-insured mortgages by CMHC are worth $1 trillion, by official estimate: “Rapid expansion of credit is one of the best predictors of financial crises.”
